EHRC guidance might be delayed for over a year

[OhBuggerandArse]

Ministers really can't cope with acknowledging the law, can they?

https://www.thetimes.com/article/d7cd9e2f-2635-409d-a624-a833611a09fc?shareToken=f3f89ea86fb5c264c18866395c93194d

I hope this is just a flag they're sending up to evaluate how much pushback there might be - let's make sure that the pushback is noisy, articulate and effective.

What does Rachel Taylor mean by saying the guidance goes further than the ruling? She's repeated this a couple of times now. Is this the Lord Hodgson take?

Entirely possible. All governments have huge form on doing so.

You can have a narrow view of the judgement but that’s just by ignoring the “so what” part of interpreting the equality act the way the Supreme Court did. It’s true to say th Supreme Court said nothing about toilets, but, it’s ingenious to state the judgement does not follow through to single sex spaces where required (in this case for dignity, privacy etc).

I mention Reddit again as it’s interesting to get different interpretations of the article

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1onztte/phillipson_calls_for_less_public_debate_from_ehrc/

the perspective seems to be that any guidance keeping males out of female spaces must be illegal
if you go far enough up the chain (ECHR)

and that maybe a change at the EHRC will reverse all of this.

It’s the standard TRA/GLP line.

What exactly do the shower of fools think isn’t “legally sound”?

government source said this was “total nonsense”. They said: “This is a long and legally complex document and we are carefully considering it – and we make no apology for it. It would be catastrophic for single sex-services to follow guidance that wasn’t legally sound and then place them in legal jeopardy again. That is why it is vital we get this right.

Being optimistic, when MAS comes in, assuming she takes the same position as Baroness Faulkner (evidence of her position so far suggests she will, plus it's the law), will this make it harder for the government to keep delaying and deflecting?

Because Baroness Faulkner is portrayed by her critics as being over zealous in implementing the law, but if her Labour-appointed successor also tells the government to get on with it, surely this will be harder for them to ignore?

I really hope MAS doesn't cave into the trans lobby the way Bridget Phillipson has 🙁

So women can't have rights according to Rachel as men won't respect those boundaries? Isn't that the whole reason women need legal protections from men? 'It's too hard and complicated to make men stay out of women's spaces' is an awful answer too, are we giving up on illegal immigration then? That's a bit hard. So is catching anyone breaking the law. But it's something that is a basic social duty.

This is a lot of ridiculous waffle disguising that she and many other MPs don't think that women should be allowed to refuse men 'reasonable' use of their body. 'Reasonable' being the term they want to debate for a few decades or so, and obvs the rapes and exclusions so far haven't been unreasonable because they only happened to women and the men perping were quite happily self expressing their inner selves.

She is a walking reason why the guidance is necessary. And no, Stonewall can't re write the law to what they'd like it to say and get their mates in HoC/HoL to wangle it through, that was what got us in the long and very expensive mess of dragging it through years of court to the SC.

I think what revolts me most is not only the sexism and derision these women hold for other women, particularly less privileged women who aren't part of their gang of mates, but also the absolute lack of any respect for the law of this country. We seriously need as a country to work out how the hell such a grim calibre of people are getting into MP selections because they sure as hell are not the brightest or the most normally perspectived of the population.

Yes, Rachel's position boils down to 'you can't stop men breaking the law so it's actually evil to try'.

I think though we all have our answer. The judgment should have ended the mess. The government should have banged it through fast and firmly and got it over with, and ended the 'culture war' they kept whingeing about.

This is in part because the current government are weaker than a bloody lettuce. But it's also because they want the war, they're stoking and fuelling it themselves, and its basically because yes, they like the removal of women and gay rights, and don't quite have the guts to say so. Just to gerrymander around the edges quietly and pretend their hands are tied while enabling the harm to meander on. And I note no other parties doing anything about this.

A more generous view might be:

It's a useful distraction while the govt flails about in other areas.

Or:

They have some factions to appease, which they will do so by prevaricating.

Overall, it makes them look useless and weak, but I guess they've decided that among all the shit options, this is one of the less shit ones.

Most people in the UK now assume that the issue has been laid to rest - as it bloody well should have been, now the Supreme Court have agreed that yes, men and women are different, you can't change sex, and women's stuff is for women.

It’s the disregard for the law that disgusts me too. While everyone was flailing around saying it was complicated and some lawyers said it was unclear our public institutions had plausible deniability. The Supreme Court judgement ended that. FWS fought it through the courts fair and square, respecting our democratic norms. Now our parliamentarians and institutions are choosing to disregard the law. It’s profoundly undemocratic and destabilising. I’m so disgusted with the government.

It's so dishonest. Nobody is asking service providers to police toilets. The starting point is having a legally-compliant policy and expecting people to follow it, as they do in other areas of life.

It's galling. And because women aren't out smashing up venues and intimidating and harassing people, they're easier to ignore.

I think they are delaying until after the local elections next May...at which Labour could lose significant vote share to the Greens ( and for some, this will be almost entirely based upon the fact that Zack Polanski is TWAW). Labour are extending the vote to 16 year olds.....thinking they would automatically vote Labour......but it turns out many could end up voting Green.

Bridget Phillipson was always TWAW adjacent, though...it is just that she has had to see sense since taking on a cabinet role.

Lucy Powelll is channeling the voices of the TRAS in her new role as deputy leader.

Yes, it is totally cynical and more about self preservation than anything else.

Some of them will vote Reform.

An exchange involving Rachel Taylor and Kate Osborne ( amongst others) during 'Lesbian Visibility Week' in which Kate Osborne suggests that she expects, as a lesbian, to be challenged when using public toilets as a result of the Supreme Court Ruling.

https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/mp/rachel-taylor/debate/2025-04-24/commons/westminster-hall/lesbian-visibility-week

Not those that are TWAW, though.

Labour is losing voters on two fronts now.

how will that work post Darlington, Leonardo, Fife though? It just won;t, those cases are all coming up heads and soon

I see Rachel Taylor took her seat at the last election, over-turning a huge Tory majority, to win by 2000K votes......with Reform hot on her heels. I suspect that she is fearful for her own seat going forward.

Sorry if I’ve missed it but is there a list showing who the 50 MP’s are?

Yes, but that won't stop them from trying to delay. I suspect they think much of the noise has died down and that voters are not as concerned about the issue as they are about others. It will be the job of Sex Matters and others to make sure this stays in the limelight.

Does anyone recall what happened when the Equality Act came into force initially? What cost related impact assessments were made with regard to physical accessibility?

I recall some making a fuss about the cost of installing ramps on all buses when few people would use them etc. I also recall some buildings being exempt from modifications where the needed adjustments weren’t reasonable in terms of cost or other impacts.

Whatever the fuss, it died down and I don’t hear anyone suggest accessibility is anything but sensible.

I guess this is seen to be different because propaganda positions single sex provision as being about exclusion whilst physical accessibility is about inclusion.

We need decision makers to openly acknowledge that the conflict arising relates to 2 groups having opposing ‘needs’ in relation to being included. They need to explicitly state that the need/ desire for single sex provision has nothing whatsoever to do with gender identity and is all about sex. I don’t object to them also laying out the arguments against gender neutral provision and why this is deemed exclusionary.

The final arrow in the TRAs quiver is to sustain a narrative that single sex provision is about excluding trans people as opposed to this exclusion being an unavoidable byproduct of single sex provision.