GLP v EHRC judgement is coming tomorrow

[DownhillTeaTray]

Listing in the Administrative Court for tomorrow not before 11am: read out of the judgment in our challenge to the EHRC Interim Guidance.

https://bsky.app/profile/goodlawproject.org/post/3meo6ow7ow22k

The calibre of GLP's legal brains

Meant to quote @RobinEllacotStrike here, but internet problems…

“Toilets for biological women.
Toilets for women and transwomen.
But you can't provide JUST toilets for "women and transwomen" as that would discriminate agsisnt women- so there must be both?
Then we will see one toilet for women, and the full ladies loos with multiple loos (previously for women) for women & transwomen.
this wont be good for women & girls”

This was proposed by M Robin White I believe, amongst others: that all “women” including males who claim they are women should use the communal toilets and the appalling women who didn’t want to could have a separate space.

Of course, this may be theoretically possible, but you might end up with all the women using the single sex, single toilet, while the man uses the multiple cubicle toilet on his own. The same problem applies to the female nurses being told to use a cupboard to change, while leaving the man in all his solo glory in the women’s changing room.

Justice Swift seems to have suggested that common sense should apply, so any employer or service supplier would look at this suggestion and realise there are many more women than there are men who claim they are women and supply the sensible option, which is a women’s toilet and a single use mixed sex one.

Laws will never be perfect and this one isn’t actually that complicated per se. The only complication is that there are so many men who object to women’s rights and are arguing every toss. Women still are not equal, so more people are listening to the irrational men than there ought to be.

'How can employees stop biological males from accessing female spaces if they insist that they are female and there is no written evidence that they are not?'

Harassment, going by Darlington Nurses.

Most people dont try piss off the people they work with and can respect the employer instruction.

NB who demand special treatment for self contained units will be the same in the rest of the office space.

From what I remember, the legislation on associations is different and it is specifically unlawful to include all women and only some men - is my understanding correct?

An employee knowingly using facilities of the opposite sex could potentially be harassment/sexual harassment, if it made others uncomfortable. And it would be going against policy, given that the Workplace regs require male and female facilities, so could also be a disciplinary issue, depending on workplace policy.

I just cannot get over the audacity of Jolyon’s letter to BP. He LOST on all points!! Yet he thinks he can claim the EHRC guidance is unlawful despite the judge explicitly saying the guidance IS lawful. Its totally mind boggling.

That was my understanding too, from the SCJ which went into the EqA working in great depth.

That judgment as I understand it was that to be allowed to exclude anybody, legally, one of the protected characteristics had to be involved. There is no means to say 'women' means 'women' in the biological single sex sense, and to then add some men but not others. There is no protected characteristic for such a group. If you're using sex to categorise, you either mean sex or you don't.

So I'm not certain why the judgment here says that it would be possible to have a group labelled 'women' but actually meaning 'biological women and some biological men on an inspecific criteria who self identify there, but not other men'. I would think that would be immediately open to challenge.

You are discriminating against me by making me work in a open plan office with others of the same job as me rather than giving me my own office.

You are discriminating against me by making me use the male toilets with the others of the same sex as me rather than letting me use the women's

If that teacher is in the girls sleeping space he is a problem and the adults¹ involved are as guilty as him.

The issue of mixed by stealth is that it undermines safeguarding. And its a choice in most cases as not many males will have a GRC. But the fact that an adult with GRC can circumvent safeguarding checks is a problem of itself.

The problem is if given the choice between safeguarding obligations for the girls/boys and employer liability lots of schools will opt for their empolyer role. It is easier to fob off a parent who knows a complaint opens their child up to bullying by the school itself.
Eg. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5488835-to-ask-for-parents-in-brighton-who-would-object-to-males-being-in-their-daughter-changing-room-without-even-their-knowledge-to-come-forward-and-help-with-this-legal-case

In the end it is a management problem.

The NHS had a whole bad woman policy.
Her need for single sex ward was less than his want to be in her ward and she was to be lied to by staff and labled as a racist (transphobic) by staff and moved off her female(but not) ward as a punishment.
For the staff member who has been informed she requested same sex care? Who has a legal obligation not to engage in (medical) assault? Not a peep on how he had to managed it.
And of cource there was no instruction to other staff as that would require management to recognise that other staff have eyes.

¹ its an issue as if the management allow mixed sex by stealth the individual staff member can only remove themselves roles and tasks or leave their role for a new employer.
Eg the GG leaders who left were pushed out and blamed for putting safeguarding first.

biological men on an inspecific criteria who self identify there, but not other men

That's what I think. What's the criteria? 'Because I want to' isn't criteria.

But it's a decision of the service provider, apparently. But again, what is the criteria. 'Because they want to'?

Could a service provider say they are providing these toilets because they want to be inclusive? Again, I don't see how that would stand up in court. Once you've drilled down into why these men, but not other men, there's no plausible reason.

We all know that the presence of women is a decisive factor when it comes to these men. And if you actually went into it, in court, that would become immediately apparent.

edited to add that I think one of the reasons this has irritated me so much is precisely because there's an inherent assumption that a woman's toilet is for something other than women's biological needs.

The entire concept of allowing transwomen into women's toilets, in any circumstances, is based purely on male validation, for which the women's presence is crucial.

The concept itself is bloody sexist.

Some interesting mentions of 'stealthing' in the safeguarding guidance just out for conversation (thread on it here with all the links) but refers entirely to children at school and not staff, which seems a large blindspot.

There is a comment that schools need to establish students' actual biological sex on them joining the school, and be clear that the provision is either sex based or additional accommodation. The judgment here is clear that the expectation is that people will behave reasonably and sensibly, and that would suggest anyone not doing so and insisting on invading single sex spaces they should not be using would not have any protection in law if this was challenged. As in the SP case; even that insane judgment had to specify that the moment a woman objected to a man in the space it became harassment towards her to permit this to continue and the employer was expected to immediately see to separate provisions.

In the long term I would think it is going to have to become normal and usual that establishing biological sex is a part of employment paperwork. This is probably also then going to come to need some kind of referential data base of those who have changed their birth certificates so that there are no safeguarding loopholes, which is the kind of utter mess a country creates where it's silly enough to allow people to have fictional identification documentation at will.

Nope

The reg is about dignity and the current social moral code too.

Sanitary conveniences
20.—(1) Suitable and sufficient sanitary conveniences shall be provided at readily accessible places.

As long as men can be charged as sex offenders for exposing his penis the social moral code it that a man should be able to use a urinal without worrying of a female being in the room.

The law recognises that a urinal is not a female toilet

The entire concept of allowing transwomen into women's toilets, in any circumstances, is based purely on male validation, for which the women's presence is crucial. The concept itself is bloody sexist.

Absolutely that.

There is no possible manageable or enforcable criteria for which men get to use women's toilets, it can only be by self ID, which means in effect it would exclude no men because any man could choose to be there. So it would be in effect 'women and men who wish to share a mixed sex space', which has to be provided alongside single sex women's facilities. So we're back to women, men and mixed sex/gender neutral, and the only issue is the sign on the door saying 'women'. Which is untrue, easily challenged in law, and as you say, merely there for the emotional gratification of men anyway.

Does this mean you can no longer be "Dr [surname]" and have to revert to Miss/Mrs/Mr instead?

If so, presumably the same would apply to JM - so by implication (because he uses the KC title) he is likely to still be under the relevant regulator?

Finished that post with the frequent feeling of extreme frustration of why the actual bloody hell has it become necessary for women and courts to spend so much time, money and effort on managing a tiny proportion of society who insist on making everything so difficult for everyone else and constantly split hairs and look for the slightest inch to grab and pull on. Any sympathy for this demographic has long, long since been burned out, I am fucking exhausted by it.

But are men actually bothered about this? I haven’t seen any evidence.

That so many women are on board with trans ideology, and are often its most vocal proponents, suggests it is not so much a man versus woman issue as an ideological one.

It may have been happening but that doesn’t work for legislation and building regs and standards and the Sexual Offences Act. These are in place for a safe society.

It puts pressure on the person to use the wrong sex facilities - I have listened to young women who get scared going to the mens. The pressure to conform to an ideology versus how safe you feel is tangible. I think it is a very small number who would actively want to go into mens rather than the accessible or womens - and it would be very location dependent.

And it’s not fair on men who don’t want women in their toilets, or the businesses with the extra expense of sanitary bins and disposal. Some bolder, to use an old term ‘ladettes’ (perhaps by alcohol in them) will misuse use the loophole to ‘have a laugh’.

This is the reality of what happens by default to the mens when there is ambiguity: the designs lose the urinals, the cubicles become fully enclosed floor to ceiling. Washbasins may or may not be in the cubicle. The cubicles are smellier, they are less easy to clean. They get misused more because no one can see what’s happening inside. By misuse I mean sex, drugs and vandalism. There’s a list of over 1200 people who have died in toilets from drugs. In 2008 MPs, academics and industry professionals discussed how The Sexual Offences Act 2003 had not stopped sex happening in toilets. There’s hookups you arrange on the internet. Which may be in shopping centres etc.

Anywhere private in a public space. Rod Liddle discussed the BBC new disabled toilets when discussing allegations about Russell Brand.

Now everything is being formalised you have to have rules. The judge is right about common sense too (children, cleaners and emergencies).

There is a serious lack of sanitary provision in this country which is getting worse. I don’t think toilets are ‘working’. However they have always been a problem - the Sexual Offences Act having so many amendments involving toilets is evidence.

There’s no duty on councils to provide public toilets. It means some people don’t go out. It affects poorer, older and disabled more.

We need toilets to be safe, clean and available.

In the first example it is not you as an individual who is being discriminated against, but the concept of individua/private space itself - in favour of communality/shared space.

Discrimination is the process by which we differentiate ( tell things apart/categorise) one type of thing from another.

The employer has no obligation to provide female/male provision at all if the employer is not obliged to employ both sex. Provision is on head count and an Er can have less provision based on employment rate expectation.

So the Nurses (+ doctors +care staff etv) mainly being female and outnumbering groups eg doctors (50/50+) etc should have more female provision overall.

Eg the Fire Service had only male provision and almost as soon as women got in and managed to secure single sex spaces the FS allowed self IDing males into the womens areas. FS will have to create an extra area or justify dicsrimination.

Yes, I have evidence.

Do we know if "she" is a male with a DSD (like Khelif) or a female with a DSD?

Someone was registered female at birth who has "lived as a woman" could easily be a male. Like Khelif.

This was proposed by M Robin White I believe, amongst others: that all “women” including males who claim they are women should use the communal toilets and the appalling women who didn’t want to could have a separate space.

That was entertaining; essentially agreeing that single sex women's provision and mixed sex/gender neutral was the way forward. Job's done, Bob's your uncle, end of issue.

The many complaints (this complainant among them) on MN from activists about the issues of having to use a mixed sex space while a single sex provision exists alongside have included that it's othering, 'outing', and risky for users with gender identities (shot down in this judgment in plain terms as an argument). The real crunch points have seemed to be that even though women who wish to share mixed sex facilities in the approved way will be there, those women won't do - which seems to be a combination of that:

the real bullseye in terms of what 'validation' may mean (it's a fig leaf over a great deal there) is to be in a women only single sex labelled space with women who wish a single sex space, and with no other men permitted. I suppose 'gold star toilet facilities' in the same terms as the desired 'gold star lesbians', the women who will absolutely only sleep with another woman, and so bestows the greatest 'womanhood' upon the man. The deeply desired experience a number of men with gender identities have written about. Which is in some ways understandable, but not acceptable as it uses women as merely props for the man's need while disregarding their consent or equality, or their access, including their need for actual single sex spaces.

there is, and no point pretending this elephant isn't present and multiply evidenced over years, for some men a deep need to show women who is boss and not permit an escape from the control of men and the ideology, so the mere existance of facilities that cannot be colonised and women who cannot be forced to submit or go without, is a cause for anger and action.

there is a voiced fear (again threads here where well known men with gender identities have posted) that if women are provided with single sex options, most women will choose that option. Which admits knowledge that most women do not want or like mixed sex spaces. And that the old adage about lesbians (activist in the tweets, terf in the sheets) is probably true of women in this situation too, that many who post insisting that they have no problem at all and would love to use mixed sex toilets would in fact often choose the single sex space.

At least we have reached the point of legally having the ability to prevent the shutting down and removal of single sex spaces and the insistance that they must be provided first and then other options added. And some of the more peculiar arguments have now been legally dealt with and dismissed, by the High Court.

@Keeptoiletssafe Would you be kind enough to clarify something for me? If a service (not an employer) decided to have 'women and TIMs' toilets and 'men and TIFs' toilets, would those have to be fully enclosed rooms? They couldn't simply rebadge existing single-sex rows of cubicles?