Respond to the EHRC Consultation; Sex Matters Guidance is out. Deadline is 30th June

[MsGoodenough]

Apologies if there's a thread already but I couldn't see one. It's incredibly important that lots of people who understand sex respond to the consultation as there will be lots of responses from the other side! Sex Matters have issued guidance here

This could be a place to discuss our responses as well. Deadline Monday 30th June.

The consultation was an advert for how using 'preferred pronouns' obfuscates and makes everything less clear, less easy, and much more difficult to apply safeguarding. There IS no clarity of communication if you're upending centuries old rules of English grammar. (for a tiny group of blokes who somehow have got inconceivable power over the public sector and have risen above the other 99.999% of the population in importance).

Quote from ASLEF response:

A train driver insisted they were not transgender but “just ugly” when challenged by colleagues after the Supreme Court ruling on gender.
The unnamed driver made the remark following April’s ruling, in which the highest judges in the country said “sex” in equality law refers to biological sex.

The “just ugly” comment was quoted in a submission made by Aslef, the train drivers’ trade union, to an Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) consultation.

In its submission, Aslef said: “Since the ruling, there have been examples of our members being questioned about their biological sex by colleagues to the level where one member felt the need to explain to their colleagues that ‘they are just ugly’.

“We are seriously concerned that similar situations may arise where women in particular are queried about their biological sex to the extent that a birth certificate may be requested and the certificate itself even then queried further.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/09/im-just-ugly-not-trans-train-driver-told-colleagues/ https://archive.is/ey3Cn

@IwantToRetire Yes, it is a shame it has come to this. The problem is the number of TIM who are saying they won't follow the law.

If men could be trusted to stay out of women's spaces we wouldn't have these situations.

You could not make that shit up!!

FIRST DRAFT

"Train Drivers Lose Sleep over Feminists Attack on Ugly Women!"

The Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) is concerned that some female train drivers are so ugly that their male colleagues think they are men. This is because selfish feminists do not want to get undressed in front of men.

Only 6.5% of train drivers in England, Scotland and Wales are women. This is because selfish feminists make women think that if they become train drivers that their male colleagues will think they are men and they will have to get their tits out for the lads to prove that they are women. Or possibly flash a bit of pussy.

(That's great but can you make it sound like a professor wrote it? Ed.)

I've said it before but I think lots of responses from TRAs is good for us. They will demonstrate to what lengths people go to misinterpret the law, which will encourage the EHRC to make the guidance clearer.

Same! All my own words, but made the point that I did agree with the Sex Matters response and that it expressed the legal realities well once more.

Seriously! The EHRC cannot provide guidance based on the final interpretation of the Supreme Court because there are none or more female train drivers who are so ugly that their female co-workers think that they are men?

Do me a fucking favour! Even Picasso would have blushed at this stretch of surrealism.

I am now wondering whether this is a tactic by TRAs.

Just writing really stupid stuff and thinking it will make the EHRC change their minds or something.

ie still the same old blanket refusal to accept that women's sex based rights have been confirmed by the Supreme Court.

I wonder if there has every been another Supreme Court ruling where so many people have said, we dont care what the court says. We will go on breaking the law.

ASLEF's story sounds highly improbable. And their argument far fetched. "We can't keep men out of women's changing rooms because some of our drivers who totally aren't TRAs making a point are misogynists who think a woman isn't a woman if she's not pretty."

Why do you think it's so improbably? Misgendering happens to cis women too, quite a lot, and happened before this recent wave of transphobia which enabled men to police women more.

Even your own mumsnet locals are getting missgendered by other mumsnet users lol, check the transphobic dating app threat, one mumsnet user just got denied access for looking trans.

This will keep happening, and you lot are cheering giving men bigger and bigger mandate to harass women, cis or trans, and those are the consequences of it. More os as there is no way to prove that you are cis and not trans, and clearly you lot CANNOT "always tell" despite repeating it like an evening prayer.

Welcome to what you lot are cheering for.

A bigger mandate than telling men they can go into any women's spaces on saying some magic words? Doubt it very much.

Also doubt that this will happen that often, or that it won't be sorted instantly after more than a casual glance.

Sorry to disappoint you and all, but the answer isn't going to be 'ok, let all the men back in then'.

As you see this case was not sorted, and people here jump to mock the poor cis woman suffering. But I guess no sacrifice is too big to not be made at the shrine of transphobia, including giving men mandate to police which woman is allowed to use a bathroom, all they got to then say is the magic phrase: "I thought she was trans" and they won't be in trouble, by EHRC proposed code of practice.

I am sure this will stop all the cis male rapists in their tracks, as those harassing men will now prowl the bathrooms and defend us.

Feminism by mumsnet.

@AidaP One person, who wasn't upset - did you see the at the end? It is because of people like you who don't respect boundaries that these extra checks are needed.

Exactly, but Aida loves to blame feminists.

What extra checks? That's the whole point, all the proposed code of practice does is enable harassment of women, by women and men, but offers no actual protections. Just endless doubt of "am I going to be misgendered/harassed today" with no way to actually prove that yes, you are a cis woman because, once again, the people you consider as "needing protection from" aka transgender people, have the correct sex in their documents - which for trans women is F. Just like you.

There is NOTHING in CoP by EHRC that protects you from harassment, just tons of ways that gives abusers an excuse to harass within the law.

That is a poor point made well.

A TW sex is male not female.

Yes TW shouldn't have incorrect sex information on their documents if they are going to use it to enter biological female spaces.

So I guess the next step will be to revoke that poorly thought out idea. Why not have a certificate that says sex M gender TW?

“A train driver insisted they were not transgender but “just ugly” when challenged by colleagues after the Supreme Court ruling on gender”

Bearing in mind the fact that these men lie and claim they are women, claiming they are ugly and not transgender may well be just another lie. It seems stunningly unlikely that this argument would be used however as many men, when challenged, have started to claim they’re intersex. Not one has claimed they were ugly as they all seem to think they’re stunners.

I guess a woman might have said it, tongue in cheek - its implication that men who claim they’re women are generally ugly is definitely transphobic though! 😂

Presumably this would then be down to management to sort out because that is their job. What does make their job more difficult is that men can now have a considerable number of documents that also lie, and that is the government’s fault, so closing those loopholes ought to be a priority.

Good luck with that, until something like that happens, you have just given a big mandate to abusers. In narrative of mumsnet (which is not true but lets roll with it) at least before the abusive man would have to then pretend to be trans, now they just can go with impunity and as long as they say "I thought they were trans" get away with it.

They can actually very intentionally call themselves "toilet police" and just put two burly dudes in front of womans toilet for "protection of women" and bother every single one to ensure that they are "biological", without a way to actually prove or disprove it by law.

Congratulations on having your transphobia used to erode women rights even further and give men massive mandate for abuse. Hope it's worth it for you!

@AidaP You do talk a load of rubbish don't you? We need men to police themselves not us. Why do you keep blaming women for the actions of men?

Oh oh oh i know <waves hand> it’s because Aida is a massive misogynist

The Toilet Police are not required if men in frocks kept he fuck out of the Ladies. If there hadn't been so many TRAs proudly declaring the they will defy the Supreme Court clarification of the law & intruding into female single sex spaces.

This situation has come about because of men like you pretending to be women and insisting on barging their way into women-only spaces.

The solution is for men like you to stop behaving like unpleasant, offensive and entitled males and use the correct spaces for your sex. All we're asking for is for trans identifying males to behave like decent human beings and respectable members of society. Is that really too much to ask?

'Toilet policing' is only required if there are large numbers of men trying to get into the ladies'. That's your fault, not ours.

The problem for TRA is that they've changed the justification for being in the wrong single sex spaces over time.

It used to be that they looked their desired sex, they acted appropriately and they were a very small minority. And women had the right to challenge them.

Then they decided it was their right to be there, there is no need to look like the desired sex and the more the merrier. They shamed women for challenging them.

Clarification of the law has prove that they they have no right to be there, regardless of how they look and how they behave. Basically, they over reached and it backfired.

Obviously, law abiding men will stay out, but some arent law abiding, they are self obsessed and want to push boundaries. There's nothing special about men with gender who act like this - they are like every other abusive man.

This is what these men are angry about - they look at their community and realise they arent women, not even close. Everyone can tell, and everyone will call out their abusive behavior, just like they will when any other man does it.

Yup. Shatters the fourth wall.

How does the saying go? They hate us cos they ain't us.

There is no such thing as a 'cis' woman, except in your imagination.
Any male in a women only space is harassing women. Sex is biological.

Most decent men stay out of women only spaces, it is the men that persist with trying to force access that are the issue.