Interim guidance from EHRC is out

[impossibletoday]

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

Yes, he needs to use the blokes as they are a biological male. No, he didn't "pass" for the majority of women who saw him in the Women's they were just #bekind or scared to make a fuss. You can support your friend by encouraging him to acknowledge his biological maleness and that it matters in many different settings, not just medical ones.

The only way he will have an issue is if he doesn't pass as well as you are claiming 🤷🏼‍♀️

Exactly. So I absolutely do not mean to be patronising, but I am spelling out my understanding as I sense you are anxious about this.

Think of it as a form you need to fill in, question 1 is "sexual orientation". And the options are a) straight, b) gay, c) bi etc etc

So in answering that 1 question you have 3 options. So there are multiple sexual orientations, but they all fall under once 'characteristic' of sexual orientiation. So an LGB group would be base on a single characteristic, sexual orientation.

I may be wrong but i sense the 'two characteristics' in the guidance is a distraction. I think the point is you can form associations based on multiple protected characteristics (race, sex, sexual orientation etc), not that it is limited to two. I may be wrong on this.

Are you suggesting he just carries on using the women’s?
Please don’t encourage this nonsense.

I’m hoping this works but this is a good screenshot to add onto this post - it explains exactly why there have been such epic melt downs over this. This attached email is from a serious of documents obtained via FOI by Scottish Women (on X) way back. This is Equality Network explaining to Scotgov lawyers why sex & gender is preferred to be used interchangeably. Press for Change wanted the wording to be like this to prevent what the FWS judgement & the EHRC interim guidance does - differentiates between those of one sex & anyone with the PC of gender reassignment. It means that allowing for genuine single sex provision is made impossible if you obfuscate that these are 2 distinct PCs & confuse people who are on the front line having to deal
with larping blokes trying to get into the female only changing rooms.

If the pic comes through, hopefully it’s readable. When you compare to what’s in the screenshots I’ve quoted, all becomes clear.

I'm afraid it does, few primary schools have changing rooms.

In practice girls start complaining from age 8 or 9 and they do something - send the boys to change in the hall, get a screen or curtain across the classroom, use those impractical changing poncho things.

Thanks, but it's a bit blurry.

*According to the interim guidance, you can't.

But on a strict interpretation of the interim guidance, you also can't have an LGB association because the B is listed a separate sexual orientation in the legislation, with the L and the G grouped together.*

I don't think that's what they're getting at, and I don't think they are restricting to only two shared PCs, either.

They are pointing out that if an association is based on more than on shared PC, they all have to be shared. So lesbian women and bisexual women would both share the PCs of sex and sexual orientation, whereas a bisexual transwman could legitimately be excluded because he would not share the PC of sex, despite having the PC of sexual orientation.

I am guessing that a lot of the pro trans lobby will wilfully misinterpret this guidance as ‘all groups/facilities must be single sex’, rather than ‘groups/facilities can be single sex.’

For trans people who genuinely pass, no-one will know if they use the opposite sex toilets.

That said, I suspect many transwomen who believe they pass will soon discover that the reason people haven’t been challenging them in toilets is not because they were perceived to be women but because people were under the mistaken impression that it was discriminatory to exclude transwomen from women’s spaces (courtesy of Stonewall, who are directly responsible for any distress these people experience as a result).

I think the guidance is unclear on this.

And if you can create an association for LG plus B, why not for women plus trans women?

Perhaps the rules are flexible enough to permit this and the real test is whether such a group would be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. But I do think it raises questions.

Here’s the link - it’s around page 43/44 when you scroll down.

https://scottish-women.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/foi-18-02545-.pdf

No, I'm just pointing out the contradictions in the "but no one can tell they are trans" nonsense.

Oh, sorry. I agree.

Bisexual people absolutely can have their own space if they want to.

And while they don’t need to justify why beyond sharing a PC, there are perfectly valid reasons for them wanting that, as there often tends to be quite a lot of biphobia in certain lesbian and gay spaces.

No worries - I can understand how you read it that way, I could have been clearer 😊

For those who can’t find it or the writing is too small, this is the relevant section (it’s actually page 49)

”When the GRA 2004 was being developed, Press for Change suggested the wording used in section 9 where sex and gender are used interchangeably. [redacted] advised that this was intentional in order to prevent trans people from being discriminated against in terms of their sex. Their view was that there was a risk that service providers, etc. would say something along the lines of “the act means we recognise your acquired gender identity, however, your sex hasn’t changed” and trans people would still be denied services.“

For all the outrage we’ve seen, trans orgs have known that the act meant biological sex all along - they just wanted to confuse those who would have to enforce what it actually meant (frontline staff & middle management without sufficient legal advice) so that would prevent anyone excluding someone with the PC of gender reassignment on the basis of their actual biological sex.

I would argue that we do, because sometimes we want to meet members of the same sex who aren't going to give us the side-eye for also liking the opposite sex. But that's for us to make those spaces.

Yes, because he’s a man. He may have wanted to use female facilities for years but it’s if females didn’t want him to.

Substitute "transwomen" for any other subsection of men who are protected under a different protected characteristic and it's clear that this isn't logical.

For example, a group for (any) women + retired men (PC of age), or (any) women + catholic men (PC of religion/belief), or (any) women + Asian men (PC of race).

But you can have a group for retired women (age and sex) or retired people (age), or catholic women (sex and religion/belief) or catholics (religion/belief) etc etc.

Excellent. Bloody glad to hear it.

The guidance is clear for the people who (attempt to) organise LGB groups as they have been trying to explain this section of the EA to everyone else for years!

The reason you can’t create a group for women and transwomen but exclude everyone else is because women and transwomen don’t share a protected characteristic- they fall under different ones.

Oh, fair enough. I didn’t mean to imply it shouldn’t happen.

It does happen. And that, reader, is how two older boys were able to corner me and grope my vulva when I was aged eight.

Primary schools need single sex changing spaces with doors. Not everyone getting changed in the cloakroom or the classroom together.

“Except where each toilet is in a separate room lockable from the inside “
isn’t that an exact description of every single toilet cubicle?