Interim guidance from EHRC is out

[impossibletoday]

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

Every single place? For this tiny, tiny minority?

Trans people without GRCs have been using the wrong toilets for years, why all of a sudden are they apparently bothered about it?

Off topic:

The citizenship thing is an interesting one. I think you can live in, say, France, and identify strongly as French, without having citizenship. And you can gain French citizenship (say, for administrative purposes) and still identify wholly as a citizen of your original country.

I live in France and was in a Facebook group for British citizens who needed to get their residence sorted after Brexit. We had ages to get it done, but there were still people who missed the deadline. These were mainly people who had been in France for so long that they no longer had any ties to the UK and weren't involved in any kind of Brits in France networks. Most of them were elderly people who had been here for decades and weren't online, but I remember one was a young British guy who had moved to France when he was a few months old and never gained citizenship, and he explained in his post when he finally joined the group in a panic several months after the deadline that he had completely forgotten he was British and not French.

I am naturalised and feel about 50/50 now.

Well. That's kind of what I'm asking. How many places should provide unisex spaces or third spaces? I don't know.

Well anyone would be able to use it, so it's not like it would be completely useless to the rest of society.

I think they're a good idea.

Someone crunched the numbers on another thread. They worked out that it's basically no more than a 1% increase in usage when you take lots of factors into account. One factor is that apparently half of trans people also consider themselves disabled, and regardless of that, there's an argument to be made that if someone is so agitated about their sex that they won't use the appropriate loos, that pretty much counts as a disability in itself.

Repeatedly explained.

The context for women who identify as men in some contexts being denied entry to a women's facility was, in the judgment, referring to a support group for sex abuse survivors, where anyone with a gram of sense and compassion would grasp that traumatised women might not do well talking about and re experiencing such things with someone there who looks very male. It comes with a note that in such cases an additional facility would need to be provided for the women who identify as men, because obviously they have an equal need for an accessible service. Note that this nowhere included the command that they should be cast out like orphans in the storm and sent up chimneys. It did not refer to general public toilets.

I'll repeat that again slowly: It did not refer to general public toilets .

It's a nice gotcha, but again, it's about men weaponising women who may look male in order to try and punish women and escape having to respect the need of, in this case traumatised women wanting help with their abuse, to have a space away from men who for some unfathomable reason really, really demand to be there when non consenting distressed women are talking about their sexual trauma. Can't think why they'd want to. Gosh it's a puzzler.

as clearly what you look like does matter in the guidance.

Re read the guidance, the explanation is there that sex based is necessary as you cannot go on what people look like. Unless of course you want to try and throw smoke so that you achieve a goal that traumatised women cannot escape men.

There is a call for more unisex spaces, although does that mean every single place that offers toilets or changing facilities will need to update their infrastructure? How plausible is that and how long would it take to provide those spaces?

Not women's problem.

Nor a reason to let men use women's spaces.

And keep in mind, women who could not use spaces where men with trans identities were present were just expected to go without provision and shut up about it or else. Women have managed the situation of having to unhappily use mixed sex provision in which they felt unsafe and without dignity and sometimes encountered actual harassment and assault (see court cases) for years while they tirelessly fought this battle. They had no choice, they had no compassion from anyone, and no one was ever planning to come to the rescue with third spaces. Men are going to manage for the short time it takes. They can hack it like women had to. Women don't have a magic 'cope' gene on the XX chromosomes.

I think the consultation will be asking for responses on when unisex facilities should be provided.

I would guess that we will end up with guidance for employers that says, for example, for any building where more than x number of people work, that is mixed sex, x number of unisex toilets need to be available.

No idea why you're talking about me throwing smoke so that traumatised woman cannot escape men. I'm a woman myself. I'm not against the guidance, but was wondering more about third spaces for those situations.

Yes, sex matters, but I had read on here that men could object to trans women in their spaces if they looked feminine enough, so a genuine question about how that works if what you look like is irrelevant.

No, you are correct that I was unaware it only applied to domestic violence therapy groups and such, as what I had simply referred to "facilities".

Not trying to throw a "gotcha". You know not everyone who has questions is some kind of male manipulator or something - some people have questions is all.

Which would be straightforwardly sensible.

Likewise that all new build applications for public buildings must show these actually inclusive facilities on the plans to be approved.

But sense is a way off yet and I suspect mostly melt down and hysteria and misinformation and butbutbutbutbut (women can't say no to men cos Reasons) will be the main diet for a while.

Apologies if that sounded terse, my patience is becoming very low and these myths and misinformations are beyond frustrating. They are widely debunked, on many threads here and in articles, but they are largely being used to try and find ways and get outs to deny women their badly needed legal rights and protections.

I would imagine that the word 'facilities' is used to give women that scope as needed: for example in a building being used for rape support groups the toilets MAY need to exclude anyone who looks male so that the women feel safe in the building. But it is written with clear common sense and obviously not meant to apply to all toilets everywhere at all times.

@Tomatotater I think in a real world setting trans men ( who trans activists couldn't have cared less about until now) pass so we'll as men, they will he able to use the men's easily.

That's not what the guidance says. The guidance states that men's toilets are a single sex space.

So if there's a transgender man in the men's toilets, and if I know that person is a transgender man, can I tell that person to leave?

Would a biological woman in the men’s loo really be that much of a safety risk to all the men in there?
Why are you still making it all about the bloody men?

@TheOtherRaven "There is a call for more unisex spaces, although does that mean every single place that offers toilets or changing facilities will need to update their infrastructure? How plausible is that and how long would it take to provide those spaces?"
Not women's problem.

Well, it is women's problem. It's a problem for women who are responsible for public spaces and who are responsible for the provision of toilets for the public. It's also a problem for women who are involved in the design and construction of public spaces.

I would say yes, but realistically, how likely is that to happen?

@KilkennyCats Would a biological woman in the men’s loo really be that much of a safety risk to all the men in there?

It's not a safety risk, but if EHRC guidance says that transgender men are not to use the men's toilets, then we need to adhere to that guidance.

Why are you still making it all about the bloody men?

It's not all about men. The equality act mentions both "men" and "women," and the supreme court ruling had implications for both male and female single sex spaces.

No need to apologise really, I can understand the frustration and I think, I'm certainly guilty of it anyway, a lot of people see snippets of guidance posted elsewhere and it leads to these questions - particularly when you don't read every thread or every post on the matter (I am known to sort of jump about a thread when it's 20 plus pages full).

It can be difficult to decide who is trying to create confusion and who is simply a little confused.

Years ago I would have had much more compassion. If you had campaigned for third and fourth spaces for transwomen and transmen I would have supported that.
But you didn’t care about us. You couldn’t give a shit about the
privacy and dignity of women. You didn’t care about the sexual and physical abuse that many women have experienced at the hands of men. You didn’t care that you were making it easier for predatory men to gain access to women and young children in spaces where they should have been safe. When you reach a point in your life that you don’t care about any of that, at what stage do you wake up and realise that you are not a good person.
To me you are no different than my abusive ex husband. And so that empathy I might have had years ago has completely gone. So I now seriously couldn’t give a shit about you and your feelings.

Yes, we do need to follow the guidance.
But you must know there’s a particular reason why a person looking like a man might trigger women in a ladies loo, that just doesn’t work in reverse, so the impact really isn’t equal.
But yes, they absolutely shouldn’t be in the gents either.

You can tell anyone to leave. They can either leave, or appeal to a member of staff. The member of staff is the one responsible - well, their employer is.

What they will probably say is "I don't care about this, can you both just do your business quickly and leave the loos".

Whereas if I report a hulking male hanging round the ladies' all evening in fishnets (a situation I've encountered before), it's obvious that a) this is a biological man and b) they are not there because they just need to pee. So I'd hope it's a clearer case for staff to take action.

Actually it is an issue when you have biological women in the mens’ room - as a woman I argue for a male free space because of the rights to privacy and dignity. This is not because of ‘female sensibilities’ but because women of a certain age, women from specific and varied ethnic/faith backgrounds all need male free spaces. And so do men. My son when he was 9 should not have to encounter a female bodied woman in the mens showers, no matter how hairy or well-healed her mastectomy scars; my chivalrous and old-fashioned FiL should not have to be concerned there is a woman in the vicinity when drying himself off; a jewish or muslim man - bugger it, a catholic priest or CoE vicar - should not have to contend with ‘women’ in their private spaces.

The stakes are higher for women when men invade their space because of the safeguarding aspect, because of the risk of physical and sexual assault, but absolutely men are entitled to their single-sex spaces too.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g355v07l2o

So....

With regard to enforcement of course there isn't going to be toilet police and no one is saying in rare instances a 'passing' Tim won't be using women s toilets. What now has been established is that anyone now has the law on their side in preventing an obvious male from entering female toilets and this should be a a great relief.

It seems some tra want to test this guidance by entering womens facilities and gauding staff to make decisions on their sex from appearance. This is wrong and we all know in reality sex will be quite obvious but now if a staff member politely asks a man to use another facility the law is on their side. There can be no screaming of 'transphobe' to staff that are simply doing their job and enforcing sensible rules.

@KilkennyCats But you must know there’s a particular reason why a person looking like a man might trigger women in a ladies loo, that just doesn’t work in reverse, so the impact really isn’t equal.

That's not what the guidance states. If I have understood the guidance correctly, and if the EHRC guidance does indeed state that transgender men should not be using men's toilets, then I don't want them in there.

@Darkgreendarkbark You can tell anyone to leave. They can either leave, or appeal to a member of staff. The member of staff is the one responsible - well, their employer is. What they will probably say is "I don't care about this, can you both just do your business quickly and leave the loos".

Whereas if I report a hulking male hanging round the ladies' all evening in fishnets (a situation I've encountered before), it's obvious that a) this is a biological man and b) they are not there because they just need to pee. So I'd hope it's a clearer case for staff to take action.

Why would the staff take action in your case, and not my case?

I want the EHRC guidance to be adhered to. If I reported a transgender man and that man wasn't removed, then that's something I would pursue further.

Bit random but will toilets have to state men and women in words. Can a trans woman in a skirt argue they entered a toilet With a skirted woman symbol arguing they are a person with a skirt so the designation of the skirt is ambig uous?