Trick to sidestep equality law?

[Gerri1992]

Just saw this on x. This wouldn't work right? It would obviously just be an attempt to break equality law.

i cant see how that would work .if a service is labelled womens ,it means female sex (presumably "girls" means young female sex) . So its labelled a female single sex space/service.
They could call the Womens institute ,The Institute and make it mixed sex or the Girl Guides,The guides and make it mixed sex.

"The GirlsAndTransIdentifyingBoys Guides"

A mouthful, but accurate and clear. Is that acceptable, or not?

It doesn't matter what I think or want, it matters how the law works. As Kemi Badenoch says, it was intended to be a shield, not a sword.

I personally have no problem with any groups being set up if desired, so long as they are not pretending to be single sex female when in fact they are mixed sex. They would not however be able to invoke legal exclusion to prevent any unwanted members. (Which would be like the lesbian groups and women's groups who with the misreading of the EqA were told repeatedly that they could not say no to men.) I do have a very serious problem with designated women and girls' single sex resources being invaded with males against their consent by transactivism. I want the law to ensure that those designated women and girls' resources, services, groups, job posts and facilities are in fact single sex and the law works to maintain them in that way. YMMV.

I agree the "Gender is not sex so let's take sex out of it altogether" falls flat in practice, because whatever the TRAs may say, being with the opposite sex rather than the same gender is what most transpeople really want, although the reasons why they want this can be very different.

However, I think nevertheless the best position is to take them at their word, agree sex is not gender, and ask them to put words to what it is that people who share gender have in common so we can all give our support to the establishment of An Official Association of People Who Like/Do/Feel Gender X Things.

Take them at their word and let them explain why their word doesn't fly.

(PinkFluff wasn't meant to be a code for "all female people and trans identifying males" BTW, it was supposed to be "all the humans who have in common whatever the thing is that people who use the words "women" and "girls" for gender rather than sex are really getting at")

It doesn't matter what I think or want, it matters how the law works.

It matters to me what you - a respected contributor on this topic - think. I want to know if I'm the outlier.

My fear for "any groups you like as long as everyone agrees" is that pressure will be exerted to destroy women-only groups under pressure "by consent". As that idiot Oliver on the radio said, individual GG groups could choose to admit trans-identifying boys if they wanted (yes, I know that won't work for the GG because of charitable purposes etc. - but you get the idea.) Groups would be pressured by activists to do so and in time all would capitulate. And there would be no going back.

It's a crime to take a photograph of your completed ballot paper in an election not because anyone cares about a photograph but because it denies others proof of your vote and punishing you for it. Likewise, the best way to protect women only groups - which are important - is to deny anyone the right to false "women+" groups, at which point issues of consent are moot.

I hear you, and you have a point. Particularly the women + groups being a means to harm women's single sex resources by the back door, this is not a liberal, tolerant or women friendly political movement and it does not operate honestly.

Edited to add: I absolutely am against any designated single sex group being able to choose to lie about being single sex when actually being mixed sex, no matter how many of the group consent. If it is set up for women and girls then that's it, no boys, no circumstances. I won't go in to how I feel about adults steering girls into 'consenting' in these circumstances.

@MyAmpleSheep My fear for "any groups you like as long as everyone agrees" is that pressure will be exerted to destroy women-only groups under pressure "by consent".

Yes, totally agree. It will be #BeKind all over again

"Women and Trans identifying men" groups would become the norm because of the luxury beliefs of the management.

I think women only groups will be drastically reduced, but these new groups not successful, because the focus will have shifted from women to the men. They'll be trans plus allies, not women plus TIM.

Edit: sorry, I didn't mean to repeat everyone else, I just type very slowly.

I initially thought there was no way a TIM would want to join a group where everyone knows it's TIMs and women, based on gender.

They don't want to join a woman's group, they want to force unconsenting women to comply, because that's the main validation. 'You can't stop me because I'm a woman'.

So I didn't think they'll really want those groups in the first place.

However, I now think they would do it anyway, as PP have said, as a political move forward.

They will bring pressure to bear on women and service providers to accept them.

And hey presto, it starts to feel a lot more like the old validation feelz when you're forcing places to accept the group you want because ostensibly 'everyone' agrees to it.

And judging by the seething rage that this whole issue provokes in them, they will keep going, by any means possible, all over the damn place - influencing all the providers, all the MPs, all the groups, all the people, all the NHS. it would be never ending.

There could be such a group. They could say it was for feminine identifying people. Therefore as long as you have a good definition of what “feminine identifying meant”, you could exclude anyone who was not feminine identifying. Simple.

Indirect discrimination is still legally discrimination.

No, because that would be indirect discrimination which as I already explained in my post of yesterday 13:18 is already covered by the Equalities Act and is already illegal and is not covered by the proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim exception which is the thing that allows single-sex organisations to exist.

They can have a pinkfluffythings enthusiasts club that is open to everyone of any sex or gender identity,as per my post of 15:12 but they cannot exclude Bob the truck driver who is male sex and male gender but just loves pinkfluffythings

So you're saying that all these women’s groups where they were forced to accept men were illegal? Awesome. Women here have been saying that for ages and told they were wrong.

If they were abke to set up a group for those that identify as women (whatever their sex)

A. Would they then be excluding women who dont identify as women

B. Still have to provide single sex facilities fir changing, toilets etc?

Didn’t the WI try that with the man who wanted to join? They said it was for people who identify as female, but weren’t able define the phrase.

Correct. The Supreme Court ruling upholds that for Equalities Legislation purposes sex means biological sex which does not change, even for holders of a GRC. It also upholds that trans identifying people must and should have full protection against discrimination and this is important. People with the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment (which is a characteristic that is acquired instantly by self-ID because just considering the possibility in your head is enough to trigger the "proposes to" part of the definition) must not be disadvantaged compared to other members of their sex by arrangements that provide for single-sex opportunities. This is what the guidance that the government is failing to publish is supposed to help with. I know the guidance is abour 30 pages long so would be too complex to boil down to a paragraph here whatever it says, but it will contain numerous examples to lay out how to determine if a separate arrangement for each biological sex is genuinely a valid and proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim and what provisions to make to ensure that people with the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment are not discriminated against, but being very specific that excluding male-sexed people with a feminine gender identity from.a situation that is provided for fenale-sexed people is not and has never been discriminatory and campaigners who said the opposite were misinformed.

I almost wish they would attempt it, and have to describe what a female gender identity is.

Because in the years and years on this board, I've never seen anyone do it even remotely successfully.

It would just look unworkably misogynistic.

And I still think it would be impossible. What's it going to be? Wears dresses? Likes flowers? Or are we going to get to a shifting constellation of ethereal essences?

Indeed. Any definition of gender is liable to fall foul of sex discrimination laws. Because the whole concept is sexism.

RareGoalsVerge is right. I know it’s complicated but this is exactly what the Supreme Court ruling was about, namely how the single-sex exceptions worked in the Equality Act. I’d recommend reading the judgement in full to understand why the single gender proposal would be breaking the law.

I also cannot ever see how it could work to include all of one sex category and a sub-group of the other due to it then being sex discrimination. There is no way around it unfortunately.

Idealistically, sure a group or event should be able to choose who they allow membership to. However, the reality will always come back to sex discrimination as it should.

Maybe the solution will be many friendship groups under 25 people who end up doing one off events at the same place or something similar while still being friendship groups.

A - yes they would, and they would be guilty of indirect discrimination generally and direct discrimination against trans-identifying female people.

B - Social organisations aren't generally legally required to provide single-sex facilities etc - they are usually meeting in community facilities like village halls etc which are shared across many organisations and are covered by building regulations and may, depending on what the building is, also be covered under workplace regulations. Any organisation which includes children or other vulnerable people must have safeguarding policies to manage and minmise risks and a fundamental principle of safeguarding is that there is no such thing as a person who can be assumed to be not a risk and intrinsically trustworthy. Safeguarding practices mean that we no longer say "of course it's fine for the male priest to be alone 1:1 with the 9 year old, he's a priest" and the priest who isn't a risk is wholeheartedly part of normalising the practices that the door is left open and the parish admininistrator is nearby and not turning a blind eye. In the same way we do not assume that a male with a feminine gender ID is inherently a lower risk than any other male.

Ah.

They'd have to exclude transmen, on the basis that they didn't have a female gender identity.

And we all know you can't exclude people on the basis that they're trans.

I have a question.

People keep referring to "men" being in this organisation, but arent these children's groups so it is about boys wanting to go, not men?

From what I have read in this thread, I only think it will be an issue to decline people who do not have a female gender identity, if trans boys (or their parents) believe that the criteria is discriminatory.

I personally think that they would see it as validating because it seemingly acknowledges their gender identity over their sex.

WI is an adult group
Guides were allowing male volunteers who identified as women to share accomidation, changing facilities etc with the female children.

Plus the boys also sharing accomodation etc.