Interim guidance from EHRC is out

[impossibletoday]

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

Absolutely. you can almost see the sweat breaking out on their upper lip as they bang on about it

Re toilets (lol it always comes down to loos), I interpreted this to mean that single sex provision remains the go-to, but IF you have any trans staff (or anticipate trans customers) for whom using same sex facilities would reasonably be an issue, then employers need to have a plan B (ie a separate/3rd space). It may simply be that they be offered the disabled loo, or in the case of very small buildings/businesses (am thinking of a few small local cafes as I consider this), they may have to adapt their 1-2 toilets into fully enclosed, single use facilities.

I also wonder whether, given how supportive of trans rights the govt has been, whether they might offer grants to SMEs to (re)adapt their toilets into provisions so that 3rd spaces/single person usage can be put into place asap where there is a more immediate need due to a higher than average number of TQI+ staff or service users (Stonewall’s offices for example… )

Was that a joke? Stonewall have had quite enough of government i.e. our money already. I hope they never get another penny.

I do really hope that all business and public places take this on board and hence forth stop allowing men to use women's spaces. I do think workplaces, businesses and other institutions need to take the lead on this and tell trans members of staff not to use single sex spaces for the opposite sex to them. I say this because I know from personal experience that transwomen are often delusional about how well they pass, they assume they do when they don't and they also tend to assume compliance from actual women when it is usually just either women's socialisation at play where they feel they need to be kind and tolerant or they are straight up conflict advise with men who already clearly have a loose grip on reality and have probably demonstrated themselves to be unpredictable previously when their delusional self image is challenged.

So really women need the backing of their workplaces, universities, schools and so on now to keep men out of their spaces.

I do find the 'but what shall I doooooo?' posts quite hard to be sympathetic to.

If you have chosen to live your live in such a duplicitous way that you literally spend all your time pretending to be something you are not and never can be, then yes, your life will be very difficult, and much of that difficulty will be entirely self inflicted.

attempting to fool the world at large about your sex is so inherently dishonest and unhealthy I'm increasingly astounded that it receives any credence at all as a way of life

be a feminine man or a masculine woman, all good. when you start attempting to perpetually mislead those around you, that's when you lose my sympathy.

whose purpose is to make it harder for trans people to exist in public

Wrong. The purpose of the guidance to enable service providers to act within the law. Are there other things that you think are conspiracies to harm people? 5G? COVID? Vaccines? Climate change?

except if you're trans we can still exclude you anyway from the toilets of your biological sex because.. reasons"?

The guidance literally says "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". If a trans person turns up somewhere and is barred from both the male and female loos by the staff and offered no alternative provision, that is against the guidance.

The SC ruling was clear that excluding trans people from the services for their biological sex must pass the tests of "being a proportionate means" and "to achieve a legitimate aim". It's unlikely that excluding TMs from the ladies loos will pass either of those tests in most environments (a rape counseling centre would be an exception to this because of the loo users being traumatised women). The specific example given in the ruling (para 221) was excluding a TM from group therapy for female sexual assault survivors because the other women might take "reasonable objection [...] in the context of the women-only service being provided" to the presence of someone with heavily-masculinised features. In the context of most loos, that objection is unlikely to be reasonable.

It's pretty transphobic to assert that trans people will lie routinely to get what they want, in the same way that it's islamophobic to assert that muslims will use suicide bombings to get what they want.

Did anyone else spot the instruction to disclose a colleague's protected beliefs to HR?

Yes… it was a joke…I was mocking the labour govt support for all things trans.

Phew!😀

If our employers maintain policies incompatible with the ruling and we are harmed by it, such as by finding a bloke in the ladies, we follow the grievance to tribunal route. Once a couple of employers lose, the rest will fall into line.

tbh I should have put a 🤣 in to make it clear tho

A swab test will suffice, which is no more intrusive than a breathalyser

And considerably less intrusive than the mandatory drug testing that train drivers, pilots, and even some factory workers making safety-critical components have to undergo. Fancy pissing in full view of a witness? Me neither.

Clarifying the EA doesn’t make your experiences any less real, and the only way I can possibly imagine these two things to be linked is if the reason these experiences meant so much to you was not because you valued sharing these moments with another person but because doing it specifically with a woman validated your own sense that you were also a woman.

Which is quite an unsavoury thought, as it suggests you have been using women as props in your life to support the lie your parents told you that you actually were a woman like any other.

Worth repeating this very insightful observation into the psyche of transitioning males.

It says very clearly that trans people should not use single sex toilets for members of the opposite sex, but that in some circumstances it may also be reasonable to exclude them from single sex toilets for members of their own sex, but also that they should not be left without any toilet provision at all. OK... How does that work in practice? There are going to have to be unisex toilets everywhere, aren't there? But there aren't yet.

Again, as up thread:

The part of the judgment referring to this talks about a sex abuse survivors group as an example and NOT toilets in general in all places. The high drama is a feature not a bug, but it's not factual or helpful. Surely you can understand that there are a few situations where women would be unable to access a service with people they perceived as men (for example traumatised women talking about abuse) and that when a person makes a decision to radically alter their outer appearance they may have to take some responsibility for the impact on others?

How will this work in practice because there aren't unisex toilets readily available yet?

Well for a start there's a lot of very passionate people posting everywhere in support of TQ+ people and I'm sure unisex and third space provision will be arranged quickly.

However I will point out, again, Many women have been unable to use women's spaces, resources and facilities because men insisted on self identifying into them . No one from the GI lobby has cared. The answer has been that if women chose to self exclude then that was their problem. No one was providing additional spaces for them.

All women have had to risk assess for themselves regarding toilets based on the man in their space and work out were they prepared to risk it, go with a friend, look for somewhere else, or decide not to go at all.

Women have been expected to cope with using resources they perceived as mixed sex and felt unsafe in for years. Men will survive doing this for a short period until third spaces are provided.

Unless you are arguing that possession of XX chromosomes infers some kind of higher resilience than men have, and that men cannot cope with what has been entirely normal to demand of women? When men have these back up options coming and people highly concerned for them in the way that no one ever was for women?

Also, RW seems to assume a very high legal bar for reasonable adjustment.

Thank you, @LonginesPrime , you have articulated perfectly what I found so disturbing about parts of that post you're replying to.

Especially when you say,
I’m a woman and have lived, laughed, loved and cried alongside men. [...]
Clarifying the EA doesn’t make your experiences any less real, and the only way I can possibly imagine these two things to be linked is if the reason these experiences meant so much to you was not because you valued sharing these moments with another person but because doing it specifically with a woman validated your own sense that you were also a woman.

Yes!

That post you're replying to gave me that familiar, unpleasant, disassociated feeling of being removed from my own personhood and cast into someone else's stereotype, in order to fulfil their wish to have Non-Player Characters to bounce off.

That sounds like a winning legal strategy!

That post you're replying to gave me that familiar, unpleasant, disassociated feeling of being removed from my own personhood and cast into someone else's stereotype, in order to fulfil their wish to have Non-Player Characters to bounce off.

So, so right.

Absolutely.

I’m questioning the purpose of a GRC and the apparent confusion in the law. What is the purpose of being able to change your sex on official documents if it (quite rightly) does not give you access to opposite sex single sex spaces, hospital wards etc?

It seems unnecessary to be able to change your legal sex marker if it doesn’t change your actual rights with regards to sex, but then also makes it difficult for service providers to manage as a small minority of trans people could present official ID to say they had access to spaces etc. I just can’t see what the point of a GRC is any more. I’m definitely not saying that the SC outcome is wrong!

Not sure if any of you follow Glinner’s substack or Ripx4nutmeg but this made me laugh… in the if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry kind of way.

@CautiousLurker01 Funny except for item 8 which is possibly an even bigger threat for women at the moment. Men hate to be told no, especially by women.

Clarifying the EA doesn’t make your experiences any less real, and the only way I can possibly imagine these two things to be linked is if the reason these experiences meant so much to you was not because you valued sharing these moments with another person but because doing it specifically with a woman validated your own sense that you were also a woman.
Which is quite an unsavoury thought, as it suggests you have been using women as props in your life to support the lie your parents told you that you actually were a woman like any other.

That wasn't so much a shaft of light as a laser beam, @LonginesPrime

Nail on the fucking head. The LARP is exposed as what it really was all along.

This has been said to the poster who posted this before. I think we have pointed out the complete lack of self awareness enough now to also gain the understanding that it is not merely a lack of self awareness.

This too is a feature, not a bug.