Guardian briefing against Baroness Falkner & the EHRC

[GreenUp]

The Guardian's TRA journalists Libby Brooks and Peter Walker have today published two articles briefing against Baroness Falkner and the EHRC.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/26/uk-equality-watchdog-months-sign-off-gender-guidance-mps-fear

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/26/splits-labour-supreme-court-gender-ruling

It's concerning that they are still suggesting Harriet Harman will take over.

Every single person who bring up 'proportionate' is just showing their misogyny at this point. Until 15 years ago everyone basically understood that women's privacy, dignity and safety were a legitimate aim. Then, women's privacy, dignity and safety became transphobic. Now the battle has shifted to implying or outright stating that women need to have a really good reason ( i.e. a reason that seems good enough to a fucking man) to want any man in a dress out of their single sex spaces.

All of our rights are only ours if we can prove cap in hand to any passing man that we really really need them. The new misogyny, just like the old misogyny.

The good reason for having single sex spaces is because we want them.

That is a good enough reason.

If Harman now say that the legislation was was referring to biological sex when drafted, she has kept remarkably silent over the intervening period.
The Labour Party seems to view her as a Women's Rights champion.
But that's the LP for you, utterly tin eared.

Harman, who now chairs a women's rights group, was involved in drafting the Equality Act, and she says today's ruling gives "effect to our intention when drafting it".

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cvgq9ejql39t?page=3

Harman's interpretation was just after the judgment had been handed down when, with her background, she'd have assumed that companies and organisations would follow the law.

She'll now have seen that many of them don't want to do this, including those that in some way lean towards the Labour party, such as the NHS, the education system, the trade unions, certain parts of the media, the arts, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised to see that if the wind changed and seemed to favour the genderists, her recollection would change too.

This is despicable by the Guardian. What it comes down to is this: a number of MPs don't like the ruling, so they're trying to pretend it's "complicated". It's not complicated at all. It's straightforward. They just refuse to believe that sometimes they are on the wrong side of the law. The attempt to smear Baroness Falkner for being "right-wing" when all she is trying to do is give correct guidance based on the Supreme Court judgement is particularly vile.

To be fair, I imagine a lot of things appear genuinely complicated if you are as thick as, say, Nadia Whittome.

When I gave birth unexpectedly at home 2 ambulance crews were sent to me, one for me and one for the baby. 3 women and one man. The man came in and said to me I’m here, but you don’t need me right now and I’m sure you don’t want a man down there when there are three women here, so I’ll just wait over there and if there’s a need for a fourth person I’ll be straight over. I thought that was so considerate and I really appreciated it, in the end he helped my husband collect the things from around the house that I needed to take to hospital.

One Labour MP said: “A lot of lawyers told me it is utterly ridiculous, and the supreme court judgment does not necessarily mean that.”

Jo Moseley, the Irwin Mitchell employment lawyer that provided advice to the retail sector seems to disagree with that Labour MP.

www.theretailbulletin.com/retail-solutions/legal-do-retailers-have-to-provide-single-sex-toilets-and-changing-rooms-for-their-customers-and-staff-19-05-2025/#:~:text=The%20Supreme%20Court%20made%20it,sex%20from%20sex%20segregated%20facilities.

Harman's social media post, on the day of the ruling:

Single sex spaces for women are important & can exclude trans women but only where necessary

is contrary to the actual ruling (and in line with Sumption, Maugham, and RMW).

I note that they never give Falkner her honorific of Baroness. Which comes across as childish and spiteful.

And Roz Savage says: 'If you don’t have a clear idea how you can go to the toilet without potentially getting into a confrontational situation then you’ll just avoid the situation, which is incredibly limiting.' How on earth does she think a woman feels about the possibility of being a public toilet with a bloke?

This section caught my eye: In April, the EHRC released interim, non-statutory advice about how to interpret the ruling, which set out that transgender people should not be allowed to use toilets of the gender they live as, and that in some cases they cannot use toilets of their birth sex.(my bold)
What cases are these?

(In answer to your last sentence. )

It's an exemption (where a single-sex space is justified), from the general rule against perceptive discrimination (the person must still be adequately provided for, even so). It only applies to the rather niche situation of fully passing and not-out trans; rarer than hen's teeth, surely. If such people really exist, they will surely continue to use wrong-sex facilities; how would we stop them?

Thank you.
I agree; that would seem to be a situation so rare as to be almost hypothetical/ philosophical.
As to how we would stop them, I keep thinking about Helen Joyce on Woman's Hour saying that everyone knows what sex they are and that there has until now been a social contract whereby everyone uses the facilities for their sex.

So trans person who doesn’t tell you they are trans is deceiving you?

So trans person who doesn’t tell you they are trans is deceiving you?

If you ask for same sex care, and the person presents themself as the same sex when biologically, they are not, then yes, there are deceiving you.

A transperson who pretends to be a member of the sex which the person has consented to be touched by, when they are not and know they are not, is committing the offence of battery at the least and is knowingly overriding that person's consent.

Michael Foran said, in relation to carers for disabled women who need personal care I think it was, something on the lines of ' if you successfully conceal your sex in order to carry out an act you know that person hasn't consented to, it doesn't make it ok, it makes it worse '

A transperson shopping in Tesco has no need to tell anyone, it doesn't affect anyone, a trans HCP treating a patient needs to have informed consent.

Well, I'm going to contradict myself almost immediately, and say there is a tricky situation already arising, which Helen Joyce's observation doesn't help with. That's one where a trans person is out to their boss but not their colleagues, meaning the boss is now obliged to formally instruct them to do something which will 'out' them. If boss then turns a blind eye to continued wrong-sex toilet use (which might seem like a pragmatic, albeit unacknowledged, solution) they will either be deceiving their other employees or, more likely, forcing them to continue putting up with something they were already unhappy with, but couldn't say so (and still can't, without trans-hunt finger-pointing).

(I know people in HR grappling with this.)

Long term solution, obviously, is for everyone's sex to be known to all.

That's one where a trans person is out to their boss but not their colleagues, meaning the boss is now obliged to formally instruct them to do something which will 'out' them.

I am pretty sure that we are only talking about men. I imagine that in the unlikely event that the man really did pass as a woman, he could carry on and no one would challenge him. But how many do?

I have certainly once at least worked with a butch lesbian - there was absolutely no problem with her using the woman's loos, though at a quick glance she looked quite masculine.

Yes, I've also never heard of a transman who wasn't completely open about it. Transwomen seem much keener on forcing everyone to pretend.

The chance of a transwoman working day in day out with people and those people not knowing that the transwoman is trans, is really extremely small. In real life next to no transpeople pass, especially on prolonged contact -maybe in passing, for a short amount of time, but not day in day out.

And forcing the women who work there to continue to pretend they don't know was never reasonable, and is now blatantly unlawful. The company can handwring but they can't avoid obeying the law.

If you can always tell, there is no deception or assault because you knew the TW was a male?

Do you think sexual assault by deception is some kind of amusing gotcha @PoisedRubyLion?

You think the onus should be on the person who is ill/ in pain/ scared/ incapacitated, to clock that the professional who is meant to be helping them is trying to deceive then, then speak up, and risk being harmed or denied care?

Rather than on the professional to behave with integrity?

I would say that the person should use the toilet for their sex, and everyone else should basically mind their own business as to what the person is wearing and how they present themselves.

Yes, which is why I think Article 8 will be the next battleground. I consider complete openness about both sex and trans status to be best for all, but many self-deluding trans people disagree, hence the ruckus about the Sullivan Report.

Don’t put words in my mouth. We’re not talking about sexual assault by deception which I think is completely abhorrent. We were talking about whether a trans medical practitioner treating someone could be assault.