Bridget Phillipson blocking EHRC guidance - thread 2

[lcakethereforeIam]

Thread 1

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5462015-brigitte-phillipson-blocking-ehrc-guidance

Hope I've spelled her name correctly this time.

soooooo much time and money and political capital expended all so that no one has to say no to men

A lot of the scaremongering around the guidance seems to be founded on a false belief that businesses/employers/etc have to provide sex-segregated toilets even if they have, until now, been providing a fully enclosed room (not cubicles - a room) for both sexes.

Could it be that the guidance is being changed just to spell out more clearly the actual responsibilities dutyholders have?

... I mean, I don't doubt that this was already set out clearly, but more words on the subject could be reassuring/appeasing etc.

This seems unfair. On a chat forum people are going to chat, and say what they feel to be appopriate. Personally I don't see the point of posts that simply reproduce wholesale a news story from the Express or whatever, without any commentary on why they are reproducing the story. We can all browse the internet and set up google alerts, etc. We don't need everything to be copied in here. But I'm sure others have different views.

Yes, I agree. Some people seem to wilfully conflate having a single occupancy room with integral basin, which is for use by everyone - with having to now label it as either 'male' or 'female'. This is, of course, nonsense.

Some organisations are going to have to make some adaptations to their facilities; mostly newer businesses or businesses which had been captured by Stonewall's false advice. For example, the new Manchester Aviva studios has mixed sex facilities only...but they have a shared basin area, which is not compliant. It will be a bit more complicated and bit more costly for them to become compliant. I wonder how they will handle that? It would be very costly to put in a washbasin into every single cubicle - since there are lots of them. It is a very large venue.

Other businesses will simply have to create an additional single occupancy mixed sex facility alongside their already existing male and female provision.

Restaurants such as 'Rosa's Thai' have two or three single occupancy toilets labelled as 'All genders'. This is very confusing -simply being a tokenistic nod to gender ideology. Most people will have no clue what 'all genders' actually means. They will need to be re-labelled simply as 'W.C'.

The new Yoko Ono auditorium in Liverpool had the common sense to create an additional single 'gender neutral' facility alongside the single sex blocks when it was built...so they are already totally compliant.

I note Phillispon has wasted no time in issuing clear new guidance ro schools on the issue of mobile phones - no impact assessements being demanded there.

But the Unions aren't opposed to that clear and useful new guidance on mobile phone use in schools. So she doesn't need to delegate that decision to them and shamelessly obstruct a much-needed Code of Practice that the Unions dislike.

Phillipson does whatever is best for Phillipson. She is wholly unwilling to stand up to those Unions that she desperately hopes will help her become leader/PM.

Fortunately she is devoid of charisma and cannot think on her feet. Phillipson's lack of integrity is very obvious as soon as she speaks on issues where the Unions decide her views for her. How will she cope with 'Can a woman have a penis?' or 'Can a human change sex?' or 'Is a trans woman considered to be a man under the Equality Act?' questions. She'll implode every time.

The more the public see and hear, the less they will like Phillipson or be willing to vote for her. No-one wants to be led by a captured shill, beating the drum for a small group of men who perform their sexual fetish in public and invade women-only spaces. It's not remotely the behaviour of a future leader/PM.

Her downfall awaits.

Any changes will not water down what the government says is a commitment to single-sex spaces, which was the central repercussion of the supreme court ruling.

This seems to be a misunderstanding of the ruling.

The central repercussion of the ruling was the sex in the equality act refers to biological sex and is not changed by a GRC.

The ruling was not that the government needs to make a commitment to single sex spaces, but that a single sex space must exclude all men.

There is a separate argument that mixed sex spaces discriminate against women and that is what they will be facing if they don't provide adequate services.

Fox botherer is confused..

Well, in a sense the SC ruling was about a 'commitment to single-sex spaces' because by including men, they weren't single sex spaces. But apparently it's still not possible to say that out-loud.

Yes, but single sex spaces are just one part of a framework of rights and services that women lose if sex is not defined in the EA.

I resent the idea that single sex spaces (and I think that here they mean toilets) were the 'central repercussion'.

If legislation can't define women, we lose everything.

He just can't quite grapple with the idea that women exist and are not subordinate to his wishes.

I think a psychiatrist could make much of this.

That's fair. Probably my post was unnecessary - I was just trying to point out that there's no such thing as single-sex spaces if you can't exclude men, so in that sense the SC ruling was seismic, affirming: yes, there is (and always has been) such a thing as single sex spaces. But the statement wasn't meant in that way and as you note, the focus of the case and reasoning were elsewhere.

An article in Personnel Today that takes a welcome pragmatic approach to the delay in publishing the Code of Practice. In summary: while the government delays, thousands of organisations are breaking the law. Don't wait for the Code of Practice. Toilets must be single sex, based on biological sex at birth of the user. Sort them out now if you don't have them already. What's been happening since 2011 is illegal. The Supreme Court judgement doesn't change anything. It confirms what was always the case. The last 15 years have been an aberation.

https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/hr-neednt-wait-for-updated-code-on-single-sex-spaces/

A very clear and forthright article.

I don't think the Guardian has any new info, despite how they are trying to spin things in that article. I suspect Mary Ann Stephenson is saying the same things as Baroness Faulkner, but perhaps in a nicer way.

Yes I agree. I think the guardian is writing what it would like to happen rather than what is happening

Interesting that the writer is LGB Alliance and fed up with being lumped in with trans.

It's not a great look for Bridget Phillipson that people are just getting on with setting up single-sex spaces and eroding her authority while she fannies about.

I think you mean dicks about.

I do 😊

I did ask the same, never got a response.

Actually you did. @SinnerBoy corrected himself. You may have missed it.

@KeepToiletsSafe might have an opinion on that.

And I don't want the sinks in a mixed space outside the loo when I get a flood.

Just seen it, thanks.

@Pingponghavoc British Standards and Health and Safety requirements are there for a reason.

These, in brief, are the options:

1. Single sex are single sex
2. Single sex toilets and changing rooms are mixed sex but use single sex designs. Voyeurism laws have to change. Building Standards, building regs, 1974 and 1992 legislation and the Sexual Offenses Act has to be modified. No risk assessments and EIA done because it would make this option null and void.
3. Single sex toilets all become mixed sex designs. Costs a fortune. Less provision. Discrimination against certain disabilities, religions, age, sex. Less healthy and less safe toilet designs for everyone (scientifically proven). No risk assessments and EIA done because it would make this option null and void.