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.

But you were suggesting that men who 'make an effort' should be allowed into women's spaces? But not men who make an effort but are sex offenders?

How is the woman in the space supposed to know that the bloke in there is a) making an effort and b) not a sex offender or c) is making an effort but is also a sex offender?

None of that makes any odds to the women in the space, they're all men, effort or not, sex offender or not. Stop trying to carve out an exception for men you feel sorry for - they're all men, and if you let one in you let Isla Bryson in there's no way not to.

Actually, it does. This is why the gender recognition certificate exists and why the act makes it a criminal offence to disclose someone’s GRC status. In Goodwin, the European court of human rights found the UK was violating transsexuals right to privacy by not letting them change their birth certificate. This was because they were forced to out themselves every time they needed to use their birth certificate.

HTH

No, it does not.

That is why the Supreme Court has confirmed that trans people, even if they have a magical piece of paper and genuinely believe they are the special unicorn kind of trans person who actually "passes", should not use single sex spaces for members of the opposite sex or do jobs meant for members of the opposite sex.

99.9% of them "out" themselves every time they encounter a person with eyes and ears anyway.

The European Court of Human Rights massively overstepped the boundaries of their own competence by retrospectively interpreting a right for humans to "change sex" into a treaty which was signed about 70 years ago when everyone understood that you can't change sex the same way that you can't change species.

HTH.

Please have a read of this critique of the secrecy aspect of the GRA:

https://thecritic.co.uk/secrets-and-lies/

The Supreme Court made no comment on the privacy aspect of a GRC. They clarified that sex in the equality act is based on sex at birth.

If the trans person the MP spoke about used a neutral toilet, would you have a problem with them keeping their trans status private?

No, that would be fine. Because as long as they are not in a space, service or job for someone of the opposite sex it doesn't matter whether they are male or female, does it?

I would say that if you are in the kind of job that involves touching members of the public, there are certain circumstances in which your job might temporarily become a job for a member of the opposite sex, in which case you need to find someone of the opposite sex to do it instead, for example in a medical or care capacity, or if you need to strip search someone.

The disingenuousness is off the scale.

How often do you use your birth certificate?

The Information Commissioner’s Office has a detailed ... policy about what to do if they receive correspondence from someone with a GRC (the instructions include putting any paper correspondence inside a sealed envelope and marking it “Official Sensitive — Protected Information”, putting that inside another sealed envelope marked “Official — Sensitive”, [and] putting that package into a particular locked filing cabinet ...

Pure comedy gold. Topped off with a sign saying 'beware of the leopard', no doubt.

the act makes it a criminal offence to disclose someone’s GRC status.

Only in a few very limited circumstances.

In Goodwin, the European court of human rights found the UK was violating transsexuals right to privacy by not letting them change their birth certificate.

This is an Article 8 argument: Respect for private and family life. It's worthwhile becoming familiar with it since it will be one of the TA's canards they throw out. The argument goes that: sex can't be disclosed because it's private information under Article 8. But Article 8's presumption of privacy is a qualified right. In particular it's constrained by the following factors:

• national security
• public safety or the economic well-being of the country
• prevention of disorder or crime
• the protection of health or morals
• the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

If you wish to keep your sex private from a service provider, it is incumbent on you to not use single sex services. If you use a single sex service, that service has already been demonstrated a proportionate necessary need (i.e. the equality Act's Requirement's for qualifying a single sex service are more stringent than Article 8) and thus it is automatically justified that your sex be disclosed.

That is: all people have the expected right to privacy, including disclosing their sex, whether they're trans or not. By using a single-sex service you voluntarily waive that right in order to access the service.

Sex Matters elaborates on this:

https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/toilets-and-human-rights/

(Edited due to image failing to post)

And once again, it's worth reminding ourselves that the consequences of Goodwin were completely antidemocratic.

In 1950 the signatory countries to the European Convention on Human Rights all debated and agreed on what human rights should be respected by all member countries. Every country that has acceded to that treaty since has agreed to the principles that are contained within it.

It does not require member countries to have a mechanism for allowing humans to change their legal sex. Not even if you squint really really hard and read between the lines in Swedish.

It's one thing for a supranational court to tell a sovereign country that it needs to uphold rights it agreed to uphold in a treaty that it willingly entered into.

It's quite another thing for a supranational court to just fucking make shit up because it suits the proponents of a currently fashionable ideology and then tell a sovereign country that it needs to uphold these completely imaginary rights that it never agreed to uphold.

Sex change will exist when time-travel back to conception & a scientific swapping of sperm takes place (& creates a whole new person).
Meanwhile, in the workplace example, men pass as men because they're the male of the human species. They cannot discard being male even if they try to stick things on to look like women. They don't pass as women.
E.g.an altered image of Imane may look feminine but he's clearly male in real life.

Of course a trans person can live their live keeping their sex private. They can change the way the government interacts with them by receiving a GRC (for marriage, death certificate etc). They do have to disclose their sex when dealing with healthcare issues as not doing that would be dangerous for them. But if they want to use single sex services and sports, they will have to disclose their sex.

The GRC does not change the way society interacts with trans people. A government can't force non governmental organisations or service providers to acknowledge the GRC in every aspect.
And the government can try to force their own organisations but telling women they have to share changing rooms and toilets with their male coworkers is never going to end well and they basically get sued. Because women actually have rights too and this is where the boundary of article 8 lies.

There is nothing stopping all of the trans allies who put pronouns in their bio from using the gender neutral loos. This is a great way to show solidarity and signals that there are a range of reasons why people use gender neutral facilities rather than single sex ones.

But you seem to be saying that because of your one friend – and one person is the tiniest minority you can get – men who say they're women should be allowed into women's single-sex spaces.

Imagine the level of internalised misogyny you need to have to believe that your one nice male friend trumps the needs of the entire female population.

I know but, as has been mentioned on this thread, there is a definite phenomenon of 'not my Nigel' when it comes to that one absolutely lovely trans person that everybody seems to know who passes and who wouldn't hurt a fly.
I mean, I'm not really doubting that people do know lovely trans people who wouldn't hurt a fly, but you just can't make public policy around an individual.

I feel like quite a few of us have that one person, or more than one person, and we feel bad for them... but we know you can't make public policy based on that one person you like.

And sometimes I feel like saying "I'm sorry the TRA extremists fucked up the social acceptance you relied on, but people in the trans community could have spoken up about that and chose not to."

It's worth pointing out that the article 8 arguments which convinced the ECtHR were not countered by arguments about women's rights, CEDAW etc. The court has not heard and considered legal arguments about how the right of a transexual to keep their sex secret effects the rights of other people, especially in this age when the category includes those with no intention to medically transition, and other case law means that rights cannot be dependent on medical interventions. Thats my understanding anyway. It will be a long hard road but I hope we do see cases in the ECtHR assessing ths issue, because now there are lawyers and feminist campaigners who have been well trained on terf Island to make the arguments. If the GLP/McCloud get a case to the European Court they might end up establishing a supreme court style ruling for all signatory countries. Maybe.

This was a reply to my post linking to a letter by Tony Vaughan MP kc asking for the ehrc interim update to be withdrawn and casting doubt on its legal accuracy.

Yes, I think that's what the SC says though not in so many words. The explanatory notes to the EA gave an example that it had to be legit/proprtionate to exclude a m to f trans person from female only sexual assault group counselling. But the SC say where the notes with the act the act wins out, and the proportionality test is actually to exclude a f to m trans person from a female only service. But it's not written in massive words across the middle of the ruling and this is how Tony vaughan and others are disputing the ehrc reading of the ruling. He quotes sumption in his letters.

I wrote to my mp asking her to support the ehrc in doing this properly even though in the past faulkner & ehrc have been subjected to abuse and efforts to delegitimise. She didn't reply to that bit but agrees with vaughan. I will have to reply and point her to other lawyers who agree with ehrc. I consider this (& my labour mp's small part in it) to be part of the effort against faulkner & ehrc that the guardian reports (& is also part of). I think we need to be telling our mp's if they are involved that this is wrong but it's difficult to know exactly how to put it as a non lawyer. Ultimately the courts will uphold the law but in the mean time the general feel of "this is all unclear" will reign.

The PP you responded to is a good condensed version of section 220 of the judgment. Section 221 includes the following:

...if sex means biological sex, then provided it is proportionate, the female only nature of the service would engage paragraph 27 and would permit the exclusion of all males including males living in the female gender regardless of GRC status. Moreover,
women living in the male gender could also be excluded under paragraph 28 without this
amounting to gender reassignment discrimination. This might be considered
proportionate where reasonable objection is taken to their presence, for example, because [of] ...[their] ...masculine appearance...

I think the naysayers are hanging a lot on the word I have emboldened, and ignoring that 'female only' has only one possible interpretation if sex means biological sex.

Whatever. The lawyers will lawyer, and 'our' lawyers are right. I don't think we'll get any forwarder by arguing with our MPs about it.

What could break the whole thing wide open would be if some clever journalist could get a ministry insider to squeal about the anti-ehrc plotting. Just imagine the headlines.

I think the naysayers are hanging a lot on the word I have emboldened, and ignoring that 'female only' has only one possible interpretation if sex means biological sex.

Yes, I think a lot of MPs will default to the idea that it's ok for female only spaces to exclude men who don't have a special identity, but you need some sort of super high proportionality test to exclude those who do have a special identity.

It would fit with where I think many Labour MPs are at, which is that TW may be excluded in certain very limited cases (prisons, shelters) but generally, expecting spaces advertised as female only to actually be female only is not kind.

So they'll hang on every tiny ambiguity they think they've identified.