Interim guidance from EHRC is out

[impossibletoday]

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

I think this is one of the reasons that the EHRC interim guidance came out so fast @ItsAllGoingToBeFine (post below for those not wanting to scroll back)

It is SO clear and spelling it all out so even a 4 year old can understand it...one of the reasons Trans people are saying it is so cruel, etc but in reality it is just HYPER CLEAR to avoid all possible misunderstanding and loopholes... literally NO wriggle room...

A potential weak point of this judgement and guidance is (I think) that it doesn't define "biological sex".
Many TRAs seem to think that biological sex is a matter of self-identification too and I have seen both TW and TM state that they are biological women / men who through a defect of birth were born in the wrong body, or those who think that hormones determine sex etc.
I don't know how you deal with these delusions other than hoping that social pressure returns to keep people in the correct sex places where required?

Well that's a lie. Legally he has done something wrong, this was a clarification of the law and not a new law. He is in disguise breaching women's boundaries because he is not happy with his body. Most people don't believe humans can change sex and plenty of women and girls do not want to share changing rooms and toilets with men. He is a man. This is exactly why TRAs should have spent the last decade campaigning for third spaces instead of trying to steal women's rights, so that your fried wouldn't be in this position. But don't lie to yourself an others, he has been breaching women's boundaries without our consent. That's not a good guy.

It is already defined through case law and the Scottish Government had already agreed that e.g. a trans woman without a GRC is legally a man.

How is this different to you saying that because your husband/boyfriend/brother/father is a good guy that he should be able to use women’s spaces and provisions too?

Society cannot operate, and women and children cannot be kept safe, by adopting some sort of individual subjective assessment of niceness. Niceness certificates just won't work.

I think this is because in small primary schools that don’t have actual changing rooms and don’t have much space, kids up to year 6 age (11) get changed for PE in the classroom and so it’s a mixed sex changing space. Not ideal and easily a non issue if the school lets kids wear PE kit the whole day on PE days. This is more common these days than making them change in the classrooms.

A potential weak point of this judgement and guidance is (I think) that it doesn't define "biological sex".

It didn't define biological sex because it has already been defined in law in a case called Corbett v Corbett (1971). That case decided that sex is biological, binary and immutable, fixed from birth at the latest and that which sex a person is is decided on bio evidence like genitals and chromosomes and not psychological factors like GI or on gender reassignment surgery.

Of course you're right that TAs will try to self-ID but legally they have nowhere to go.

Your friend is male. They must understand that they haven’t changed sex. Please don’t believe that your inability to correctly identify the sex of a human is the norm for female people.

Robust safeguarding does group all male people regardless of how lovely they are. Because that is how safeguarding must work to protect people. My lovely husband would not hurt anyone. Yet he is subject to the same safeguarding policies and protocols as all other male people.

Do you realise that there is no evidence that any male person with a transgender identity, at any stage of transition, has less risk of committing male pattern crime? The MoJ prison stats show some remarkable insights. We can post them for you, if you would like.

So, it doesn’t matter how lovely your friend is or how long they have believed they are female. They are male.

Also, if any male person has been entering female single sex spaces understanding that their being there may cause distress to female people, that is not a male person showing respect for others. It doesn’t matter one bit how well you or they think they pass.

FFS I don't know whether all this 'how many angels can dance on the head of a pin' or 'if someone pees in the forest and no-one notices is this against the law' stuff, with ever more complicated scenarios is more ridiculous or annoying. Or maybe both.

The EHRC are trying to make it crystal clear that as far as toilets are concerned men should go in the men's and women in the women's. The terms men and women are sex based. There are some details about this which are clearly explained. If someone wants to use a toilet and is not sure which one to use they should enquire of the provider or the EHRC. This guidance should enable the correct choice to be made in nearly all cases.

If you are a woman use the women's toilet. If you are a woman who passes so well as a man you are going to fool all the men and frighten other women, probably best if you use the men's. Everything else is a men's problem, let them sort it. I like the clarity of that.

The 88 page judgement, summary and now this, plus advice from Sex Matters are models of clarity. Why are people getting their knickers in such a twist? Rhetorical question I know the answer.

@MissScarletInTheBallroom
But perhaps I'm overthinking this.

Yes, I think you are. I have no answers for you as I can't understand the question. The people involved should get proper legal advice. IE Not Stonewall legal advice.

If you are a woman who passes so well as a man you are going to fool all the men and frighten other women, probably best if you use the men's.

This bit isn't quite correct - the woman has no right to use the men's. It's unisex or women's.

He's a male, if he accesses women's single sex spaces, especially after the ruling then he is doing something wrong. Gender Dysphoria and body modification doesn't make a male a female. If they are actually a good person they they will put the genuine needs of actual women and girls over his desire for access to those spaces.

My friend has done nothing wrong

Except walk into women's single-sex spaces deliberately and repeatedly, ignoring women's boundaries in the process.

You are engaging in DARVO:

• deny the wrongfulness of your friend's actions.
• accuse women of being mean for exercising our right to say "no".
• and in doing so you reverse victim and offender.

Sadly our local Slug and Lettuce was closed down during a recent mass building and regeneration programme of our medium sized market town. Whilst we have a new softplay area, cinema and yet more estate agents, most of the 30 odd new shop premises remain unlet. BUT ‘Spoons is confirmed as replacing the S&L.

As an arts uni town, the blue haired brigade will love that, of course. 🤦🏽‍♀️

@PoisedRubyLion

I mean this in the nicest possible way - I don't know what you expect from posting the same thing over and over. Nobody except another MCWs/transsexual is going to feel as sorry for your friend as you think we should. We are concerned with the welfare of women. Nobody wishes your friend ill, but he is not our main concern. Women and girls are.

Your friend is male. That's the beginning and end of the story.

Edited for grammar

@PoisedRubyLion Try reading this thread. Conciliatory conversation on gender 20 pages of explanation about why

a) Your friend should not have been doing this.
b) Why, now he knows it is unlawful, he should stop doing it.

Your friend is male.

So let him fight his own battles - as women, gays, people with disabilities to name just three groups have had to do.

As an aside - a lot of those organisations and individuals who rushed out statements about how they are standing with their transbrethren, most of whom were biological males, and going to look pretty stupid now that the guidance is out.

Thanks. The situation is covered in the judgement and the guidance and this is what it says. So I thought I ought to mention it. I agree that it introduces unecessary confusion in this situation and might have been better left out.

From a safeguarding point of view that would be a terrible idea. Everyone thought Rolf Harris was a nice guy. Many men (and I assume some gaslit women too) thought Savile was nice. Safeguarding needs to be risk based. Men are statistically bigger and stronger and commit 98% of sex crimes. Keeping them out of women's single sex spaces is such a no brainer. And there's also an obvious reason children up to 8 or so ALL go into the women's.

Anyone with a 'nice' transsexual friend should be recommending they read the writings of Miranda Yardley - a transsexual who really does empathise with women. He really got it in the end, which is why - showing some empathy - he has for some time now self-excluded from women's spaces and uses he/him pronouns.

There is some irony in the fact that the transwomen / male transsexuals who behave most like women and who are 'kind' are the ones who stay the hell out of women's spaces (and use correct sex pronouns too).

Looking forward to my employer (2k employees) having to do a swift u turn after last week restating trans people can use whatever toilet they want on an intranet post and usual "now more than ever we need to support trans people". A few supportive comments on the extranet post and as predicted no ones dares criticise this despite being in the silent majority and what they have done illegal! This madness needs to end, its clear most of the media/employers do not agree with the court ruling and are trying to find loop holes.

Per EHRC advice, the answer is unisex toilets, which I suspect many trans people seek out already, because they aren't quite so confident in the belief that they will be welcomed in the opposite sex toilet. It seems very likely that this judgement will lead to more unisex toilets.

If your friend wants to change the law, they are also just as entitled as anyone else to campaign for that. Probably best to make the campaign reality based though.

When women were concerned about women’s toilets becoming mixed-sex, we were told that rapists and predators didn’t have pretend to be women or get into the women’s toilets to attack us, they would do it anyway. So to any TW who are worried about men attacking them in men’s toilets, I would say if they’re going to attack you they’ll do it anyway and won’t just wait til you’re inside the men’s toilets to do so. I imagine it’s as much a comfort now as it was to women then.

Holy shit, I think you are talking about my hometown.

It did define what they meant by it, at para 7 of the SC judgment:

7. We also use the expression “biological sex” which is used widely, including in the judgments of the Court of Session, to describe the sex of a person at birth, and we use the expression “certificated sex” to describe the sex attained by the acquisition of a GRC.

So each of us is necessarily of one biological sex at birth (as determined by medical professionals at the time of birth).

They can try to queer language all they like, but all trans people know their actual biological sex, as they can only take cross-sex hormones, request ‘gender-affirming’ surgeries, apply for a GRC, etc if they can pinpoint what their biological sex is in the first place.

This probably needs to be said often

All this crying about small businesses having to redesign/remodel their toilet provision to comply makes me wonder why this is the fault of the various legislation (which has been in place for a very long time), or the women who complained and not the fault of the trans campaigners and other who have devoted the last ten or more years trying to make all the existing provision for everything mixed sex, saying this was already the law and ignoring any other viewpoint. Remember 'no debate'? All the organisations and public bodies who went along with it are also culpable. But as long as the only people affected and pointing out the problems were women that was fine.

Maybe, as a result, women will now get better facilities.