Good Law Project suing the EHRC and Bridget Phillipson - letter before action

[OhBuggerandArse]

Sorry if this has already been shared - here are the links to their letter and statement. Looking forward to the Mumsnet analysis :-)

https://goodlawproject.org/were-bringing-a-legal-challenge-to-the-ehrcs-interim-update

https://goodlawproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Letter-to-the-Equality-and-Human-Rights-Commission-16-May-2025_Redacted.pdf

The denial that most people support the SC decision is something to behold 😂

Apart from be on twitter spouting nonsense, what is it that IW actually does all day/for a living because I'm struggling to see IWs skill set.

IW also makes videos filmed in their car.

I can't imagine that provides much to live off, unless of course IW is actually a really good mechanic and they are the sort of 'how to' videos you see on YouTube that get good sponsorship money.

Please can we have more examples of this! Since the GLP is using - arguably mis-using? - the law as its own petard, I'd love to see them hoist on it

The latest one is spouting about segregating single sex spaces by, whoddathunkit, sex is exactly the same as segregating single sex spaces by race.

What a twonk.

I suspect they have formulated a strategy of sorts, what with the Judge on GMB, the Pretty trans stunt in London etc.

It is starting to look like they are going to argue transexuals who have had GRS are an exception, because they are “anatomically female” and therefore unsafe in male facilities.

I hope so as it will piss the TRA’s no end and cause a schism, in the movement.

Urgh. So I suppose the answer to that is that we obviously don't need sex segregated spaces then?

I mean, by all means campaign for mixed sex prisons, hospital wards, mixed sex strip searching, mixed sex changing rooms (including in schools) if you want. Somehow don't think you would get may takers.....

It's a dam, if you don't build it on a good foundation and be sure to block any leak that appears then it will collapse.

Sound foundation = using language correctly

The SC ruling as written = there are no leaks

Any edge case (... because they are “anatomically female” and therefore unsafe in male facilities ...) = deliberately poking a hole into it

The TRA approach means that no exceptions can be tolerated - the response has to be a hard no.

That was kind of the Scottish government's case wasn't it? Except they went with having a GRC not having surgery. I don't think most TRAs even realise that their 'side' had already agreed that non GRC holding transwomen were not entitled to be considered women. And that therefore even if FWS had lost the vast majority of them would still not be lawfully permitted in women's single sex spaces. Self ID was over either way on paper (though in reality would have been impossible to police).

I believe that's why Stonewall et al didn't apply to intervene, because their arguments would have had to be that GRC holders were 'proper trans' and the rest weren't. Which isn't what Stonewall et al had spent the last 15 years lying about. TRAs would have tantrummed and all the businesses and public services that Stonewall made money from would have said 'oy that's not what you made us put in our polices, what are you saying?'.

Stonewall expanded the trans umbrella and 'truscum' got pushed down the totem pole, but in the case 'truscum' were the only transpeople under discussion. The TRAs who are actually capable of understanding the judgement will eventually realise that and then there will be fireworks.

I agree. Anything that involves dividing things, or people, into a 'this' and a 'that' inevitably excludes the thises from the thats, and as long as there is a sensible reason for doing it, it's OK.
'Discrimination' is not always wrong, e.g. not letting 12 year olds drive cars, or 65 year olds join the cub scouts.

And if there is a clear line between 'this' and 'that' there will always be 'edge cases' that are anecdotally and personally negative, and that's unfortunate, but it is inevitable.

When I was a child I missed out on a scholarship which would have changed my future prospects immensely, because my parents' income was just a smidgeon above the cut-off point. We were infuriated, and devastated, and I didn't get the educational opportunities I might have had, but I was an edge case, and the rules were there in black and white.

Segregation on the basis of sex has been proved to be justifiable in certain contexts, and there are only two sexes. That's it. 'A hard no', as you rightly say SlackJawedDisbeliefXY.

I thought there was case law that it is against human rights law to discriminate between trans people who have and have not had surgery?

When I was writing the above post, I searched 'cub scouts' on Bing because I wanted to make sure that the term was still current.

The third result, after 'cub scouts' and 'cub scouts of America' was 'cub scouts in shorts'.... with, obviously, lots of images of little boys in shorts.

I found that disturbing.

When I did the same search on Google, 'cub scouts in shorts' didn't appear at all in the results.

I think it's that the government isn't allowed to gatekeep the PC of GR only to people who've had surgery, as in effect that's requiring people to give up their fertility, which is against ECHR.

Something on those lines,IANAL.

I think this was in the Goodwin case - that, if you're legislating for the rights of transsexuals, it's an abuse of human rights to expect them to be sterilised as a precondition for accessing those rights.

This is why the PC of GR, as set out in the Equality Act, has a lot of language hinting that the person should be on a pathway to physical changes to their sex characteristics, which implies surgery, but doesn't outright say so.

I don't think it occurred to legislators in 2010 that, for the purposes of the PC of GR, changes to sex characteristics might just mean Dennis growing his hair long, putting on a dress and calling himself Denise.

I think it's that the government isn't allowed to gatekeep the PC of GR only to people who've had surgery, as in effect that's requiring people to give up their fertility, which is against ECHR.

But the issue then is that the original Goodwin judgment was at least in part informed by Goodwin having had surgery, and the ECtHR not being able to figure out who would be inconvenienced by men being declared female.

With both of those no longer holding - the Supreme Court judgment is now talking about how the claimed "rights" of men who haven't had surgery are impacting women - the original Goodwin judgment does appear to be obsolete.

As @Nameychangington said, that was more to do with granting a GRC.

In some countries (Germany for example) they used to require that anybody wanting a GRC had to get surgery first. The ECtHR said that wasn't reasonable and so the requirement for surgery was dropped.

However, the particular process for getting a GRC (or whatever it is called in each country) must still be gone through in order to get a GRC.

Rather disappointingly, Germany has gone the way that Scotland wanted to go.

Up until 2011, they required people to have surgery. After that, their law was similar to our GRA. But then in November of last year they brought in self ID. So people can now just go down to their local council office and self ID into the opposite sex.

I think this was in the Goodwin case - that, if you're legislating for the rights of transsexuals, it's an abuse of human rights to expect them to be sterilised as a precondition for accessing those rights.

You've just contradicted me, so one of us is wrong. Goodwin was very early in the ECtHR transsexual rights, wasn't it, prior to the ruling about not limiting to post-"transition"? (The point at which they should have realised they were on a reductio ad absurdem path and backed up...)

I believe the GRA2004 non-requirement of surgery predated/anticipated the ECtHR ruling against another state.

The GLP letter before action revolves very much around the Workplace Regulations and toilets.

There was a very interesting article from a solicitor at Irwin Mitchell (a very big law firm) a couple of days ago that touched on just this issue. You can can read the whole article on their website here:

https://www.irwinmitchell.com/news-and-insights/expert-comment/post/102kb9l/do-retailers-have-to-provide-single-sex-toilets-and-changing-rooms-for-their-cust

Do retailers have to provide single sex toilets and changing rooms for their customers and staff?

TL;DR The same reasoning that led to the court saying sex is biological in the Equality Act would also lead to the same conclusion in other legislation as well.

The relevant bit talking about the Workplace Regs was near the bottom of the article:

"Sex in this context is not defined but is highly likely to mean biological sex. It's true to say that the Supreme Court didn't expressly consider these regulations in its judgment which focused exclusively on the interaction of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010. But, the way it reached its decision on that issue is instructive.

Generally, someone with a GRC changes their legal sex for ‘all purposes’ (s9(1)). However, that is subject to exceptions made by the Act or in any other act or subordinate legislation (s9(3)). The Supreme Court said someone's legal sex doesn't change for the purposes of other legislation if it would make that legislation incompatible or unworkable.

The 1992 Regulations were put in place to implement a 1989 EU Directive about health and safety and deal with 'propriety'. The Supreme Court recognised that females, as a biological sex class, have a health and safety interest in being separated from biological males and it's difficult to see how interpreting sex in the 1992 Regulations to include people with GRC's would not render their purpose unworkable for the same reasons the Court identified in respect of single and separate sex spaces in the Equality Act. Plus, it would put the Regulations at odds with the single and separate sex provisions in the Equality Act which would lead to absurd results - particularly if the same facilities are used by customers."

ChatGPT makes shit up. Not a reliable source in the slightest

Irwin Mitchell are a reputable law firm though?

And a certain Commissioner of the EHRC seemed to approve of it (see image attached)

https://x.com/akuareindorf/status/1924420172833534273

I'm probably wrong in that case - I'm just going by my memory, which can be faulty!

But the text of the GRA also does not require surgery, though it does mention it. So it was already accepted by then that surgery couldn't be a precondition.

It probably seemed a non-issue when the GRA was sold as something for people who had either had surgery or were on the surgical pathway. Later social developments have undermined that.

These were excellent.

So it was already accepted by then that surgery couldn't be a precondition.

Don't think you can conclude that - the activists involved in lobbying for the law wouldn't have wanted it to be a precondition. And as you say, for the non-activists involved, they probably thought it was a non-issue.

They probably didn't have to reach the certainty of "it couldn't be a precondition". Hard to say if they even considered whether it would be a problem.