Female only hostel in London…except it isn’t.

[SidewaysOtter]

https://www.hostelle.co.uk

Hostelle appears to be a woman-only hostel in London, offering cheap accomodation. Being a hostel, this means dorm rooms as shown in their own pictures. Sounds great, right? Perhaps you’re a woman travelling alone and you’re unfamiliar with London, so a woman only space would be a great idea.

Except, for reasons of inclusivity, they include transwomen. So you rock up to your room in and find you’re sharing with a male. And you can’t ask for single sex accomodation as the owners have made it clear they include TIMs in their definition of “woman”. Their policies include the right to deny service for noncompliance, which includes “making a guest feel uncomfortable”. So you’d be between a rock and a very hard place: sleep in a room with a man, or find somewhere else in an unfamiliar city, perhaps late at night.

It’s almost like the Supreme Court ruling never happened, isn’t it?

That's ridiculous. They should at least offer same sex rooms as an option. Otherwise what's the point of having a so-called "women's hostel" in the first place.

They have completely undermined their own USP. How shortsighted of them.

Here is their vomit inducing not compliant with the law "inclusivity" policy

www.hostelle.co.uk/inclusivity-policy-2/

I wonder when the first sexual assault will occur 🤷‍♀️

Is that even legal?

They misspelled hostile.

Pretty sure it's not. A public service cannot say it's women only and also include men. If they want to include Transwomen, then they should advertise as mixed sex - meaning any man can use it.

Exactly. They can't exclude some men but not others.

No.

We know it's not.

Absolutely worth a repeat!

So what, if anything, can be done?

But that’s really weird. They’re making a point of telling women so no one can complain they didn’t know. Which means they obviously realise how off-putting this policy is.

Given that they’ve much reduced their potential client base by excluding normal men, you’d think they would make it as appealing as possible to women. I’d far rather share a hostel (not a room) with ordinary men than with men living out their sex fetish. So a mixed hostel with single-sex rooms would be more appealing, and statistically safer, than Hostelle.

Suspect they might be popular with AGPs looking for a turn on and some girlish pillow fights 🤮

Agreed. Hostelle's illegal inclusivity policy enables and encourages voyeurism by men, including cross-dressing men, and trans identifying men. And it will make it very difficult to prosecute these men for voyeurism.

Any cross-dressing man can book and stay there, and be assigned a bunk bed in a room for 4 to 16 'women'.

It's very cheap, clean and central. Perfect for young women on a budget. Except it isn't at all, as it's very dangerous.

These bunk beds have 'handy' individual curtains so he can peer out and watch the women and girls. He can photo and video them, but no one else can see what he's doing.

Men staying in the bunks, aren't breaking any of the Hotel's policies. He could just be very early in his 'transition process' and hasn't told people yet.

How would the CPS prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was there and watching the female guests undress? There is CCTV in common areas, but not of course in the bedrooms or shower & toilet rooms.

What could possibly go wrong?

(Photo from Hostelle's own website showing what the rooms look like.)

But isn't that just saying
'Our name and publicity says we are a woman-only space but there's small print which says we're the opposite'?
That doesn't sound legal, honest, decent or truthful.
Hopefully they'll be pulled up on it, whether under the Equality Act or the Trade Description Act or Advertising Standards.

Can they establish that a women-only hostel meets the requirement that it is “not reasonably practicable to provide separate services” I.e. a hostel for men as well?

The law does not permit anyone to provide women-only services “just because”. If you’re going to provide a hostel service you’re going to have to offer the service to both sexes, separately if that’s the only practical way, but if offering to women only you have to meet at least one of a number of specific conditions.

Much as we might like them not to be, women-only stuff is generally illegal.

If you’re going to provide a hostel service you’re going to have to offer the service to both sexes,

Then Hostile Hostelle will have to let in all men, not just the ones who say they are women.

That's nonsense. Under the Equality Act 2010, providing single-sex services is lawful if it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, such as privacy, decency, or safety. There is no requirement to provide the same service to the opposite sex as well. Providing a woman only hostel is perfectly legal. Allowing men in dresses in while excluding other men is not legal. The hostel could also be sued for allowing men in women's dormitories while claiming to be single sex.

providing single-sex services is lawful if it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim,

That’s one condition that must be satisfied, but it’s not the only condition. On its own that is not enough.

See EA2010 Schedule 3 section 27:

(1)A person does not contravene section 29, so far as relating to sex discrimination, by providing a service only to persons of one sex if—
(a)any of the conditions in sub-paragraphs (2) to (7) is satisfied, and
(b)the limited provision is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim

As an exercise, have a look through and see which conditions in sub-paras (2) to (7) you think they meet.

We’re not talking about services provided to both men and women separately. An analogue of this would be toilets provided for women, but not for men. There’s a reason toilets are provided equally for both sexes. To provide toilets only for women would probably not be lawful.

such as privacy, decency, or safety.

Those words don’t appear in the act. They might provide a reason to separate men from women and provide separate hostels; I don’t think they justify not providing separate facilities for men at all.

False advertising if they allow males.

Female dorms are in demand everywhere so they must be as they say on the tin. Our daughter is looking at hostels in Edinburgh for a trip with friends which all have female dorms more expensive and sold out first, and often mixed as the alternative which we assume are filled by men.

There are many, many hostels in London that will happily accommodate men.

It's analogous to domestic violence refuges in the UK. A women-only refuge can legally turn away all men (and teenage boys). The refuge should, however, provide details of nearby alternatives that will accept males if needed.

So Hostelle would just need a sensible written policy of how to handle phone/email/in person enquiries from male people. And what to do if someone obviously male books, turns up, and tries to check in.

Politely and firmly providing them with a list of names, phone numbers and addresses of those nearby would be adequate.

If only we had an EHRC Code of Practice to help with this.

(6)The condition is that—

(a)the service is provided for, or is likely to be used by, two or more persons at the same time, and

(b)the circumstances are such that a person of one sex might reasonably object to the presence of a person of the opposite sex.

27(1)A person does not contravene section 29, so far as relating to sex discrimination, by providing a service only to persons of one sex if—
(a)any of the conditions in sub-paragraphs (2) to (7) is satisfied, and
(b)the limited provision is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
(2)The condition is that only persons of that sex have need of the service.
(3)The condition is that—
(a)the service is also provided jointly for persons of both sexes, and
(b)the service would be insufficiently effective were it only to be provided jointly.
(4)The condition is that—
(a)a joint service for persons of both sexes would be less effective, and
(b)the extent to which the service is required by persons of each sex makes it not reasonably practicable to provide separate services.
(5)The condition is that the service is provided at a place which is, or is part of—
(a)a hospital, or
(b)another establishment for persons requiring special care, supervision or attention.
(6)The condition is that—
(a)the service is provided for, or is likely to be used by, two or more persons at the same time, and
(b)the circumstances are such that a person of one sex might reasonably object to the presence of a person of the opposite sex.
(7)The condition is that—
(a)there is likely to be physical contact between a person (A) to whom the service is provided and another person (B), and
(b)B might reasonably object if A were not of the same sex as B.
(8)This paragraph applies to a person exercising a public function in relation to the provision of a service as it applies to the person providing the service.

I think at least one of the above would apply.

The problem is that if the hostel is not single-sex, the above exemption does not apply at all. The situation must be analysed from scratch to determine whether there is any less favourable treatment of people sharing a protected characteristic. Mixed sex provision can be indirect sex-discrimination against women (Darlington). 'Trans-inclusive' provision can be direct discrimination against men, depending on the facts (GLP v EHRC).

Because another service provider will accommodate men doesn’t excuse otherwise unlawful discrimination by this one. (That should be obvious: “we don’t serve black people, but the place down the road does, just go there.” won’t work).

Refuges can argue that the extent to which men need a refuge from domestic violence is insufficient to make it practicable to provide a service for men. That would be a defence, under schedule 3 section 27(4). [Oh - and probably 5(b) too - persons requiring special care or attention].

I don’t think anyone could reasonably argue that not enough men need hostels to make it practicable to provide one, so that defence won’t wash here.

I think at least one of the above would apply

OK then - which one?

PP already suggested: (a)the service is provided for, or is likely to be used by, two or more persons at the same time, and
(b)the circumstances are such that a person of one sex might reasonably object to the presence of a person of the opposite sex.

But, in any case, women-only hostels have always been accepted in practice. And, this SSE does not apply anyway, because the hostel in the OP is mixed-sex.