Good Law Practice launch a EHCR/Supreme Court challenge over toilets

[fromorbit]

After raising over 418K it turns out the GLP's amazing legal case is all about toilets. Details:

https://archive.is/TWRTl

No doubt it will fail like most of their previous legal cases.

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5336208-good-law-project-suing-the-ehrc-and-bridget-phillipson-letter-before-action?page=1

I still sometimes pinch myself that adults, across the board, lawmakers, MPs, captains of industry, charity bosses and medical practitioners are all furious that men aren't allowed in the ladies.

Insanity doesn't begin to cover it.

It also means they aren't taking their moral argument to MPs to change the law which is the correct channel for moral objections to the law rather than being about a technical issue with implementation of the law.

To change the law in the way that would re-enable these men would mean legally destroying protections and equalities for homosexual people, women with trans identities and the 51% of the population who are women. And while I have no doubt many MPs would be fine with that, my misogynist homophobe one would be all for it, it's going to be a bit hard to sell to the public, the HoL and the ECHR.

There is no way to let men do whatever they want at all times and retain other people's rights too. It's one or the other. Reality is a Terf. And when this is challenged, we've heard the wittering here about 'yes but there'd be some kind of magic law that meant I can be kind to angry men and still feel I'm not a horrible person because it's sentenced nurses to strip in front of random men and women to not be able to pee, or use rape crises services or have a female HCP, or not be strip searched by six foot bearded PC Sue Smith'.

No. Alternative realities don't exist.

At least while they're doing this doomed lawfare they're not lobbying MPs. That would be the real danger.

A lot of what's been happening with MPs seems to follow off the back of that Sumption interview after the judgment where, without appearing to have read the judgment, Sumption was confidently holding forth that "well the SC says one may exclude men from a women's single sex space but it doesn't say one must" - which was just Sumption talking out of his back end.

A bunch of Labour MPs seem to be leaning on this and clustering around a position that's very similar to what Stonewall used to tell employers - "of course the law allows for SSE, but the proportionality test for excluding men with special identities should be a super high bar that in practice will almost never be met, so it's best to assume SSE don't exist."

There's going to be quite a lot of resistance in the institutions to following this very clear judgment. That's the big problem. If anything, Jolyon beclowning himself in court is doing us a favour.

Totally.

The depths of normalisation of horrendous misogyny that have meant the media don't even mention women or their rights in all the sobbing about men not having free access to women and their spaces. That when you talk to all these people about Sandie Peggie and the women who had to deal with Edinburgh Rape Crisis, and the strip searches, and the rapes and assaults and exclusions, you get 'well yes, but ITS COMPLICATED' -

the only one that ever matters is the man.

On a binary, sexed basis. Which tells you everything you need to know.

YY I agree. Better to have it spelled out for the hard of thinking or the sneaky back room dealers.

Precisely. But it would still mean they were demanding politicians back their weaselly nonsense and speak about it or lose their political position as being 'trans inclusive' so you end up with the shouting about it at elections which will polarised politics even more. Even though they'll never get what they want passed at this point.

The change of battleground means two things. It becomes increasingly a marginal issue to be ignored by politicians and every lack of success they have will only serve to reinforce the current law for women.

The Liberty ruling yesterday enabled the EHRC to say how essential it was they got their guidance out quickly for the BENEFIT of transpeople. And talk of how much misinformation and misleading information about the rights that never were.

Using a portaloo would be so very outing. Apparently.

TBF, the large toilet trailer units with cubicles and communal handwashing facilities are much nicer than than a portaloo. Plus you get to validate yourself by being in the ladies.

(Download actually clarified that the majority of the loos on site would be unisex, with separate male and female ones provided as well)

Jolyon, the GLP and all who sail with them are convinced there is only one protected characteristic, if they ever stop to acknowledge that there are others those are irrelevant as the one is the only one that matters.

What foxes me is

What is the purpose of even making an application about DRAFT guidance that is being consulted upon.

Logically speaking the correct process is to present their arguments to the EHRC in the consultation process.

And if that does not bear the fruit hoped for then pop off to a JR

Oh wait… garnering lots of fees for fuck all, absolute bastards.

I want to say as well, this is one of the good things about having an unusually hands-off No10 operation.

Central control of Whitehall waxed and waned a bit under the Tories, and reached a peak under Chairman Dom, but generally any big policy had to go through the PM, so you needed the right person having the PM's ear.

I can imagine Boris Johnson having gone totally TRA if not for Nikki da Costa being in the right place at the right time. And I wonder about who persuaded Theresa that self-ID was a low-cost vote winner.

Starmer declared at the start that he wasn't going to do that, he was going to trust his cabinet. Which isn't always a good thing as we can see from studying Rachel Reeves' decisions.

But in the case of rolling back genderwoo, I'd speculate that Starmer being hands off has allowed Streeting, Phillipson and McFadden to stake out a rational position without getting bogged down negotiating with No10 and whoever happens to have Starmer's ear at the moment. Starmer himself is bringing up the rear, which makes sense considering how terrible he's been on the issue.

Facilities being 'nice' isn't really the point being made though is it? The argument is they can't go anywhere because there's no facilities available. Which is a straight up lie.

If your argument is that portaloos aren't as nice and you couldn't possibly use them because they are horrid, you really do show yourself up as over privileged precious wankers.

Personally I prefer other toilets but if I have to use a portaloo I'll use a portaloo. Cos I'm not a twat.

Besides why can't they just piss up the hoardings like all the other blokes who don't wish to use portaloos. They could call it something completely original and never done before; a piss protest or something.

I see what you did there 😉

My point was more that they obviously have the choice of using the toilets for their sex or using the unisex ones, but neither of those gives them the validation they want.

It’s a massive stretch to for the GLP to infer that there’s some kind of urinary leash because they don’t want to use the reasonable adjustments provided for them.

I can't help wishing that the EHCR would deal with the issue at hand, rather than ignoring it because it's not strictly their job.

Something along the lines of this is the guidance. If you wish to say something about it please go through these specific channels, as they are the only ones we can recognise. Anything else will it be disregarded on that basis.

Of course, even that would have to said in three or four different ways for it to sink in.

But it would hold people like Maugham to account.

He can't just spend people's money willy nilly, pointlessly blowing a trumpet and waving a flag. There has some kind of rationale behind it.

Edit: missed the quote I was referring to re why do this before the consultation has finished

Because it tries to sway results by dominating the narrative.

Stonewall did that on the toilet consultation for public toilet building regs (Document T).
Because of that you then get stupid answers like only 2% of respondents believing disabled persons’ toilets should be provided.

https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/toilet-provision-for-men-and-women-call-for-evidence/outcome/toilet-provision-for-men-and-women-call-for-evidence-analysis-of-responses-received

The SC did highlight that the law is 'problematic' for TRA. It may take them time to realise, but they will have no option to lobby MPs for a law change.

And i do believe TRA still have the support of parliament, but not the support of the public in any meaningful way.

So we are back to parliament ignoring all the issues for another ten years, because starmer wouldnt risk allowing Reform a chance to make labour look bonkers. Meanwhile lots of court cases will go ahead because parliament wont clarify anything.

I think you may be right, but this is what I can’t get my head around; humans can’t change sex, so how can a legal right exist for something which doesn’t exist? Surely law can only apply if something is real? If you feel you can change sex then I can feel old? If I feel it’s my right to say I feel older than I am, and if I feel i’m 67, can I now claim it’s my legal right to receive my state pension and retire? And if not why not? How is my self identification of feeling older than my biological age, any different from someone self identifying as different from their biological sex?

And i do believe TRA still have the support of parliament, but not the support of the public in any meaningful way.

I got a YouGov survey yesterday asking about voting history, voting intentions, and what you/friends and family/the British public think of trans people and gay men/lesbians.

I don't know which political party paid for it, but I really hope it's not signalling homosexuals getting caught up in the backlash against straight men in wigs who won't accept women's 'no'.

I suspect they already are @Conxis. There was a discussion on Mumsnet a while ago with various posters saying employers would avoid non-binary people (presumably because toddler tantrums aren’t conducive to productivity). I imagine this applies several times over for trans applicants. Which is, of course, illegal and something the many, well-resourced trans charities should be focusing their attention on. Instead they are putting their energy into objecting to other people having rights.

I'm late to the party, but:

We challenge that in legal terms,” Maugham said, “by pointing to the EHRC’s legal obligation to promote a world which is safe and kind for trans people. After all, it’s all that trans people – and those who love them – want.

Doesn't mean transw always have to be put first and everyone else can go and fuck themselves.

Sorry that was in response to Conxis’s point about employers being put off hiring trans recruits

I'm temperamentally quite moderate on this. I take the Mick Jagger view that, once the trans community accept that they can't always get what they want, we can have a productive discussion about what they need.

For the moment, the trans community seem to prefer Jolyon jumping up and down demanding cutted up pear.

It infuriates me that their are so many men prepared to use any means possible to force women into having to share their single sex spaces with fetishistic men be that themselves or other men. The women who support this just baffle me, low IQ pick me handmaidens seems to be the only explanation. This should never even have been a question no man dress or not should be able to access women's single sex spaces, sports or be able to represent women in any capacity. Sorry but men including those who identify as trans need to get comfortable with the reality of their maleness and divert their energy into normalising men in dresses in the male facilities. The fact they won't do that only proves to me that their is no thrill in that for them, they want to invade women's spaces because it validates them and their fetish, many probably enjoy causing real women discomfort and those that don't just don't care about women at all only their own gratification.

We don’t really have any meaningful data on the level of fetichism within the transvestism cohort.

I think that JM’s recent fundraising successes suggest to me that it is rather a lot.

Apparently penises don't pee without a woman in attendence.

Fgs. I call upon Layla Moran and the other Righteous Women to ceremonially pee in the portaloos so there is the essential woman audience.

I mean it still won't work because the real issue is that non consenting women are being permitted territory this small group of men with issues can't pee on. But it strips more layers off the onion.