Good Law Project and Virgin Active

[Justme56]

Tweets about this keep appearing on my X thread (unfortunately). I can’t see how they can say that VA are not following the law as the law allows for single sex spaces when justified. Obviously changing rooms are an example where it’s obvious that males changing in female spaces is a problem. Just because they don’t like the policy doesn’t mean it is not legal. Am I missing something or are they just lying?

goodlawproject.org/virgin-active-caves-in-to-transphobic-threats/

You're not missing anything. GLP are liars.

They're idiots

Just because they don’t like the policy doesn’t mean it is not legal.

There is a reason the GLP have such an astounding win rate when they get to court.

You may think it obvious, @Justme56, that men being in female changing rooms is a problem but you think that because you are a sensible, rational person.

Unfortunately not everyone is.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if GLP actually took VA to court? I would look forward to watching that case.

Could VA take the GLP to court?

Aren't these posters libellous?

I saw GLP described as The Good Laugh Project on X, and now can't think of them as anything else.

GLP:

"But the Supreme Court never said that trans people can’t use the bathroom of their choice. The law hasn’t changed. The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s guidance is just that: guidance. Virgin Active is not following the law, it’s following transphobes."

I am sure that the Supreme Court judgement said nothing about bathrooms in their judgement and I am also sure that you can't have a bath in a Virgin Active gym, but the judgement was quite clear about who must be excluded from single sex services.

Are they trying to argue that the Supreme Court judgement only applied to boards?

Or are they just trying to goad Virgin Active into suing them so that they can spend some money on legal fees?

GLP website says:
the Supreme Court judgment doesn’t force businesses to rip up their policies on changing rooms or toilets.

IANAL, but I imagine that this is twisting the point that businesses don't have to offer single- or separate-sex spaces.
However, if they label a sex-affected space 'women' then it must be for biological women only.
Businesses cannot offer a space for women & TW because that discriminates against all the men excluded.
Not offering a sex-affected space for women could lead to discrimination and/or harassment claims.

What do the GLP actually think the law says? It couldn't be any clearer that they are talking about sex not gender.

It'd be over very quickly, and Jolly not being a barrister anymore would mean you'd not get to see him properly handed his arse in court. Sad times.

I think that at this point the plan with all these TRA organisations is to try to force as many businesses as they can to hold out against the Law, in the hope that a weak government will change the Law rather than enforce it.

"But the Supreme Court never said that trans people can’t use the bathroom of their choice. The law hasn’t changed. The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s guidance is just that: guidance. Virgin Active is not following the law, it’s following transphobes."

It's an argument of the same semantic strength as "evolution is just a theory, so not proved," so tiresome to try and deliberately misunderstand wording.

I hope they do take them to court, so the reasoning outlined by @MurkyWeather2 above can be hammered home to these people, with full legal force.

I fear it will be a few more court cases going our way before they get the message, unfortunately.

"But the Supreme Court never said that trans people can’t use the bathroom of their choice. The law hasn’t changed. The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s guidance is just that: guidance......"

That level of stupid is deliberate, that's not caused because someone was born with only 2 braincells, it's a lie, with malicious aforethought.

That's why we need wins in each sector: private, public, employment, services. Within the public sector there is the NHS of course, but schools is the one that worries me. If we don't get this out of schools (and HE) we'll be fighting for several more generations.

This is one to watch for toilets (I came across this because an Australian poster on another thread was going on about the lack of problems in toilets for women so I looked up his area)!

https://www.carbonelawyers.com.au/case-files/nurses-doctors-could-receive-big-payouts-from-melbourne-hospitals-after-they-were-allegedly-filmed-in-toilets/

Big payouts mean businesses want to prevent more payouts in the future.

GLP want people to email Virgin Active protesting re their changing room policy.

I am thinking instead of emailing VA to thank them for their lawful policy and CC’ing GLP. Only thing stopping me is I don’t want GLP knowing my email address.

Is there any description anywhere of the type of toilets he did this in? Single-sex, gender neutral, cubicles, floor-to- ceiling etc?

I was amused to come across a post by someone calling themselves 'Protect-the-dollz' on this Reddit thread https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1nvgvz1/leonardo_uk_woman_used_secret_toilet_due_to_trans/ detailing why they didn't trust the GLP at all, and were cancelling their fairly substantial monthly standing order.
Even more amusing, another contributer then accused the poster of being a "gender critical infiltrator". Who knows...

There so much stuff that goes on in the UK that I don’t tend to look at Australia so I don’t know what their toilet regs and designs are. What caught my interest is that this may cost several hospitals lots of money so it will be interesting to see how this develops. It was happening for years.

He said the alleged offending was on such a large scale that it raised questions about whether the management of the hospitals had sufficient safety measures in place to protect their female staff against such behaviour.

This seems to be the basis of the claim against the hospitals. I agree, it will be interesting to watch developments.

There are a lot of women distressed according to reports, so it appears he has targeted a lot of female medical staff. Horrible man. They should have caught him much earlier.

IANAL, but I imagine that this is twisting the point that businesses don't have to offer single- or separate-sex spaces.

No, they don't. A gym would be allowed - I believe - to only offer mixed sex facilities to their customers. Mind, I doubt they'd have many customers other than pervy men hoping for an eyeful so they wouldn't be around for long.

Couldn't he just identify as a barrister?