How would you word the legal policy on single sex spaces to exclude men?

[CrazyOldMe]

Given that most tradesmen are male, how do we word the law to prohibit men from not entering female safe spaces, yet allow plumbers etc inside when necessary?

It clarified that sex means biological sex therefore transmen are women and transwomen are men

No, they did define ‘man’ as meaning biological man for the EA in the judgment too - para 264.

They did comment on the meaning of "man" for the purposes of the EA2010 too, deciding that was also biological.

Para 265(xviii)
We therefore conclude that the provisions of the EA 2010 which we have discussed are provisions to which section 9(3) of the GRA 2004 applies. The meaning of the terms "sex", "man" and "woman" in the EA 2010 is biological and not certificated sex. Any other interpretation would render the EA 2010 incoherent and impracticable to operate (para 264).

Excellent thank you very much all of you

The plumber, whether male or female, has been invited in for a specific purpose. They don't just stroll in. So the question of lawfulness goes away.
You just warn the users as far ahead of time as possible.
This is not a harem situation. Men can come in to repair, paint, arrest, etc. they're not "using" the space in the way that the female users are.

ETA: cross posted with several pps!

I used a public toilet last week. One of the toilets was out of order.

A man shouted "man coming in" and paused to see if anyone objected before he came in to work on the broken toilet.

Got no problem with that as he was respectful towards the women using the toilets and presumably would have waited if someone had objected.

You must have already seen such signs, surely?

Most service stations, plus in other areas, will have a general sign in the toilet doors, for example, saying that both make and female maintenance and cleaning may be present. In practise this usually means that if they enter they normally knock and call out, in a smaller area, when entering the room. In larger areas they may just be there most of the time anyway.

At my old sports club the club reversed the allocation of changing space on days that male tradesmen needed to work in the women’s changing room. They put temporary signage up. We were treated to blue tiles and lockers and the chaps had our pink room. 😆 It’s easily managed. I agree with the PP about people making heavy weather of this when solutions already exist.

Brilliant! I wish more places did this!

When I lived in a women’s shelter (90s) they used female tradespeople as much as possible using a directory called Women in Manual Trades. When a man needed to attend the manager would let us know in advance.
Feels like a hundred years ago when I think about the knots we’re being asked to tie ourselves in now.

Could’ve sworn it was called Women in Manual Trades but having gone down a brief rabbit hole it may actually be Women and Manual Trades which, if it is the same organisation is a very useful resource if you prefer to use or want to support tradeswomen.

And no to male cleaners when the toilets are in use.

Motorway services are open 24 hours a day. As a PP said they usually have a sign saying there may be a male cleaner.

Airports and train stations are open long hours, coach stations are open 24 hours.

The one that is amusing me is Alexis Blake who says this means a man can go in to a woman's toilet and claim to be a trans man.

So the status quo, man pretending to be something he isn't. Except of course we can call him out now.

Oh and female plumbers exist. Rare I know, and yes when one phoned me to say she was on her way I was surprised.

The law has nothing to do with this though. It's up to individual organisations to sort this out, as they do already, by putting a sign up saying ' male cleaner/ maintenance worker etc on the premises'. The SC simply interpreted what 'sex' mean in the single sex exemptions of the Equality Act. A 15 year old Act that incorporate the Sex Discrimination Act, which is nearly 50 years old. This is not new law.

No need to make a law. You just put a sign up saying cleaning staff nay be male. Happens all the time where I live.

Yes. It’s already dealt with in most organisations.
The area in which the clarification to the law may be helpful is in health services. I assume the OP isn’t advocating excluding a male doctor from a women’s ward or women medics from men’s?! Or visitors come to that. But they need to make sure they’re properly providing same sex intimate care/chaperones when appropriate.