Waterside Arts Centre Sale clearly ignoring Supreme Court

[SigrunGard]

i was at the Waterside last night with my partner. The Women’s was marked “women’s” but then written on the door in large letters was something to the effect of please feel free to use whichever facilities” match your gender identity or gender expression “. Mentioned it to my partner who said the same was on the door to the men’s ( he said someone asked a friend what that meant and the reply was apparently” some modern bollocks” - hard to argue!)

I rather feel I should email them and point out that this is not right- anyone got suggestions for wording that doesn’t just make me sound bigoted!?

thanks

Segregation of toilets on the lawful and rational basis of sex is bad, but segregation on the unlawful and irrational basis of gender identity is good? Is that what you are saying? If so, why?
Rosa Parks was making a stand for equal rights for her people who were second class citizens by law and in practice. People with the PC of GR have equal rights already.

Women have human rights too, you know.

Get over yourself, comparing this to racism you should be absolutely ashamed.

This is the law of the land

You're over-complicating things, Pifflepafflewifflewaffle!

The venue already meets requirements by having men's women's and presumably accessible toilets, it isn't required to have single cubicles installed. so you needn't be concerned about the cost.

But you highlight a good point: there is a cost in disruption and money to venues having to change their adequate and legal toilet provision at the insistence of a tiny percentage of the population who refuse to use the toilets designated for their sex.

All the venue has to do is take down the illegal notice, which costs nothing.

The only thing I'll say about your references to No Black, No Dogs, No Irish and Rosa Parks is that they are more ridiculous than offensive - but they are that too.

Only if you have a few thousand pounds to spare. The judgment is not as clear cut as people might think.

Oh don’t be silly @SparklyPombears 😆

EHRC guidance:

It is not compulsory for services that are open to the public to be provided on a single-sex basis or to have single-sex facilities such as toilets. These can be single-sex if it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim and they meet other conditions in the Act.

The law as clarified is clear-cut. The fact that it is being resisted does not change that. In fact that is probably the reason why it is being resisted.

Slight misunderstanding there ie you don't need to provide single sex however what is absolutely clear is services can not be provided by gender identity.

And if you label a block of toilets Women then no men can be admitted.
Men who claim to be women are men for EA purposes, regardless of whether they have a GRC.

As it happens , it is a new modern building.

i didn’t actually visit the loo ( my menopausal bladder is amazed) but given that the door to the women’s toilet is right by the door to the auditorium it’s very hard to miss. I may have just rolled my eyes at “ gender identity “ but “ expression” was a new one and does seem to suggest what you wear should be what determines where you go

send the email
let us know how it goes

It looks like they factored in the 2024 amendment to building regs which require separate toilets for men and women, unless there isn't enough room. This was announced in 2022 so it was known in advance that the requirement would be sex segregated + accessible toilets, with mixed sex 'universal' toilets [which must have handwashing facilities inside, mixed handwashing sinks outside is wrong] as an optional addition.

So they got it right, and then messed up by putting up those notices.
If they take down the notices, they will be complying with regs, and providing facilities for men and women, both able-bodied and disabled, by my calculation that that adds up to 100% of the population!

Yep!

Naturally, one wouldn't look to a lecturing TRA for any moral guidance. But it seems reasonable to expect them to know if they've been somewhere or not and to google it before wading in otherwise.

Just use the mens.

In your analogy women are the black people and the Irish people.

Because men oppress women.

The thing is, Piffle, you mentioned non-binary people. I would have thought this wording doesn’t include them given that they don’t have a gender identity or expression?

And who said anything about threatening legal action? I would just be reminding them of the law

So do it!

But that's how it goes - straight to hyperbole - you are threatening legal action, costing cash-strapped venues thousands of pounds, sending Rosa Parks to the back of the bus, saying No Black No Dogs No Irish in your English boarding house... literal violence, erasure, genocide, KKK ... and so it goes and so it goes...

All because you considered taking a bit of time out of your 'your one wild and precious life' [I like that, Piffle, may I borrow it?] to email a venue to point out to them that some notices are wrong🙄

We have laws in this country so that's not going to fly.

They don't need to do any building work. Just put the signs back to men and women. Having the sign fixed will only inform people (and they surely know already)

All decent and law abiding people will respect the laws and rights of women to privacy.

So the only people affected would be men who needed to sneak into women's toilets so badly they will risk missing the performance and perhaps being arrested.

How apt your username is.

I would waste minimal energy on it.

‘Dear Waterside

The signage on your toilet doors breaks the law. When are you going to comply?’

Copy in the director, all the trustees, whoever else is pertinent. And the local MP.

Now that's what I call to the point!
If you ever have to 'describe yourself in 10 words or less',LittleBitofBread , you can just wrote 'Succinct'😁

Well, what else is there to say, quite honestly? I'm sure they know they're breaking the law. They're just relying on people not knowing about it, or the chilling effect of people worrying about having 'transphobe' hurled at them.

@SigrunGard I have already emailed them and they ignored me. So please do also contact them. Patrons are "welcome to use as they feel fits their gender" was the phrase they used then, according to me email.

I had emailed them in 2023 before the outcome and after a back and forth with them denying any issues they saidif I wanted to go further I need to register it on the concil portal as a formal complaint. I emailed again in April after the outcome to ask if they would comply. You have just reminded me to follow up, as I seem to have had no reply.

Trafford are LGBT +++ to the max, that venue hosts lots of pride and trans related events. There was a production of the Snow Queen with the SQ played by a man with a beard...I was not suprised when I started getting emails for discount price seat filler ticket offers for that. This is a review
https://www.goingonanadventure.co.uk/the-snow-queen-at-waterside/

The next year they went down a more traditional route.

@Scout2016
i had emailed them in 2023 before the outcome and after a back and forth with them denying any issues they saidif I wanted to go further I need to register it on the concil portal as a formal complaint.

did you follow their suggestion as to how to progress?