GLP v EHRC judgement - Thread 2

[Another2Cats]

This is a continuation thread from here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5489699-glp-v-ehrc-judgement-is-coming-tomorrow?

Ahh.. but TIMs can be expectant and new mothers too..because they are biological AND they are women AND they expect to become new mothers. So there.

No, I agree. The same definition has to be used across, at the very least, the six pack of H&S regs.

No mammal or human is "intersex" all are male or female, even those with DSDs

Non Binary is just attention seeking.

As Julie Bindel so brilliantly wrote "everything after the B is a haircut"

It is a noticeable tactic that male people use feeding secretions from
their breasts as one of the gateways to access female language for them selves and to wedge open access to single sex provisions.

We have seen it very recently on threads. It doesn’t make them female though in any way, yet they demand that it does because ‘near enough is good enough’.

When they refer to Article 8, the restrictions keep getting missed off.

Someone can nag at you that 1+1 = 7 by their reasoning, and you can do the 'yes of course it is honey, go you' as you would to a child, or you can argue back with facts, evidence and all the rest of it.

But at the end of the day, the very fact they feel the need to harass you to agree with this makes it extremely obvious that they know perfectly well it's not true, and what they actually want is your time and attention and the validation of arguing about it.

Grey rocks and strong boundaries.

They’re trying to resurrect Goodwin which used the intermediate language. They seem to be conflating sex and gender though by appropriating “intersex rights”. Again.

They had a very healthy bank balance a few months back, ~£4million IIRC. They should run through that before asking other people to fund Maugham's childish war on reality.

Edited for dyslexia

Thank you.

I notice that ptd talks there about the solicitors Leigh Day being involved:

"That is excellent- LD are a well established human rights firm. They shouldn't make the same mistakes as the GLP."

"Separately to that appeal, the 3 individuals are also appealing. I don't think it is clear who is representing them. It might still be the GLP."

This prompted me to have a look at the barristers who put their names to the application.

Three are from 11KBW, one from Blackstone chambers, and then there is 'Crash' Wigley (the trans-identifying barrister who wrote a column last year explaining why the Supreme Court didn't know what they were talking about).

So, it certainly does look as though it is a serious application and they are throwing some top class minds at it.

Daniel Stilitz KC is a Tier 1 leading silk in the area of employment law.

The second name is Hannah Slarks, who is a Tier 1 leading junior in employment law. She also put her name to the Women's Institute defence which heavily concentrated on the "living as women" concept and also the idea of positive action under Section 158.

Next is Gayatri Sarathy who has a mixed practice including civil liberties & human rights.

Then there is 'Crash' Wigley (on the Wales & Chester Circuit) and a guy by the name of Samuel Willis.

Given that they have a Tier 1 silk and a Tier 1 junior making their arguments, then the arguments are likely being made as strongly as they can be.

So, if they don't succeed then that will likely be down to the strength of their position rather than any lack in how their arguments are put.

[EDIT]

Although it must be said, that Daniel Stilitz, Hannah Slarks and 'Crash' Wigley were also involved in the original application, instructed by Leigh Day.

There was also Jane Russell KC and Alex Goodman KC in the original application but they have now dropped out.

I note that people were saying that the arguments put forward in the original application weren't particularly strong. Just to step back and think about this for a bit, that was an application who had three KCs put their name to who were instructed by Leigh Day (who are themselves a Tier 1 ranked law firm) and they still couldn't get a result.

From Michael Foran..
https://x.com/i/status/2026012416601981104

.

If anyone wants to read the submission from the three claimants for permission to appeal it’s here:

https://goodlawproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/R-GLP-and-others-v-EHRC-C2-4s-Permission-to-Appeal-Submissions.pdf

It comes over as quite desperate, to me.

PtD has posted a more detailed analysis of the appeal grounds on that same thread. He is alive to the weakness of the “it would be outing” argument, saying

The risk however is that there is very little actual law to back up the concept of a particular right to privacy re outing. There is only limited caselaw stemming from Goodwin and it is not outright stated in the GRA.
There is a chance that the court rules that there is no such right and we end up in a worse position than now.

He goes on:

I think it is worth the risk, as that point will inevitably eventually reach court regardless.

I agree that it’s a point worth settling. Again I do not see how any right entirely to withhold knowledge of your sex survives any statutory requirement for single sex provision. The appeal grounds deliberately and clearly intentionally try to obfuscate the difference between holding a GRC - knowledge of which is protected in law - and simply “being trans”, or “being male”, knowledge of which is nowhere protected that I can see.

I cannot see it winning because the restrictions for Article 8 are quite clear. So if that is what they want to test, I guess it will need to go to court.

If the provision is sex segregated for safeguarding purposes, how the fuck do they dismiss the safety restriction of Article 8? That is going to take some creative arguing. But let’s see those arguments.

Meanwhile, if both sexes are using the additional mixed sex provisions, that is going to dismiss that ‘outing’ argument.

As another point along the "it would be outing" lines: section 22 of the GRA2004 which prohibits disclosure of the existence of someone's GRC has a list of cases where it is legal to disclose. One of them (j) says it's legal to disclose if "the disclosure is in accordance with any provision of, or made by virtue of, an enactment other than this section."

Providing single sex facilities where lawful is definitely in accordance with another enactment. So it's hard to argue that (j) doesn't apply and that single sex facilities properly enforced violate S22.

Yes in some cases, notably the ERCC, the sex of people has been framed as private “health information” subject to the highest protection under the Data Protection Act.

While I'm not particularly familiar with the entire judgment, the tribunal appeared to find the opposite (237):

the Tribunal’s view is that whilst some individuals may be sensitive about having what the respondent’s witnesses termed a person’s “gender history” revealed this is not something which flows axiomatically from the existence of a right to privacy.

(238): There would clearly be circumstances where the right to private life includes a right to confidentiality of one’s gender history but it is not something which occurs in every case. In the vast majority of cases there will be absolutely no controversy whatever in asking someone their biological sex or sex at birth. There would also be no controversy whatsoever in asking someone their gender identity. It will usually be fairly obvious.

I find no support there (in any case a lowly first tier tribunal) for the position that someone has the right to conceal their sex from their employer, in the context of single sex service provision.

Yes, I’m just saying that’s how TRAs have framed it before.

It's a weak argument to put before the Court of Appeal. I support them doing so to have the matter spelt out; it clearly needs to be.

Yes, I agree.

They argue that this should not be assumed and that there is a "natural and ordinary meaning" to the words.
They say, that an ordinary employer or service provider would read the Update and consequently may require a trans person to use the facilities designated for their “biological sex” if they do not have any mixed-sex facilities available.

Finally, something I can agree with the GLP on. Words do have a natural and ordinary meaning, and an ordinary (non-addled) employer would indeed read 'man' and 'woman' as referring to a person's sex (as the Supreme Court did).

And would therefore quite legally and correctly direct them to the single-sex facilities for their sex.

I think this is another very weak point. Anyone responsible for organizing bathroom use within an organization as part of meeting health and safety legislation and equality requirements is already expected by the courts to knowledgeably comply with dozens of rules and statutes.

The GLP filing says "The purpose of the Interim Update was to provide guidance to employers and other duty-bearers. They cannot, contra J/§70, be assumed to be an employer or service provider with an acquaintance with discrimination law, or one having received legal advice."

That is plainly silly. An employer or service provider must have more than acquaintance with discrimination law which binds them. If they don't, they had better get it, and quickly. Whether or not they get legal advice is up to them, but it's entirely clear the guidance is not a substitute for taking proper advice.

Goodwin only won because nobody had seen the video of him at the time.

The idea that a father of four should or could be able to hide their sex is so male. It's up there with Boris Johnson not clarifying how many children he has had.

Pregnancy is far more personal than being male or female, but you can't hide it.

Or heard him. It makes me laugh every time the GLP/ Robin M White, former Master McCloud et al drivel about the SC "not hearing from trans people". Aside from all the usual ways in which that's deliberate misdirection, it's also funny AF. Had the ECtHR had to see & hear Goodwin there's no way on god's green earth they could have imagined his sex was secret but for an NI number.

You could ask the obvs question too about when did RMW or indeed any of the agencies women were forced to go to court with for their rights, 'hear from women'? What do political activist groups do to women when they try to get together to speak, never mind talk to anyone else?

The unequal treatment they see as entirely normal and justified, says it all.