Good Law Project's latest claim - fact check?

[teawamutu]

I'm sure there must be some arrant bollocks in here somewhere, because Jolyon.

But is there anything worrying in this?

goodlawproject.org/ehrc-backs-down-on-single-sex-toilets/

No they don’t. In Equality law you need a comparator.

No sex discrimination if sex cannot be defined in law.

At least you got some interaction 😂. I have been trying to get any discussion going about safety.

Tandora has ignored several of my attempts to engage so I am not wasting more time.

Hopefully Tandora will signpost to this thread so people can see for themselves.

In the meantime, Tandora familiarise yourself with Document T (2024) and the DfE School Specific Briefs (if you are in England).

Wishing you the best with your little one, Tandora.

Not only that, if sex cannot be defined in law, neither can the protected characteristics of sexual orientation or gender reassignment.

Because it’s treating them as if they are not trans. Mandating this in law in fact. this is actual legal erasure - nothing like the non effect on the women/ girls caused by expanding language to recognise minority forms of diversity.

Wishing you the best with your little one, Tandora.

thank you.

I’ll take a look at those documents,

I understand that you may be finding the going tough, but don't take it out on me, Tandora, I've engaged in the kind of reasonable discussion you said you wanted - exchanges of opinion, presentation of facts, links to resources, no name calling, and this is your response - 'victim posturing'? 'privileged mob'?
All because I asked why you called me 'you people'? A bit OTT, isn't it?

The fact that they are trans isn't relevant. Because we have toilets for male and female people, not for trans people and everyone else.

How do you treat someone as trans? Is that by enforced pronouns?

The point of the equality act is to ensure no discrimination except in certain legally allowed situations so people who have or are going to have their gender reassigned can not be refused on those grounds. That acknowledgement of their trans status is all that is required.

Transwomen are not banned from single sex facilities because they are trans but because they are male.

You still haven’t explained the grounds for excluding anyone from the category ‘women’.

You don't seem to have understood that if gender is self identified, there is no concept of ‘pretending’.

We know this because this has been the policy in prisons.

No they won't, because they won't actually exist in law.

The only thing that will exist is an entirely meaningless category made up of most women except the ones who naively believe they can opt out of womanhood, plus any man who wants to be included.

What is the point of that, as a category?

Alright I apologise if I erroneously lumped you in with the rest, and that caused me to be unnecessarily rude. I’ll try to do better.

This isn't "backing down" it's already entirely normal - if toilets are floor-to-ceiling enclosed single-occuplier rooms with handwashing and drying in the room, those can be unisex. There's usually no problem with providing only single-occuplier rooms like that with no single-sex rooms. There are some contexts where these are unwise eg in schools where bullying or inappropriate sexual activities would be more likely in a fully enclosed room.

Multi-user rooms containing cubicles must be single-sex and that is based on biological sex only. Businesses can't stick a "unisex" label on a larger room like this.

If the new guidance doesn't make this clear then it's quite right it should do so more explicitly.

If the new guidance doesn't make this clear then it's quite right it should do so more explicitly.

right.

Apology accepted ,thank you Tandora.

I don't mind being 'lumped in' with most of the rest, though, who have on the whole been putting forward opinions in a reasonable way.

How? They are still trans if that is how they identify.

There is no legislation that can change their sex, and there never has been.

I’m going to stop arguing now as we are going round in circles. I think you have misunderstood some key legal concepts, and are likely to be disappointed by Jolyon Maugham’s campaigning.

If you really want to help trans people I suggest you read the reasons for the SC judgement, think about why women need rights (I always recommend Call the Midwife for this) and try to support trans people as trans people, instead of insisting that their happiness is dependent on others believing something impossible.

Exactly. This shows a poor understanding of what being trans is - it's identifying as trans.

And presumably they reject the description of 'someone whose gender identity is different from their sex', because Tandora believes they are the same thing, based on the repeated posts with constant conflation of the two and saying it's 'mind games' to differentiate them.

With this 'people can falsely claim to be trans' and sex/gender confusion they can't believe they're advocating for trans people?

If the guidance stays as it is and is passed in law, the result we be very few services left designated specifically for women.

Yes - assuming you are using 'women' here to mean 'person of either sex' then it's likely there will be less of those 'mixed-sex, single-gender' spaces and more spaces specifically for females.

If you're using 'women' to mean 'female' as per the SC judgment then I disagree with you, but it's hard to work out what it is you're even saying because you are refuse to articulate what it is you mean when you say 'women'.

Also please think about the implications of not having door gaps compared to having door gaps in public toilets. The latter designs have to be single sex. BUT as soon as there is ambiguity, even the single sex ones become private.

I know you won’t engage with me on my longer 15.00 post on why we need single sex toilets, but perhaps you will read it after considering this picture.

This is about everyone being safe at their most vulnerable.

This is why I became involved in toilet safety.

Someone does “identify as trans”, they are trans.

When I started looking at toilet safety, I researched why gaps were not recommended in the designs for people with long term health conditions. I found out the government commissioned report for part M of building regs for document T. It didn’t look at the conditions of diabetes, epilepsy, heart failure, strokes (apart from handrails), COPD etc. These conditions affect millions altogether, and are the conditions where collapse is more probable.

However, and this came as a surprise to me, what was mentioned as evidence to enclose toilets in design for people with long term health conditions was from transactivist campaigners. The specific quote was: ‘A better solution, supported by many trans activists, and increasingly found in trendy urban nightclubs and restaurants, is to eliminate gender- segregated facilities entirely and treat the public restroom as one single open space with fully enclosed stalls.’ The report went on to talk about gender at length including non-binary crotch heights. The company won a Stonewall Award.

Thats the uncomfortable truth. The company should have stuck to their remit and thought about a life saving design feature for those they should have been studying.

This above was for public toilets. School toilets are under a different set of guidelines from the DfE. Which are worse.

Of course they are trans, but trans only affects gender, and sex and gender are two different attributes. When facilities are split into two and only two options corresponding to the two sexes, trans people are included within their sex, and those single-sex facilities should generally be fully inclusive of all genders for anyone of that sex - there's no reason at all for a male loo not to be inclusive and safe for transwomen. If it's safe to send in my 13 year old son who is too old to accompany me into the ladies then it's safe for a transwoman too. If it's not safe then you need to tackle the reasons for that, not remove the female-only spaces.

As we agreed in other posts on this thread, it's not required that provision must be split into two and only options corresponding to two sexes, and organisations may prefer to have a wider variety of options, but single sex facilities cannot reasonably be simultaneously for a specific sex and also allowing people of the opposite sex with a trans identity to use them. They would then be mixed sex.

Forcing them into their “birth sex category” in tge allocation of rights and services is preventing them from living as a trans person. It’s equivalent to criminalising gay sex and then saying it’s not discrimination/ erasure as a person is still gay if that’s how they identify.

Of course they are trans, but trans only affects gender

arch people are in such a muddle.

That is simply not true. It is impossible to be a transwoman without being male. It is impossible to be a transman without being female. "Birth Sex Category" isn't a thing. There is sex, which doesn't change, and gender, which evolves later according to how much sexism you get laden with, and can be anything. If a service is provided on a single-sex basis to males and females then the male people in the male sex section can be of any gender. If people on the TRA side are pretending that this is forcing transwomen to not be trans, that's deliberately disingenuous propaganda.

The judgment, which you evidently didn't follow, was not "poor". It was thorough and considered in great detail by five respected legal minds.

LGB people are not the same a trans people simply because they don’t need medical, cosmetic or clothing paraphernalia to identify themselves.

the only thing LGB need is an acknowledgement of biological sex, because they are same sex attracted.

Without a definition of biological sex, as a protected characteristic, Lesbians, bisexuals and gay men’s right would be erased.

What say you to that @Tandora