Good news from barclays

[Hoardasurass]

So sanity is returning after the sc ruling, barclays are ditching their trans policy and making their toilets single sex again

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/30/barclays-to-ban-trans-women-from-using-female-lavatories/

While this is good news it does enrage me - these companies flip flop, and give zero thoughts to the women affected by their cult driven policies.

Hopefully now many more of these flag waving, band wagon jumping corporations will decide to respect womens rights and follow the ACTUAL LAW too.

I was under the impression that Barclays were totally captured. I wonder if the powers that be have wrested control back, and there are some very fucked off DEI people.

interesting that in the comments below that article there are loads of people saying don't call them transwomen, they are trans identified men. Or just men.

I'm being cautious on this one. The story says
"The bank said it would review its internal policy on the use of bathrooms to ensure that it complied with the law after judges ruled that trans women can now be excluded from single-sex facilities."

And then
"The Telegraph understands that means a policy of allowing trans women to use whichever lavatory they want will be dropped."

So Barclays has only said it's reviewing its policy - the paper then gives its own idea of the outcome of that review.

I note the verb "can" ("trans women can now be excluded from single-sex facilities"), but also remember the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, and I will wait and see.

Apparently the main dei twit has left the company so hopefully they will slowly regain sanity just stick to banking and leave the political activism to the teens

Apparently the main dei twit has left the company

The power that these people wield is extraordinary. Without being able to boss women about and dominate them in the workplace, maybe the role will change considerably.

CAN be excluded or MUST be excluded (from opposite sex facilities)? Thats what it boils down to otherwise signs on the door are meaningless.

True, but in the current climate and given how captured Barclays are/were, this statement is markedly distinct from either staying silent (which could indicate an org is watching and waiting to see which way clients and competitors are jumping off the fence) or condemning the SC ruling (which thankfully Barclays are too risk-averse to do, IMO).

I should imagine there have been many discussions behind the scenes around this as their LGBT network has/had a huge amount of sway within the organisation, but also management will have heard this issue arising from their transactions teams, where massive corporate clients will be sounding them out on the feasibility of requesting waivers to permit them to breach the EA on new loans being issued (e.g. where companies feel under pressure to to defy the SC ruling but also want to draw down millions of pounds for a corporate acquisition that’s been months in the making).

It’s the same as always - when there was a business imperative for pushing LGBT+ inclusion (e.g. positive advertising by leading the Pride parade, cosying up to Stonewalled clients who are providing the banks with lucrative business, etc), banks were on board, but when the legal and financial risks outweigh the benefits, looking all soft and fluffy suddenly isn’t a priority any more.

The banks have got what they needed from LGBT+ inclusion to restore their image following the credit crunch now anyway, so job done.

I’m glad the existing position and past statements of these organisations demonstrating how they proudly shat on women for years are also being publicised by the media, as it’s such a good lesson for organisations not to take an extreme ideological position on issues like this.

Because they legally don't actually have a choice.

This shouldn't be congratulated as Barclays having made progress somehow.

How on earth would workplaces police this anyway? It’s all pretty meaningless without enforcement and I can’t imagine anyone wanting that in a professional environment.

Well if a transwoman goes into the women's toilets, the women can now put a complaint into HR about harassment.

If it persists, then it can be a disciplinary.

Cos a company has a legal responsibility here to their female staff...

... So all those transwomen intent on breaking the rules and persisting using the women's toilets are potentially risking their careers.

Well if a transwoman goes into the women's toilets, the women can now put a complaint into HR about harassment.

Well not really - not unless there’s any harassment surely? Unless the very act of crossing the threshold counts as harassment?

I’m not trying to be difficult btw - I’m in favour of the Supreme Court ruling but genuinely curious about how this would actually be enforced.

Going in the ladies deliberately knowing you aren't supposed to absolutely could be classed as harassment.

You know it could cause upset to other staff.

Well clearly you can police your own employees far more easily than you can police members of the public.

They were captured - they had an ad featuring a transwoman who sought funding for big t*ts...ahem...sorry, to appear "more outwardly feminine".

Were they the bank that had one of their employees saying don't question who I am? I am who I say I am.
Said no scammer ever...

And they were the ones who debanked Posie Parker, apparently

The bank will have to come to its own conclusion but the law says:
(a) it is impossible to provide a single-sex service that includes people of the opposite sex. If people of the opposite sex are included then it is a mixed sex service.
(b) all employers are required to provide single-sex toilets (and changing facilities) if staff have to change at work, unless space is so limited that this isn't possible in which case fully enclosed single-occupancy cubicles may be provided that are by definition unisex as they are not shared.
(c) nevertheless people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment must not be discriminated against which means must have access to adequate equivalent facilities, but this legally cannot be allowing them to use the facilities of the opposite sex that are required under (b) above. There's nothing to stop employers from having plenty of unisex facilities accessible to all, so long as no one is forced to share with someone of the opposite sex.

And anyone violating this will effectively automatically be in breech of their terms of employment because they will be knowingly harassing others who want to use single sex facilities.

The moment any man chooses to enter the female single sex facilities at work, he is sexually harassing every female member of staff. He also leaves himself open to charges of voyeurism and indecent exposure (if changing his clothes or if he's one of those men who don't close and lock the cubicle). In many roles sexual harassment is gross misconduct and is an instant sacking offense.
If a workplace allows any males use the female single sex facilities they will lose any and all tribunals as the H&S 1992 act requires separate sex facilities and the equality act say transwomen are still male and don't belong in the female facilities ergo the employer has no defence against a claim of sexual harassment and indirect sex discrimination.
The sandie peggie case should hammer this home to all workplaces, Sarah summers case will do the same for the dv/rape crisis sector, and that just leaves private businesses for us to deal with.

Even before the GRA I'm sure there were cases where an trans employee use the female after having "surgery" but no question of doing so before (Royal Mail I think), and others about being "visually indistinguishable" (code for passing). That could be the next battleground.

The moment any man chooses to enter the female single sex facilities at work, he is sexually harassing every female member of staff.

It doesn’t ring true that entering = harrasssment, otherwise we’d have a problem with male cleaners or a new person who accidentally walks into the wrong bathroom and walks straight out in embarrassment! It’s surely the type of behaviour or harrassment that’s the issue and enforceable now, not simply crossing the threshold. So I still don’t see how this would be enforced right now, if men were to walk in and use the facilities peacefully.

Harassment often shows up as a repeating pattern of behaviour. Accidentally walking into the Ladies is unlikely to be seen as harassment, but accidentally walking into the Ladies every day might be seen as harassment.

As an employee (I didn't want to start this thread but I'll comment on it):

• no consultation was done BEFORE they started adopting it. I've known 2 TW in the business - one about 60, one about 25 - both completely insufferable and clear males
• there has been no communication internally about this as far as I can see. I would have expected even if it wasn't company-wide that the LGBTQ etc. forums would have sent round an email.
• ALL sites have disabled toilets and there are probably about as many disabled as trans people in different areas. So I would say if they're really worried about being attacked in work (sure Jan) then they can use those for their safety
• many sites also have singular units - i.e. toilets and sinks in a single room. Confusingly, on some floors they are mixed and on some they are still segregated. Not sure why, assume appeasement!

Anyway, just thought I'd throw my pennies in!

no consultation was done BEFORE they started adopting it

The problem was that these policies of de facto self-ID were pushed by Stonewall via staff LGBT+ networks, and Stonewall strongly pushed the notion that these changes didn’t affect anyone except transwomen and bigots.

Which is why none of the Equality Impact Assessments (where they were carried out at all) relating to allowing people to self-ID in toilets, hospital wards, prisons and so on conducted from around 2014 onwards even consider the impact of the change on biological women as a protected class, as Stonewall made it very clear that ‘bigots’ weren’t worthy of consideration.

The reason there were no consultations of women or anyone aside from trans people was by Stonewall’s design, and any management figures at Barclays and elsewhere who didn’t agree with what Spectrum or other LGBT staff networks were pushing through were painted as bigots and the big bad oppressors until management caved.

Plus, the business imperative for LGBT inclusion was pushed hard in Barclays and across the city back then, so there was a financial imperative to pretend women didn't exist too.

I'm sure you're right (I've never been arsed about getting involved with stuff like that tbh) but I've been an employee for a loooong time, and at the same time as Stonewall muscling their way in, there has also been lots of initiatives to get more women in leadership roles and the like. I don't recall the number but it has been going steadily up in the last five years....huh, suspicious, now I think about it!

I really wish I’d taken notes or a diary over all these years.

id totally forgotten this happened. In fact so much bad stuff has happened to women who spoke up/ speak up in this subject it’s hard to keep up.

the overriding themes of the last few years:

Women, comply with all our unreasonable demands & confirm our lies, or we will destroy you - from TRAs,banks, political parties, police, nhs etc

and women responding “get to fuck, men are never women & our bodied sex is important in life & law. Crowdfund, meet, talk, form grassroots groups, stitch banners, and elevate our finest minds to express objections plainly factually & persuasively.”