Brigitte Phillipson blocking EHRC guidance

[lcakethereforeIam]

I'm not sure if there's anything new here though

Phillipson blocks trans guidance after landmark Supreme Court ruling https://share.google/P91PBE5Cy4ROwsdA1

It's a very stark article in the Telegraph.

Yes indeed this is the common sense solution. Not sure how much common sense is around atm tho tbh.

Practical solutions aren't being sought.
Third spaces aren't wanted.
All that's demanded is the zero sum game of zero sex-based spaces exclusive to girls and women.
I could just see Phillipson's final advice to private venues being costly and impractical modifications to barely assuage the zero sum gamers.
And be landed with a huge bill to alter every women's toilet in every public building.
About a penny more on all our taxes at Reeves' next budget.

Just political stalling. If she really wanted to she could lay the core part of the guidance before Parliament now.

"Men have no right to be in women's single sex facilities". On a post it note.

Unfortunately it's local elections in May and I expect they will try to delay beyond that. But the law is the law.

Reform will take even more council seats if Labour keep demonstrating that I can trust CatOfHate with my chicken salad more than women can trust Labour with our rights.

I hadn't even realised until I copied some quote on this thread into a search engine and got a stern message that I had mis spelled.

What I dont understand is that if the Government in the person of Brigitt Phillipson has become a party to the GLP court case, what happens if the case fails.

What are the implications for the Government that one of its departments has written a position paper that a court has said is not legally right.

It is all so strange.

Why cant they just be more straight forward. eg send back the EHRC guidelines with suggested alternatives to the ones the objecting.

All these half truths and misrepresentation.

Why dont the just say, of course we support the right of women to have single sex services as per Supreme Court ruling (ie where "proportionate") but in this or that situation we dont think it is valid.

And EHRC should re-write before we put it before Parliament.

I'm not a lawyer, @IwantToRetire (yes me too!) but here's the gist afaik...

If the case fails, it doesn’t mean wrongdoing, just that the court disagrees with the Government’s interpretation, and they may need to adjust.

Ministers can’t simply rewrite EHRC guidance because it’s legally independent; they can raise concerns or argue in court, but not dictate changes.

This severe messiness is happening imho because the law is so unclear. Which is the fault of politicians.

The GLP says trans women using the gents outs them and is a violation of their privacy.

Well, transwomen athletes not being able to compete with women also outs them. As does sending them to men's prisons, and men's rape refuges. And not letting transwomen doctors do my smear test.

Oh, and having to declare their sex before having sex, lest they deceive.

It's all 'outing'. Because that's the bloody point of single sex spaces.

It's not just toilets, is it.

Wales is also rattling Labour. Losing such a strong voting ground to PC and Reform is another bashing that’s incoming. PC winning the hotly contested by-election would have emboldened the left of Labour.

Then you have Polanski taking votes and going up the polling who has said he’d join with Labour but not with Starmer as leader and again you might have the left of the party thinking about that.

They are in survival mode. Mahmood was all about chasing down Reform, but now a couple of things have swung the left into a fight for survival.

There's a key point Tim Shipman makes about Mahmood - her immigration plan is supported by 70% of Labour voters, 57% of Lib Dems and 49% of Greens, which makes it almost a consensus among centre left voters, but only a small minority of Labour MPs support it.

I'd add that racing off after Polanski is something many Labour MPs are comfortable with, because it allows them to say things they'd like to say anyway. A lot of Labour thinking is based on the theory that the electorate is left wing. There are cabinet members who do not differ from LOJ on this point. The problem is it's not really true.

One issue I’m mulling over is that the QAF article says this:

“If the judge rules that the EHRC acted wrongly in publishing its 'interim update', it could have grave consequences for any organisation that has already implemented Trans+ segregation, which could be found to have broken the law.
Still, even if the High Court finds that the publication of the update itself was lawful, part of the judicial review requests that the EHRC's advice be deemed no longer compliant with its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. If this happens, it opens a stronger route to challenging the judgment in Strasbourg”

if that were likely what would the gov have to do to try to avoid this?

Of course they may be they hoping for it, but then we are back to square one with a FWS judgment that needs to be implemented

Is this why they need an equality impact assessment? What does that do in real terms?

calling yourself a trans person and claiming all sorts of EA protections immediately outs you anyway so the whole thing is entirely pointless

Having a concert for trans people outs all the people attending and performing who say they’re attending and performing because ‘they’re trans and they’re loosing their (imagined) rights’ to be seen as biologically the opposite sex

(and that’s enough mental gymnastics for a Sunday before Xmas)

I really wouldn't be surprised if the fact that the interim guidance was produced is found to be unlawful, irrespective of its content. Perhaps it got rebranded as an "update" because it's not lawful to remove existing guidance and replace it, even on an interim basis, without that going through parliament.

Is this why they need an equality impact assessment? What does that do in real terms?

AFAIK this is a red herring because it would only be needed if the law was changing, not if guidance for an existing law was changing. But IANAL and I could be wrong on that.

Sorry. I've been behind with this thread so apologies if I am repeating somebody.

I heard a news item on the radio this morning and made the connection with this topic. Apparently, the Government are going to introduce another hunting ban. So the Government think it's important to protect foxes but can't find the time to produce the wording necessary to protect women.

I'm not sure why anyone would think that further delay would be a vote winner come the local elections in May. Those that have transferred their loyalties to the Greens are not going to vote Labour purely on the basis of them blocking the implementation of the ruling. I suspect this is more to do with the civil war within the party itself - with many Labour MPs and the unions fully captured. The labour party doesn't seemed concerned with the voters and what they are looking for, only with their own drama.

I assume 'outing' is predicated on the idea that someone genuinely passes as the opposite sex; whereas the vast majority do not pass. 'Being trans' is 'outing yourself by its very nature. The incongruence of a presentation of opposite sex mannerisms etc with the visual obviousness of one's actual sex draws attention.

A 6ft male with long hair and lots of make-up and overtly feminine or sexualised clothing is hard to over-look; likewise a short woman, with bum fluff moustache, tatoos on their short arms, and wide angle hips is another.

I'd like to see a lineup of these trans women who think that using the men's is outing, mixed in with some random women, and see if we can tell the difference.

Here in Liverpool, which is supposed to be a dyed in the wool Left wing city ( it was only thus since the 1970s - and even then had Lib Dem administrations) - the popular view is that everyone is a socialist and has Left wing persepctives on all matters - comes up hard against the fact that many people take quite a hard line on all sorts of matters.

Many Labour politicians in the city like 'the people' to remain poor and disadvanatged because it suits their ideological agenda. Discipline, commerce, profit, development ( especially development which reflects wealth or aspiration) are all obstructed and frowned upon.

I'm intrigued by the argument that Labour is more scared of its own backbenchers than Reform. I live in a Red Wall area so had only considered the Reform threat which is why Labour's actions are so bewildering. Implementing the EHRC guidelines are such an easy win. I also assumed that most Labour backbenchers would be have views on trans access to women's spaces proportionate to the general population. Thinking it through, it would not just be its backbenchers but also the unions and Labour membership.. It could do real damage if they started defecting to the Greens. Longer term they are probably counting on women's rights not being a swing factor at a general election. As I said in a pp, I'm hoping it's a bid by Phillipson to be able to say that they exhausted every avenue but their hands are tied. Not the ringing endorsement for women's rights one would hope for from a left wing political party, but there we are.

They already did one for Document T and that went ahead with single sex toilets being the standard with a unisex one added if there is room after single sex provision is satisfied (with certain exceptions). It’s already been signed off.

I don't want to start a derail but all the prevarication reminds me of the attempts to obstruct the result of the Brexit vote. Jolyon Maugham was involved then too, as I remember.

I should add that I was a remainer and, in many ways, I still am. But in the end I was repelled by the disregard for democracy and the contempt for ordinary voters.

I recall the posts on here prior to the 2024 GE, from women who really were worried about voting for Keir "99% of women don't have a penis" Starmer.
The doubts persisting that even as Labour's language shored up to being more gender critical as the GE loomed, that a landslide for Labour would mean he'd do a 180, renege on women, revert to a trans activist stance.
And here we are.
I'm sure millions of gender critical women voted Labour, not confidently on this issue, but with some belief that Labour in power would tack to rationality, in light of Cass, and now the SC ruling.
But no, the suspicions were indeed 100% well founded.
Starmer/Phillipson/Streeting (PB trial go-ahead) have executed a classic bait and switch.
"Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me."
So...are gender critical voters going to be fooled a second time in 2029?

I think Starmer is more concerned about them because it’s his leadership that would go.

He looks at backbenchers and markets. The electorate is an annoyance. Fortunately it’s returned and the latter gets a vote.