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.

One of the entirely justified concerns that trans -identifying people have is of being left in legal no-(wo)man's-land. Someone male being treated as male in some instances but as female in others, according to the statutory guidance written to implement a single legislative act (EA2010), is exactly what legal no-(wo)man's-land looks like. Trans people deserve the certainty of knowing that they have a legal right to use the facilities for their sex and the bar for excluding them, e.g. excluding from female spaces a woman who has taken testosterone and grown a beard, is very high. Not having to check a list to see what facilities they use the men's for and what facilities they use the women's for.

When the TWAW-TMAM sheeple say "we won't make a TM serve a prison sentence in the male estate, it's too dangerous" and "we won't legally force DV refuges to take TW, it's unsafe and unfair", it proves that they don't actually believe that TWAW or TMAM. But then that's why the TRAs all want to die on Rapist Hill, isn't it? The whole thing is exposed as a lie as soon as you make the slightest concession to reality-based safeguarding.

Exactly, they are careerists looking after their careers.
Vacuous virtue signalers with no moral compass and no intellectual curiosity.

I agree with you that people with a trans identities should not have to try and navigate a system where there is lack of clarity about the provision they can use.

I also agree with you that single sex provision should be exclusively for use in line with natal sex.

I disagree that trans people should use provision in line with their natal sex. I don’t think this is a good solution for them or for those who aren’t trans.

Considering the very small number, the cost should not be prohibitively expensive.

Knock yourself out with third spaces. Get in line with everyone else who needs funding for greater numbers of people and more established causes.
There aren't nearly enough disabled toilets, but trans can take the funds that would go to them for their selfish third spaces.
I'm sure there are some rich trans out there (Prytzker Foundation?) who can fund trans rape and DV refuges third spaces. No? So take the money from women's.
Third space sports events? Oh, what did I see, the trans/NB races at forthcoming big events have had zero applications to race in.
So, get in line for funding, find some rich benefactors, take part in the third spaces already provided.
Rather than muscling in on existing women's spaces and soon to try and muscle out women for precious limited finite funding for all sorts of third spaces.
Never seen a group display their entitlement like a badge of honour.

Considering the very small number, where in some cases the third spaces would never even be used, why should these people who have chosen a particular lifestyle have everyone bending over backwards to please them and do their bidding?

The govt and businesses could spend the GDP of a small country on third spaces. Does anyone think TIMs are going to voluntarily choose to use them?

I'm probably going to get shot down for this comment but the most sensible thing to do, incurring no extra cost, would be to trial a scheme where existing third spaces are made available to people who identify as trans who do not feel able to use the facilities that are commensurate with their sex. As the number of people with a trans identity is very small, a well-managed trial in an area which represents a good enough sample base of existing facilities across the UK would be helpful. Run well, with clear parameters, it would help to ascertain the impact on disabled people (and other users of existing spaces e.g. parents changing their children's nappies) as well as take-up by people with a trans identity.

This would need to be tightly managed as a) it's highly likely to risk facilities being damaged by TRAs, or other forms of protest and b) a sensibly worded feedback survey would help to draw out whether or not it had been successful. A badly worded one would not.

A positive effect would be that it ticks the "inclusion" box whilst staying within the law. Therefore any TRAs who protest would make themselves look utterly ridiculous.

I have no evidence that mixed sex toilets are safe. I have plenty of evidence they are unsafe. To paraphrase a pp, there is literally a lot of bending involved and Emily Thornberry actually had people bending in court to show the positions people could or couldn’t get into in public toilets. She is a MP now but had lots of cases defending men when police used to spy on people in toilets. People have always been used for sex (consensual and non consensual). Making them private and mixed sex and probably out of the way is going to increase the number of locations for misuse.

I would bet money on these toilets being used for lots of other things than going to the toilet, and I would earn a fortune.

I hope the Russell Brand case will make people more aware of what goes on in toilets (whether or not he is guilty).

And disabled people who these loos are designated for, will have to queue?

We have already done it. 25% of secondary schools have mixed toilets. I wrote a report on what happens in private designs and what happens on the new ‘guidance’ of having a ‘gender-neutral’ toilet on each floor.

Schools have been the canaries in the coal mine. We’ve been experimenting with mixed sex designs on children.

It doesn’t end well. HSE and the DfE and various MPs had my report last year.

Indeed. However, these spaces do already exist and some people do successfully use them, even with all the risks that they incur in doing so.

If people with a trans identity could have a choice between using these existing facilities or using those that have been provided for their sex, they can factor this additional risk in to their decision making process.

A trial would also help to ascertain if allowing people with trans identities access to these spaces changes the existing risks associated with these spaces. As they apparently "just want to pee", it shouldn't. Feedback from existing users of the spaces could be baselined before the trial and during/after to understand any potential change in risk/perceived risk. This would obviously need careful wording to avoid bias.

Ps you have very much opened my eyes on risks associated with these spaces @Keeptoiletssafe I've changed my views on them completely since then, especially in relation to the risks relating to the removal of door gaps. Thank you for everything you have shared on this.

Sorry, just seen this.

Fair point. Trial done.

Yes. A trial would draw out the real life impact of this based on numbers.

<ducks to avoid further incoming shots>

Anyway, see above. Trial already done, so thankfully I no longer need to advocate for this and hopefully no longer need shooting 🙃

She's TWAW.

There would be something so appropriate in disabled loos etc being opened up to trans, since let's be frank, trans is body dysphoria, which when you get down to it, is a mental disability.
Of course, if that becomes the default, I can see non physically and non dysphorically men in particular heading straight for the disabled loos, using any temporary self ID they choose for the duration of their use.
The loos that were designed only for genuinely disabled people will have any number of malingerers ahead of them in the queue.

In spaces other than schools, would you do away with existing gender neutral/mixed sex disabled toilets if you had a magic wand? What would you put in their place for situations when you have a user with an opposite-sex carer?

In the UK, building regulations state that toilets are single sex, or single use (self contained rooms with the sink in the cubicle, and the door leading on to a corridor).
A disabled person with an opposite sex carer would use the single use accessible toilet, the same as now.

So, any capitulating by Phillipson to the trans lobby re wholesale change in toilets use would require a major change in building regulations? And the massive inconvenience (ironic since we're talking public conveniences lol) in changing perfectly acceptable infrastructure, and of course, the cost to the public purse, or private businesses having to find cash they either don't really have, or if they do, would rather spend on practical investment.

Yes, exactly.

My DP is my day-to-day carer. I am female and he is male. If I am having a shit day with mobility, and we’re out and I need the loo, he will accompany me into an accessible disabled self-contained cubicle, in case I face-plant on the floor.

He gives me privacy by turning his back until I need help. It’s all perfectly acceptable.

<Oh the romance>

I am happy to become a highly-paid government adviser.

If I had a magic wand, I would put disabled toilets in with single sex provision and put door gaps in them. It would prevent the deaths and misuse in disabled toilets and give greater protection for the occupants.

The disabled toilet was introduced with a lot of effort, after WW2, to cater for an increase of soldiers in wheelchairs. It was expensive and businesses were not happy about it. Even into the 1970s there were workplaces that didn’t even have toilets for any women. Men used to check them, then let the ladies nip in. The excuse there were no ‘ladies’ was the excuse for not employing women. Women still don’t have equal provision to this day. Why else did the pregnant woman in the theatre get ‘used’ as an obvious example?

There needs to be as few mixed sex private toilets as possible. They need to be as closely watched as possible. In schools traditionally the unisex toilet is by the entrance, opposite reception.

A child needs to go into the toilet of the sex of their parent.

An older child or adult with an opposite sex carer who can’t manage on their own will have to go into a mixed sex accessible toilet. A person who needs total privacy in order to eliminate waste will need this toilet, as will people who won’t use the toilet of their sex. There are designs you can do to help mitigate problems. Some unisex toilets have downward facing grills on the doors, such as on some train carriages. This means, if the light is on in the toilet, other people could see if someone was on the floor and also if someone was being abused but not ‘enough’ for a phone to pick up much footage. Most train carriages don’t have these though. In Document T the universal toilets have to be private and resistant to sound as men and women don’t want to hear each other for ‘propriety’ (except some men).

Woman (and disabled) have always been second to men in toilet provision.

I did the same for a while, and it’s only when you regularly use disabled toilets you realise what a horrendous state they get in.

They should be the most looked after toilets out there.

The time I would say disabled toilets leading on to a mixed sex corridor shouldn’t have privacy is in hospitals. I have quite a few examples of patients collapsing after having surgery and not being found in time. Obviously the corridor will be mixed sex with medical staff but hopefully the wards are more likely to be single sex now.

Yes

Use of the accessible toilets is based on trust: just as there can't be a guard on every single-sex toilet to make sure that only the correct people use them, disabled people have to trust that able-bodied people will not use the accessible toilets, and will leave them free for the people who actually need them, whenever they need them.

There is no circumstance in which an able-bodied transperson is entitled to use the accessible toilets, while all other able-bodied people are not. They are not a special caste. Being trans is not a disability; it certainly is not the kind of disability that requires the used of the adaptations in accessible toilets that [some, not all] disabled people need.

Accessible toilets are not a cheap workaround to solve the problem caused by a tiny number of people who choose not to use the toilets designated for their sex.

In all my workplaces (mainly central London, very large organisations) the standard layout was Men's plus Women's plus a single Unisex One-Room toilet large enough for a Wheelchair/Guide Dog to turn round in.

There was no official guidance for who used the Unisex. Typically it was very much underused as there was only 1 or 2 people with a wheelchair or dog per floor at most. Often it was zero.

So the Unisex was mainly left unused, just provided for a very occasional overflow, or to deal with a period/coffee incident, or to change in, or possibly have a quiet moment alone.

I understand the approach now in those large organisations is that trans women are being told to use the Unisex. They could use the men's but this suggestion is met with fury, so HR don't even suggest this anymore. No-one has carried out any dirty protests that I know of in response to this change. Well-paid(ish) secure white-collar employment is not to be cast aside on a whim, it seems.

If I used a wheelchair or a support dog I would not like this new policy at all. But, I'd have to admit that the current provision was already close to 1 toilet:1-2 employees. So I would probably have to tolerate it, but be very ready to feedback to HR if there were any issues.

It's definitely worth doing a trial. The cost of a 4th space toilet refit would be prohibitive to UK Business (and to our taxes for Public Sector buildings), and almost certainly unnecessary.