Interim guidance from EHRC is out

[impossibletoday]

https://x.com/HeadWarriorTWM/status/1915853104421167211?t=qbUrcHVdtPyqVB1uZ5depA&s=19

I blame the damfools who socially and medically transitioned you in the first place. They gave you unrealistic expectations instead of survival strategies for dealing with the social world and with your own body. They've left you to face this mess while they walk away, professional reputations intact. They're even going to start another trial soon, to put even more unhappy children in your situation before they can say they've proved it's a bad idea.

I hope that's not what you think love looks like. I recall you have a fierce loyalty to the professionals who put you in this position. Doesn't look as if they have the same loyalty to you.

I'm sorry you're in this situation now. But at least you're not allowed to be discriminated against in your own workplace. You do have protections under the Equality Act 2010 for your gender reassignment.That may be a starting point. You can use male facilities if you think it wont cause significant discomfort to men (and most men really aren't that fussed), or you can ask for separate facilities and your employer should find a way to provide.

I can't promise but It might turn out as a relief all round if you come out as trans rather than stealthing as a woman. A lot of people might already suspect and have been tiptoeing round the issue since forever. Either way authenticity - the authentic kind! - usually goes down well.

@ButterflyHatched

I am sorry you are distressed about this, but you need to look at Stonewall, and the civil service and gendered intelligence and all the organisations which lied about the law, pushed self ID and told us there was no debate.

women had to crowdfund and take legal action against the Scottish government to get our stuff back. And it’s not just toilets- it’s prisons, rape crisis centres, hospital wards, refuges. Countless women have been harmed, including raped, as a result.

trans organisations could have used their considerable resources and influence to find a solution but instead they took women’s rights. I won’t pretend I’m not glad we’ve got them back.

Hopefully this cycle of damage and lies to children can stop due to the SC ruling.

At least children will now have to be told if you choose to medically and cosmetically change your body to look like the opposite you will still legally not be able to use facilities for the sex you want to look like.

This may cause you issues in a variety of situations.

Lying to children will have to stop.

Completely unworkable guidance that does not provide clarity in any sense, and whose purpose is to make it harder for trans people to exist in public. Like, either it's about biological sex or it's not? What do you mean "you must use facilities for your biological sex, except if you're trans we can still exclude you anyway from the toilets of your biological sex because.. reasons"?

@ButterflyHatched I think I would have more support for you (assuming you are an old fashioned transsexual who just quietly tried to get on as a woman) had you not been consistently posting on this board in general support of the trans activists.

Had you been here saying yes the old rules for GRCs need to stay, people shouldn't just self id and impose themselves on women's spaces etc my sympathy would be a lot higher.

People like you (or at least the impression you give of you) are losing out. People who women turned a blind eye to before. But it's not our fault. It's the overreach of the trans activists and frankly the failure of more moderate old fashioned transsexuals to stand up and support women earlier.

So now there is a clear ruling, and women need to 'enforce' it to make it work for us.

It's very clear.... It just doesn't say what you want it to.

Pretending not to understand will only get you so far

Indeed, the BBC are one of a range of public organisations and charities who are responsible for most of this mess. They're not the chief bullies - we know which organisations are, though - but they have certainly used/misused license payer's money, in my opinion.

On breakfast TV this morning the BBC had a very clear article about the guidance. No spin. (But no journalistic comment supporting the clarity either.)

@ButterflyHatched

The interim guidance requires that people in your position are catered for and not left without provision, which is frankly quite enough pandering.

As for privacy, it's unacceptable for people to hide their sex. It's a safeguarding risk, and makes sex equality/sex-based rights impossible.

Sorry to sound tetchy, and I know you're an edge case, and frightened. But have faith! People are decent. They will be sympathetic and want to be helpful, including men (who, I bet will be a bit 'so what?' about it). Lean into that.

Surely, even if you believe you "pass" as a woman, if you start using men's toilets now men will understand that you are a trans woman and are using the men's toilets in accordance with the law?

It sounds like you've never used men's toilets, so what reason do you have to believe that you will be unsafe in them?

In practice I think most organisations will take the view that people like you shouldn't have to use men's toilets and will make an effort to provide alternative individual or mixed sex facilities instead.

Even this may compromise women's safety to a certain extent, because if mixed sex facilities become more widespread, we will be less safe in those than we would have been in single sex ones.

I don't think your right to privacy trumps our sex based rights though.

You do have to accept that the world doesn't revolve around you. There is no way round that anymore.

The interim guidance requires that people in your position are catered for and not left without provision, which is frankly quite enough pandering.

And a good deal more than some women have had for years where they have not been able to use mixed spaces groups, resources and services. There was no requirement of any kind to do anything for them, and they could be threatened with reporting for a non hate crime incident if they spoke up. Witness Sarah Summers.

"Trans people must always use the toilets that coincide with their biological sex" would be clear. It's not at all clear why it also says they can also be banned from peeing in toilets that coincide with their biological sex, unless the purpose of that is only to make trans people's lives more difficult?

MCW could just pretend to be women nipping into a cubicle in the gents' ("there's a queue, I'm bursting") if there are no unisex toilets available.

"it also says they can also be banned from peeing in toilets that coincide with their biological sex"

Citation needed, I think.

Cis women have always been allowed to use mixed space services

It's in the guidelines

It does not say that, it says they can be prevented from using some single sex spaces for their own sex where it is proportionate, I would expect that for example to mean that a women’s refuge could refuse to take a trans man as their presence could distress the other occupants on account of their appearance.

They are possibly being more cautious since the court outcome. I've noticed this caution on a lot of media outlets since the court decision.

My employer has made a mealy-mouthed announcement about them 'awaiting further guidance' about toilets etc...

... but then couldn't stop themselves by telling staff that 'support' was available to people 'upset' by the court's decision.

This unwinding is going to cost businesses a lot of money - something the BBC and bigoted groups/charities don't care about.

Quite

there will be many attempts to try and make it sound like it’s all still soooooo confusion but it isn’t

I agree.
I’m in my 50s and, like most people, I’ve happily coexisted with trans men and women my whole life. Teeny tiny minority of people. Maybe once every 10 years I’d see someone who looked like they might be trans. And as a GP I had 2 patients who had undergone gender reassignment surgery, after many years of therapy and medication. But the trans activist community weren’t happy with this. They wanted to be able to access women’s spaces just by putting on a dress that morning. They wanted to tell a generation of teenagers that all their teen angst would be resolved by changing their sex (which apparently was possible, simply by the power of thought!). They wanted to beat women in sports.

I feel sorry for the old fashioned transsexuals, who have quietly got on with their lives for many decades. But your quarrel shouldn’t be with women. It should be with the men who chose to use a loophole for their own selfish perverted gains.

PP is right. It is, however, just a consequence (and a sensible one) of how discrimination law works, and not a sign that the Supreme Court hates trans people.

1. Because disabled access and mixed sex toilets exist. "Always use" restricts this.
2. This is a mangling of what is in the guidance .

@Micaela64
A woman who has gone to such great lengths to masculinise herself that she looks and sounds like a man might be asked to join the mixed sex rape crisis therapy group or use the unisex toilets rather than the women's. If there are no unisex toilets, she could use the women's toilets, because obviously she has to go somewhere. She won't be happy, but she has no right to use the men's. Some of the women won't be happy either, which is why, if space permits, unisex options are advisable. That's what is meant.

To save time here we all go:

On the contrary, if sex means biological sex, then provided it is proportionate, the female only nature of the service would engage paragraph 27 and would permit the exclusion of all males including males living in the female gender regardless of GRC status. Moreover, women living in the male gender could also be excluded under paragraph 28 without this amounting to gender reassignment discrimination. This might be considered proportionate where reasonable objection is taken to their presence, for example, because the gender reassignment process has given them a masculine appearance or attributes to which reasonable objection might be taken in the context of the women-only service being provided.

Section 221 of the judgment in the context of a sexual assault survivors group

And from the guidance itself, which is very short and easy to read and linked above:

• in some circumstances the law also allows trans women (biological men) not to be permitted to use the men’s facilities, and trans men (biological woman) not to be permitted to use the women’s facilities
• however where facilities are available to both men and women, trans people should not be put in a position where there are no facilities for them to use

The bolding is mine to see if that helps with understanding.

Trans people are not the only ones who need life to not be made difficult.