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?

The explanatory notes suggest these as examples:

738.These exceptions would allow:

• a cervical cancer screening service to be provided to women only, as only women need the service;
• a fathers’ support group to be set up by a private nursery as there is insufficient attendance by men at the parents’ group;
• a domestic violence support unit to be set up by a local authority for women only but there is no men-only unit because of insufficient demand;
• separate male and female wards to be provided in a hospital;
• separate male and female changing rooms to be provided in a department store;
• a massage service to be provided to women only by a female massage therapist with her own business operating in her clients’ homes because she would feel uncomfortable massaging men in that environment.

Legitimate aim - to provide safer accommodation for women away from the possibility of being sexually assaulted by men.

I present exhibit A as a justification as to why single sex hostel accommodation for women might be appropriate and there would be a legitimate aim to prevent all entry to men.

https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2026-03-09/travelodge-faces-pressure-over-security-breach-after-guest-sexually-assaulted

I've no problem with them providing mixed sex accommodation

I have a problem with them pretending it's single sex

I’ve read the notes. (6) is the most persuasive as @theilltemperedamateur suggests, but in the notes there is no example given that actually matches that condition.

I agree with this though:

And, this SSE does not apply anyway, because the hostel in the OP is mixed-sex.

Legitimate aim - to provide safer accommodation for women away from the possibility of being sexually assaulted by men.

Nobody denies that a women only hostel is a proportionate means to a legitimate aim. It clearly is. However that alone is insufficient to justify the inherent discrimination.

It's verging on luring women into to be attacked isn't it.

Scary, very scary.

I might email them and ask if it’s ok for me to stay. Tell them I’m non-binary and use a gender neutral name. I fancy being Chris.

What about trans-identified females? Poor sods never get a mention. Can they stay there or not?

I really hope they go out of business as soon as possible but better still they should be legally sanctioned/taken to court to highlight what these flagrant law breakers are getting up to.

All this pissing all over the supreme court judgement by tras and dick panderers is getting really, really boring. And it’s time the law got serious at coming down it.

That's because they're not the special male type of female. All hail the boys.

@MyAmpleSheep

Pretty sure that:

(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.

Would apply.

This was discussed on a thread about a year ago. And I think they didn't respond to enquiries.

But it comes down to in using the word woman are they being misleading.

The supreme court ruling clarified that within the EA sex = biology.

So a hostel wouldn't be covered by the EA unless within it description it for instance specifically says it has a women only policy so that women will feel safe from men / male violence.

I am not sure there has been a court case about this or something similar, but would presumably say the use of the word women is just descriptive of a type of place, they same as if you said it was a pink, or feminine hostel.

The relevant part of the Equality Act 2010 is paragraph 3 of Schedule 23 which specifically deals with communal accommodation.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/schedule/23/crossheading/communal-accommodation

Surely the issue here is that the providers dont want to provide women only as per the EA SSE.

That's the issue.

Not whether they could by quoting the relevant sections of the EA.

What power do any of us have to say to those setting up and running such a hostel to tell them please dont use the word "women".

Sure, but there was a discussion on this thread about the interpretation of Schedule 3 when the relevent law is in Schedule 23 and I just wanted to put people straight on what the law says.

Personally I think Schedule 23 makes it clear that single sex communal accommodation is lawful and FWS confirmed this means biological sex. This hostel can provide mixed sex communal accommodation if it wants but they are playing a very risky game indeed pretending it's single sex when it's not.

The analogue isn't providing toilets for women and not for men. It is fine to provide a service such as a hostel just for women or just for men - for example for religious reasons or because women feel safer in single sex accommodation. You don't have to provide the same facility to the opposite sex which is what you seemed to be saying.

Could it be reported to the advertising standards agency?

As a private business they can choose to include trans women if they want, law doesn’t apply. What they must do though is be clear about their policy. Ideally in a hostel thru can accommodate both groups separately but then they can accommodate men too!

Well no they can't, by including trans gender males they are effectively including some males but excluding others. That is illegal.

That's the thing that has made Girl Guides and Womens Institute change their tune. They can't include some men but discriminate against others.

I'm also curious about their Public Liability insurance who would want to assess the risk of a bloke in a pink t-shirt being guaranteed to end up in a room with women.

Its only illegal if some man wants to challenge them and wins.

As with the owners using the word women, the vast majority of people in the UK firstly wouldn't question them, and secondly wouldn't sue them for excluding men who say they are biological male.

As came up on another thread, about whether you could trade mark the word women / woman to be a description of someone who is biologically female, as far as the general public is concerned there isn't an issue.

And if they haven't chosen to invoke the EA on what grounds could they be sued if the owner was able to say that as they aren't the only providers of hostel services in London so a man was not losing out on the opportunity to find hostel accommodation.

Maybe one day there will be another court case about the use of the word woman in terms of advertising a service or provision, that isn't about as the EA is about a proportionate need, but a life style choice or something.

Like hen nights, and all sorts of other social events. Which admittedly in the past would because of social convention have been only biological females.

Now that shared social understanding doesn't exist any more.

The most the Supreme Court ruling did was clarify that sex was / is a protected characteristic and of equal importance to any of the other protected characteristics, and as such should not be the exception where another protected characteristic could undermine its rights ie relation to for instance discrimination, or in the instance of the right to have servies etc., only for that protected characteristic.

No, it’s also potentially illegal discrimination and harassment of women. Especially if a woman was assaulted there, as they are claiming a sex based exemption they aren’t entitled to.

Any single sex service is relying on the single sex exception.

I agree what we need is for it to be mandatory to call the facilities mixed sex if they are not truly single sex.

Interestingly, they do have a female only dorm. It's the 14-bed one with no photos.

So they must know. I'm not convinced "but we offer single-sex accommodations!" is sufficient excuse for calling themselves a women's hostel.

Their policies include the right to deny service for noncompliance, which includes “making a guest feel uncomfortable”.

Whoever wrote that must own a defective dictionary with the word 'irony' completely missing.

The photo Kitwyn posted makes it look more like a brothel than a backpackers paradise so it will definitely lure certain types of "women" in!