Hundreds of firms warn new guidance on single sex spaces is ‘unworkable’ and would cause ‘significant economic harm’

[IwantToRetire]

More than 650 organisations have urged Bridget Phillipson to ‘take immediate action to prevent these proposals from moving forward’

“We, the undersigned businesses and organisations, are writing to express our deep concern at proposals seeking to enforce blanket, mandatory exclusion of trans people from gendered spaces and services.

“The proposals made in the EHRC’s draft Code of Practice under the Equality Act would have serious and far-reaching consequences for UK businesses, our employees, and our customers.

“Many of us have spent years building inclusive environments where all customers and staff feel safe and welcome. These proposals would tell us to act in ways that directly contradict those commitments; undermining trust, damaging reputations, and risking the loss of valued staff and customers.”

They also express concern that the proposals would put them at “constant risk of complaints and litigation from multiple directions”, as well as forcing “business staff into the unacceptable role of ‘gender police’”.

“Such practices are not only deeply invasive, but likely impossible to implement without breaching Article 8 of The Human Rights Act, which protects rights to privacy, and risking discriminating against valued trans customers and colleagues”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/supreme-court-trans-single-sex-spaces-b2826924.html

So women's rights are less important than commercial compliance.

This, why should tax payers give money to businesses who buy or build premises that fail to comply with the law?

Oh thank goodness. I’ve never been able to afford fold clothing but I have a dream that one day I might and now that can remain!

Fucking hell.

Spain the feminist utopia, huh.

Thanks to the person who debunked the 'all Spanish toilets are unisex' business. I have a number of relatives living in Spain & no-one's mentioned it. Like many sexist cultures trying to show they're woke, Spain has self-ID, but a lot of Spain is deeply conservative. I can't imagine cafes in tiny villages in the country merging the Mens and Ladies because of some activists in Madrid.

Back here, 650 businesses is a tiny number & they can install single room unisex toilets if there's a real problem. Unless the pressure is from certain individuals who don't just want to pee, but want to pee in a toilet that has a 'Ladies' sign on the door.

Would you rather see women and girls raped and assaulted in their safe sapces.

Give your head a wobble.

You may wish to read the conversations with MyPinkTraybake @ Yesterday 23:37

The State has the option to enforce H&S legislation rather than pay for betterment of private businesses

No, I expect the government to fine businesses that do not comply with the law.

No one new that I need to boycott. Good to know.

If only they'd had the same doubts and concerns when they were merrily letting men in women's toilets. Now that really is unworkable.

Quite.

All very eager to make accommodations when it's to please men. But suddenly it's all too complicate and difficult when it's about protecting women's rights. 🤔

Not to mention how upsetting it is for men to have hurty feelz if they have to use the correct facilities.

And nobody gives a shit about women’s feelings, but this is no way a men’s rights movement. Nope, not at all.

Not really. For decades, despite the morality of abolishing slavery being agreed by all, it got tricky when a lot of very very very very very very very wealthy people ( who ran the country) realised how much it would cost them.

Ultimately slavery in Britain was only abolished when the taxpayer compensated the slaveowners for their losses.

When you know that, you start to understand why things are as the are today.

Now we hear another siren whine which boils down to "it would cost to much to do the correct thing (so let's not bother)". Probably a record in the whining industry in that it's entered the charts every single decade since 1810.

Tax payers will be funding public sector premises e.g. NHS, Schools, Civil Service, Police, Fire Service, Council etc.

The question is how many actually converted to properly unisex/ gender neutral facilities and how many either just changed the signage or had a policy of using the facilities that match your “gender”?

NHSF clearly has Women’s changing room and an unwritten policy of using facilities that match your “gender” so very cheap to publish a policy of use facilities based on biological sex.

It's great that we're all venting our feelings here about The 650's letter to Bridget Phillipson, but I hope these feelings will also been sent in writing to BP to counteract The 650.

In particular, it would be good to point out the nature and number of the businesses - not exactly stellar😒- and that 'inclusivity' should include women, in case her staff are doing that Squirrels-on-Red-Bull thing , running around saying 'OMG! Businesses going bust! Six flipping hundred and fifty of them! Inflation! Growth! We're all doomed, doomed! Let the lovely lovely transwomen pee wherever they want, Minister, or the economy is doomed, I tell you, DOOMED!'

I'm sorry if I have misrepresented and disrespected the process by which Minsters are advised by their highly professional and completely non-Sciuridae staff😁

Indeed.

For the public funded staff who may have commissioned actual build works and subcontractors who build buildings which do not comply the question becomes one of professional competency.

Building regs and legislation are the collective professional knowledge. Grenfell (per the other poster) is a "classic" example of individual staff and businesses and the LA not understanding the importance of following the rules.

The toilet provision is clear single sex blocks or individual units.

Using taxpayers' money to pay businesses to stop breaking the law is hardly an incentive to other businesses not to break the law in the first place, is it?

Indeed.

In any case, it's not so much of a question of building regs, but of compliance.

Either a toilet meets the legal requirements to be classified as a unisex toilet or it doesn't.

All you need is a procedure for staff to whistleblow and have an inspector visit the building and say, "No, these toilets need to be single sex so you have to change your signage to reflect that. If you feel you need unisex facilities for trans people then feel free to build them at your own expense."

And actually this would help show which of these woke businesses are willing to put their money where their mouth is. Yes, you bang on about inclusiveness but are you actually willing to spend the money to install special toilets for able bodied people who just don't want to use the toilets that correspond to their sex?

If your male staff toilets are so awful that some men don't feel safe using them, isn't that a problem with your male staff? I don't think admitting that some of your workers are so virulently anti-trans that it's not safe for trans people to be around them in private is quite the angle these companies should be going for.

If business break the law, they get prosecuted.

Simples.

In reality they don't believe their trans employees will come to any harm at all using the correct toilets, and they only know that only complete dimwits who won't follow that thought through to its logical conclusion believe it is true.

"It's not safe" is just polite code for "they don't want to and they shouldn't have to because they are special and they matter more than women".

Do they? Who prosecutes them? How do they find out about it? How many businesses who have been breaking the law on single sex spaces have actually been prosecuted?

Aren't those 'maybe I'm trans' badges a little self defeating? Essentially making the same argument that we've been making. Possibly everyone is trans. Fine! Use the toilets for your biological sex. Your transness, or not, is irrelevant.

Borderline Personality Disorder Collective

I suspect “FFS, just let them have what they want otherwise they become even bigger pains in the arse and we just want to make a profit running our business without these distractions” also plays a part.