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.

Ooo yes, bring it.

SchoolsWeek estimated a quarter of U.K. secondary schools have unisex toilets that need changing for girls.

Keep seeing this stat, and I think, how the fuck did this happen? How did all these schools get built (or modified?) like this? And no-one, all over the country, said, hang on a minute...?

I reckon that it happened because in the noisy, emotive and very fashionable clamour for 'third spaces' and 'gender neutral toilets' nobody - well, nobody with any influence or authority - said the why word:

Hold on - why? why are going to the expense of changing a configuration that serves about 99% of the population perfectly well, to cater for a tiny number of people who may not use them anyway? Why aren't we doing a risk/benefit assessment of the consequences of making these changes? Why hasn't somebody checked our obligations under health and safety, equality and workplace regulations?

Why aren't we doing a risk/benefit assessment of the consequences of making these changes?

Irony klaxon

They did do one.

Risk: men will be made sad if they don't get what they want.

Benefit: men will be happy.

That's it.

Arguably, it would have been harder to have watertight guidance if the SC concluded that men with GRC were allowed in womens single sex spaces.

Unless the outcome was single sex services are unlawful, providers would always be in a position of challenging anyone appearing to use the incorrect service.

Unless the stumbling block is TM or detransitioned women? But its bonkers talking risk assessments when the wait is harming more women.

Your description is bang on.

Victoria Smith wrote an excellent article on this:

https://thecritic.co.uk/does-womens-discomfort-matter/

"The intangibility of discomfort — at least as it is experienced by women — has always made it vulnerable to being recast as evidence of paranoia, hysteria, bigotry or prudishness. Rather than a man take responsibility for making a woman feel uncomfortable, a woman will be offered advice on how to manage her feelings while he carries on as before....

...The Darlington verdict, while welcome, leaves questions unanswered. It does not consider Rose Henderson to have personally harassed the claimants. Very well — but what should we call someone using female-only facilities while knowing of the impact on others? It is as though Henderson’s belief in his own entitlement (or his “sense of inner worth”, as the judgment puts it) overrides any moral responsibility. The judgment also states that the overall decision in favour of the nurses “may make for difficult reading for Rose” (perhaps, for once, discomfort may get to change sides)."

I came across an interesting thread on TwiX, from Dr Claire Methven O'Brien, discussing the UK's international treaty-based obligations towards female workers that are being ignored by forcing women to take employers to tribunals to assert their rights to single-sex provision.

https://x.com/claire_ob1/status/2013595819832754449
"1/With the #DarlingtonNurses’ court victory continuing to attract attention, a thread explaining why government failure to secure single-sex facilities for women at work raises serious issues in terms of the UK’s international legal obligations"

For those not on TwiX:
https://nitter.net/claire_ob1/status/2013595819832754449#m

Surely shome mistake. Sir Keir Starmer holds our international treaty obligations in the highest regard and would never break them.

It's just old-fashioned self-interest.

Parents need to tell their adult daughters (it's mainly young women supporting this nonsense and who are supporting the Greens) that men who go into women only spaces are old-fashioned Peeping Toms or Flashers.
They've just re-branded themselves.

There was a time when I'd have thought that comments like these were extreme. However there's too much evidence that demonstrates men who are insistent on breaching boundaries for women and girls pose a serious threat.

Add to that the people attempting to decriminalise indecent exposure and voyeurism by arguing that women must accept men in spaces where we undress and there's overwhelming evidence that predatory values are in the ascendent in certain circles.

It's time to keep pointing out what is being promoited when people argue for men in women's spaces.

Entirely. 'Listen to Trans Voices' for example, sharing nothing but the voices of people openly enjoying and promoting sexual offending in women's spaces. Because it's hot to do this to women.

https://x.com/marycatedelvey/status/1806830538474553616

This is what Phillipson wants to sustain.

More stuff Phillipson is sitting on

https://archive.ph/g9J09

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/21/free-speech-crisis-universities-bridget-phillipson/

I mean, WTF do these people do all day?
It's all consistent with the analysis of the inertness of the British state.
We cannot get anything done, save for performative policy making.
But get clarity and flow in our politics? Not a chance.
And people like Phillipson are a big part of the problem.
We all remember Yes, Minister.
Yes, the civil service then was also obfuscating.
Sir Humphrey always impeding Jim Hacker.
But I don't recall any episodes where Hacker and Sir Humphrey actively colluded together, for political reasons, to get nothing done.
That's what she's doing now, spending her time working to get things not working.

Thank you for this link. I only recently 'discovered' Claire Methven O'Brien and she seems to be quite a GC mensch
This is her Substack
Claire’s Substack | Claire Methven O'Brien | Substack

I was just about to post this. She's a rights blocker. Women have sex-based rights, and academics have academic freedom rights. Both of these things are enshrined in law but she's determined to ensure that we can't have them in practice..

Who was it said this week, very aptly, that she is at this point mostly acting as a human paperweight.

Heh! I saw that, very apt! 😀

A paperweight at least has an honorable function. She's the very example to use when people say we don't need politicians.
Unfortunately, the truth is we do, because civic society can't remember how we ran things as recently as 10-15 years ago, when sanity still ruled.
Now, the idiot class means that we need a govt to tell us men can't access women's sex based spaces, because, duh!, common sense, and now the highest court in the land.
And yet this govt just won't do it.
The left will pay for this.
When Reform ascend to power and themselves pick and choose which laws to ignore.the left will not have a leg to stand on trying to object.

I suppose, once the GLD lawyers have done their thing and the impact assessment is done - and you'd be amazed how long these things can be strung out - if BP is still in her job, she'll find that she can't lay the guidance because her moon is in Sagittarius or something.

At this point I'm starting to think the only way we'll get a Women and Equalities Minister who follows the law is if Rosie Duffield has a rush of blood to the head and defects to Reform on condition they give her the job.

No chance, she's really too much on the left.
But that would be a hell of a coup.

We need to remember one thing about Phillipson. This is a woman that within just a few weeks of Labour getting power, rolled over the Further Education Free Speech Act.
She stopped one of the few genuine positives from the Tory years, with no prompting, refused all appeals to leave it alone.
So, this is not a woman who's naturally indecisive, or a procrastinator. She's quick to take action when she sees it's politically expedient for her side, or to get back at the Tories.
So, just weeks to actively obstruct an existing law, which Labour never put in their manifesto, and over a year to still not enact a clear unambiguous ruling from the highest court in the land.
IMHO this is objective proof she's not an honest broker, is purely playing politics.
Anyone tell you that it's only the Right who are indulging in culture war politics, these two sides to Phillipson's tenure puts the lie to that.
And as I say, now leaves the door open to a future Reform govt picking and choosing which laws to enact or ignore.
Labour will have no moral high ground from to bitch about it.

The only thing with that point is that I remember the reasoning being quite specific (and not from her) - but I also remember her speaking in the sharpest way ive ever heard her speak, even today, in favour of universities ensuring the women could absolutely express GC views. And how appalling KS’s treatment was. It took me by surprise how sharply and passionately she spoke. Was on the today programme.

They’re still pushing ahead with the legislation, just not the litigious part

https://www.expressandstar.com/uk-news/2025/01/15/government-pushes-ahead-with-legislation-to-protect-free-speech-at-universities/