Houses of Parliament refuses to ban trans women from female lavatories

[IwantToRetire]

A spokesman told The Telegraph that the House of Commons would be waiting for guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission before changing its rules.

He said they wanted to ensure that all are treated in an “inclusive manner”. The House of Lords said it would be adopting a similar approach.

“Like many organisations, we are awaiting full guidance from the EHRC on this issue.

“However, in advance of that we are reviewing the facilities that are available on the estate and providing support to colleagues where needed. We are committed to treating all those who work in or visit Parliament with respect, and in an inclusive manner.”

Asked why the Commons had decided not to follow the EHRC’s interim guidance, the spokesman said there was no comment.

A spokesman for the House of Lords said the Upper House was “taking a similar approach to the House of Commons”.

From a much longer article at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/05/20/houses-of-parliament-refuse-ban-trans-women-female-toilets/

Can also be read in full at https://archive.is/0jQK3

It's interesting that someone who is happy to misrepresent regulations and surveys is also trying to say that there's no value in raising awareness of our rights on MN.

I might not organise anything big, but thanks to women here I've been able to calmly and factually challenge changes in my workplace (10k people impacted) and at my children's schools (another 1k impacted) to assert the right of women and girls to single sex spaces.

Beyond that, thanks to the continuous hard work of @keeptoiletssafe I have also started advocating for much safer designs of toilets that take into account people with health needs and illustrate how single cubicles are not the panacea they are believed to be. Even if she wasn't doing anything else other than posting on MN, she has directly helped my daughter and her school friends.

Since you work on initiatives around creating single sex spaces, you must be very familiar with Part T of building regs, which I went into in detail at

MarieDeGournay · Today 09:40

and briefly referred to Part T again at
MarieDeGournay · Today 13:22

highlighting the bit that clearly says that single sex toilets are a requirement.

How do you interpret Part T when working on initiatives around creating single sex spaces?

🥲thank you

(P.s. I am doing some stuff off mumsnet I hope will lead to safety changes)

I can fully believe it. I always take the time to read your posts as they're so well referenced and clear.

I just get frustrated at this sneery attitude to women taking steps in their own small way, as though that can't also have a very real impact on the lives of hundreds of people.

Wow, ok, just read Olive‘s latest contributions. Yet again I’m left wondering, what do such posters hope to achieve? The claims of esoteric professional insight sit comically awkwardly alongside the absurd generalisations, activist soundbites & personal insults. It would (ok, may!) at least be more convincing to commit to just one persona & approach.

Oh it's you again, who does actual real life work on this stuff importantly and knows all about it, unlike us silly mummies who just chat about it ineffectually in between changing nappies and doing our nails.

And yet oddly despite being so informed and important you still don't seem to be able to grasp that a facility marked for women and transwomen is illegally discriminating against men who know they're men.

Women from here just got the highest court in the land to rule that sex means biological sex. Which is strange behaviour from women, who apparently just talk shit on MN and don't care about this stuff and don't actually do anything .

Didn’t the women of Sex Matters get together on MN originally? I mean, if women really didn’t care we would have self Id now, and the SC ruling would never have happened. It’s EXACTLY because most women do not want men in women’s single sex spaces that anything has moved forward.
The thing about women is they are really bloody good at organising… even when it’s on a small scale, even when it’s just writing a letter, or donating to a legal case, or doing research.
All those small actions, when multiplied of thousands add up.
And I’m pretty sure you CAN’T have a toilet for Women and Transwomen because isn’t that discriminatory towards other men?

One relevant bit is para 221, where they conclude that the bit of the act that talks about excluding trans ppl from single sex services is referring to trans people of the same bio sex as the service, even though the explanatory notes said something different.

From my memory it doesn't set it out in so many words, but it runs through the whole thing. Once you realise that you have to mentally replace the word 'woman' with 'biological woman', and sex with 'bio sex', wherever it appears in the act, then it becomes clear. A single biological sex space is lawful only if it serves a legitimate aim, and it is proportionate to exclude the opposite biological sex to achieve that. If you then allow in some of the opposite biological sex anyway, your defence of it serving a legitimate aim has disappeared in a puff of logic.

The fact it doesn't say 'you must exclude all bio males if you provide a female only service' has led to the water muddying, but I think it's clear really.

In venn diagram terms, the circles for biological women (aka “women”) and biological men (aka “men” of which transwomen are a subset), do not intersect. A simple drawing might help those struggling with the single sex definitions.

Incidentally @MyOliveHelper, if I have a colleague who I believe to be male persistently uses the women's loos and I complain to management, I don't have to prove that they are male: they have to prove that they are female and and are entitled to use the women's loos. Good luck to them going to an ET over it. They would just have to prove it in court.

Trying to be tricky and clever isnt going to change reality.

So why do you keep doing it?

Before the early 19th century women just wore underskirts. They didnt have bloomers or knickers. Bloomer type things were invented in the regency period. So it depends when it was set.

Soz if already posted elsewhere. Labour party has cancelled it's women's conference in light of the supreme court ruling

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/may/20/labour-to-cancel-its-womens-conference-after-supreme-court-gender-ruling

The timing of that, Arabella, was fricking genius!

I haven't stopped laughing

MyOliveHelper

I think you need to get out of your echo chamber.

It may interest you to know that the women who got the Supreme Court to clarify the law met on Mumsnet, Maya Fostarter, of the Forstarter judgement and Sex Matters, was 'radicalised by Mumsnet', Man Friday - Mumsnetters Keep Prisons Single Sex a Mumsnetter, Transwidows Voices, a Mumsnetter, Safe Schools Alliance, Mumsnetters.

Which, I'm sure you'll agree, makes your claim that women aren't doing anything about it absolutely ludicrous.

Women are, they have, and you and everyone else have to abide by the law.

And no, that doesn't mean you can breach the equality act by having discriminatory spaces, but only verbally!!

'We only said out loud that it was for women and transwomen, your honour, we didn't akcherly write it down' is, I can promise you, not much of a defence.

Still making me laugh.

I think all these men are just awash with probles

🤣

It serves to benefit organisations who make money and get publicity/exposure from the ambiguity, such as from dubious legal advice and dubious training.

Yes. It's not kind, it's torture. They're entirely self-serving.

Interesting article in the Times today

Unions and bosses are flouting trans ruling

https://www.thetimes.com/article/0b9329fd-7c6b-45c8-9217-9f8e24cdcdf3?shareToken=bdfb2ed94386f81132c4b4f4d3860378

Well this will take about five minutes before someone in opposition decides to make this an issue.

The Labour get to say 'oh well it's not our fault, it was the nasty Tories that made us enforce the law'.

"I'm really shit at my job, and risk getting my employer/organisation sued"

Fab. Thanks for admitting it.

YouGov on gender neutral toilets:
yougov.co.uk/topics/society/trackers/support-for-separate-toilets-for-men-and-women-and-gender-neutral-toilets-in-public-spaces

@BeizenderKarneval Have you re-read the SC ruling yet, especially the parts pointed out to you by a PP? Care to comment?

Otherwise a bit frustrating for you to ask a question, be given an answer, ignore it, and continue to post on the thread.

I think there's a German word for this. Zeitverschwender.

I wonder what 'working on initiatives around single sex toilets' actually is?

Removing them, it sounds like