HR tell trans identified person to use work toilets that match biological sex. Person refuses. Colleagues complain about their presence in incorrect toilets to HR. What's the legal position of all parties?

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

Whats the legal position for the workplace (repped by HR) as well as the trans identifying person? Will it depend on written policies in the workplace? Or by toilets saying Male/Female on them (or with the recognised signs for sexed spaces).

Different from the NHS cases, as this time HR is saying "don't do that". Could the trans identifying person get constructive dismissal?

Does it just become a disciplinary thing for not doing what you are told?

This isn't actually a hypothetical, I read this reddit thread https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1ovzfde/hradvice/ along with the advice given to the OP.

(Do read all the comments if you have the chance ESPECIALLY the downvoted ones at the end by a user called "Protect-the-dollz" . I personally think it's awful there is so much disinformation and poor advice everywhere and people are risking their lives and mental health off of it)

Yes, I'm not saying they should be allowed to use the toilet that 'aligns with their gender identity'. Just that being told to use the toilet which aligns with their sex, having been previously told that they can use any toilet they want is causing them distress. I suspect a case will come to court at some point - not to allow men to use the ladies but to force an employer to provide a 'gender neutral ' toilet or to say that an employer who doesn't provide a gender neutral option is failing to support the gender reassignment part of the equality act.

Three days ago that same Reddit poster started a thread about starting an NHS HCA job ‘next week’ so unless one of them is a part time job I’m not sure what’s going on.

A man who wants to use the women's space has made it clear they are happy to experience mixed sex changing, and it is less about not wanting to be with men than about not wanting to be in a space that defines them as a man

Yes but I'm not sure how reasonable it is to demand a fourth toilet option for most businesses. (The third being disabled use.)

Hopefully the Reddit thread will be updated with the outcome.

What I don't quite understand is if, as the tra seem to say, it is a non issue as they just want to pee... why can't they pee in their birth sex toilets - after all it apparently doesn't matter?

He won't. I once had a PM exchange with him (if I'm remembering the name correctly). He started off reasonable but when it was clear to him that I wasn't going to "be kind", even after speaking to his excellent self, his demeanour switched and he wasn't able to keep up the reasonable and rational act.

boooo. I do like a debate with someone who holds different views but can handle discussion.

They can always get him a portaloo and stick it outside the back door!

It's quite a simple problem to resolve. Biological women use the ladies, biological men use the gents and anyone in between, use the disabled toilet. There, sorted.

Exactly! Just go to the toilet and stop making such a fucking song and dance. “Distress” my arse.

Wouldn't a gender neutral toilet be a mixed sex toilet? So from the perspective of a man who identifies as not a man a space that biological men use. And from the perspective of the MRA's a biological woman with a gender Identity would (by their own argument) be a man.

And just thinking out loud, if a workspace had a number of men who identify as not men and all those men where given a space that was for them and them alone, that space would be a space designated for biological men.

Ah you see the way this works is that thing are only a non issue as long as trans people get their way.

My point being I don't think the majority of these men want a safe space to pee they want to be beside the women.

The GLP Barrister has then thrown all 'trans' people under the bus...

You can not live in any gender other than your own as gender is an external observation of how you live, not an internally chosen approach to life... So any choice by an individual to live differently simply expands the societal observation of how that sex lives and therefore the stereotype that is gender...

So a man claiming to be transgender / transwoman...
Is still physically / biologically and legally a man.
They are still male gender - everything they do from wearing a skirt to makeup and body mutilation simply changes the shape of how society observes examples of men - therefore expanding the male gender - it can never mean that they are living as the female gender as that is an observation of how women live and they can never be a woman.

Therefore, a transwoman (man) simply needs to use the male loos and they will be in accordance with their sex / lived gender - both of which are male.

No way I’d be sacking a TW under this new legislation. No sireee Bob. That’s a legal precedent right there waiting to be jumped on by the TRA lobby along with the Daily Mail headlines, death threats, nervous breakdown and losing your livelihood.

I would be making the men’s toilets into accessible toilets and giving the men a portaloo somewhere else if they want single sex.

Let the males with the fewer psycho friends take me to court.

Say what? 😀

I am a Trustee of a small charity that recently moved offices. Before signing the new lease we crunched the numbers/practicalities of the loos.

Readers, we paid about £10k to add an extra loo. It is/was probably easier in an empty building, when refitting a kitchen area and cabling etc, but really not too time consuming.

I really hope that the person in question follows the sage advice of all the Redditors, because that thread is a very good look at the mindset of TRA's. They never cease to entertain.

You're thinking of the old days before sex and gender went their separate ways. Now afaik sex is the biological reality and gender is an unprovable belief about yourself ( of which apparently there are currently 72 - at least if one of them is cat gender, a litter box is a small price to pay).

no - relevant to now...

sex is the observable and scientifically provable reality of the human body

gender is the societal stereotype produced by observing the habits of the sexes - that men generally are more likely to be builders / women more likely to be in the caring professions / that blue is seen as a boys colour and pink for girls / that women wear skirts / that women are more 'delicate' than men etc. - all things you can see as being observations of the stereotypes of our culture

but they are the observations of now - high heels came into the country for men originally - now seen as a stereotype for women, pink used to be associated with boys and blue with girls - trends and stereotypes change over time - they are not embedded... and there is plenty of historical evidence for this...

so if a man takes on the gender appearances of a woman - they are not living in the gender of a woman, they are extending the gender of man - because gender is not defined by the symbols or accoutrements, it is defined by external observation and stereotyping... so a man wearing a dress is simply starting to extend the gender observations of men - if enough do it, they don't all become women, the stereotype would simply change so that dress wearing was seen as a part of the male gender pattern...

that there are those who have an agenda which means they wish to pretend otherwise doesn't make their claims any more true, and they can pretend all they wish but a man in a dress is simply a man in a dress...

fwiw I share your view, but it's taken a while for the prime minister to admit that women can't have a penis and the highest court in the land had to confirm that the equality act refers to women in the biological sense...and the EHRC is still trying to get it's head round that apparently. So while your argument might convince biological realists like me, it's not me that you have to convince.

Toilets are sexed not gendered. Use your sex's toilet along with all members of your sex, regardless of their gender.

Oh I agree - but in many ways posting the reality on here is not going to change many views - but it does and has served as a bastion of truth and it is in that context that it is worth reminding some out there of that reality

In the Good Law Project judicial review of the EHRC guidance, the barrister for the GLP appeared to be arguing that the toilets themselves had to be male or female, rather than the users of the facilities. So this seems to be a theme!

Edited for clarity