Good Law Project to report Sex Matters over 'deviant' remark

[IwantToRetire]

In its assessment of the EHRC guidance, Sex Matters took issue with the following phrase: "It is unlikely to be either practical or appropriate to approach any particular individual to make enquiries about their sex in relation to facilities, such as toilets, which are incidental to the primary service.”

The sex-based rights group responded in a publication entitled <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/lLjDq/sex-matters.org/posts/updates/sex-is-not-special-category-data/?ref=ed_latest" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"Sex is not a 'special category' data", saying: "There is no legal basis for this instruction, which in effect licenses men to enter women’s facilities and claim that it is inappropriate, possibly unlawful and a breach of their human rights to challenge them."

The group further stated: "Telling staff supervising single-sex spaces that they must second-guess themselves when they become aware of a man engaging in the deviant behaviour of accessing a female-only space, or risk breaching data-protection law, will lead to unwanted conduct related to the protected characteristic of sex that is likely to meet the definition of harassment in the Equality Act. It 'violates a person’s dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment'."

From article at https://www.thenational.scot/news/26143769.good-law-project-report-sex-matters-deviant-remark/
and at https://archive.is/lLjDq

<Tosses rose petals in Kts' path>

"Philosophy matters here"—give me strength. This is absolute fiction about France. They have sex-segregated facilities all over the place in schools, stations, and public buildings.
Having individual, self-contained street pods (sanisettes) or tiny cafes with a single loo due to ancient plumbing constraints is not a "unisex philosophy." Though if the poster loves those sanisettes so much, go knock yourself out using them! There are certainly plenty to choose from.

Moving the goalposts to "well, there's no specific legislation banning it" is a total red herring. Neither France nor the UK has specific criminal laws making it an arrestable offence just to step inside a bathroom. That doesn't mean boundaries don't exist. It comes down to property management, workplace safety, and common decency. Let’s not pretend the lack of a specific "bathroom policing law" means French women have happily given up their single-sex boundaries.

As for trying to claim "deviant" only implies sexual or repulsive practices—give over. It literally means departing from usual or accepted standards. Sex Matters were talking about boundary violations by men. They never even associated the word with transwomen in the text—it's entirely telling that this poster has jumped to that conclusion himself. Entering a space specifically reserved for the opposite biological sex is, by definition, a total deviation from established social rules. It’s not about who they are, it’s about what they are doing and where they are doing it. It's the boundary violation itself that makes the behaviour deviant. But of course, any excuse to rewrite the dictionary to fit a narrative!

Forget the Philosophical. If you must, look at Marlow’s needs pyramid.

The most basic need is to actually have a toilet in the first place for excretion. This depends on where you live, if you are able bodied and if you can pay and if it’s available. The people it affects most are the elderly, women, those with medical conditions and those needing accessible toilets. Changing Places toilets are also desperately needed.

Men are still best provided for, they still have more units than women, women need more as they take longer (I can supply standard calculations) so they need more units for equality, and this also is a throwback to when places only had men’s toilets.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg92nl5w25o

This is why the ‘where will I pee?’ plea is interesting as women, the elderly, the disabled and those with medical conditions have been saying this for years. Never got much attention from Parliament. There’s not even one ministry for overseeing all toilets. The closest we get is the BSR splitting from the HSE in the next few days.

Never, since the Sexual Offences Act (2003), has there been this much discussion about toilets. Then, it was argued that if sexual activity was to be made illegal in public toilets then it would be discriminatory against men.

Despite the fact men have always had more toilets, men can’t stop not using them. They have always liked to piss on buildings, so much so that they corroded buildings around Westminster in the past. The ‘Spend a Penny’ came from spending a penny for a cubicle. The urinals were free in an attempt to get men to stop doing it in the streets. You still see guards built into buildings or added to them (the Bank of England has them) to deflect the urine stream from men. If it splashes, they are more likely to go elsewhere.

Do you know what helped the Suffragettes? Selfridges in London put in women’s toilets. It enabled them to gather.

When a man marches into a women's single sex space, where women are undressed, where he knows none of the women present have been asked for consent and he doesn't care if they consent or not, when this excludes and alarms women even if he happens to be a man who is behaving appropriately, and he is using the fact that he knows he is the larger, stronger and more powerful person in the room, and this is against the law that protects those women's right to the space, right to equality, right to access and right to privacy and dignity from him -

how is he not doing something deviant? He harasses and subordinates every woman in the space just by walking through the door!

Completely agree with this. And actually, it perfectly underscores why maintaining and enforcing clear boundaries is so vital.

Historically and practically, women have always had a harder time accessing clean, safe spaces. Dismantling those private, single-sex boundaries or pretending they don't matter because of some vague unisex philosophy, like our resident Sanisette Philosopher was trying to claim, just makes things ten times worse for the women, elderly, and disabled people who rely on those spaces to feel secure.

It's exactly why calling out a boundary violation for what it is matters. It’s about protecting the spaces we do have left.

I am not reading in real time so apologies if this has already been addressed.

I suggest anyone reads the judgment from paragraph 55 to get a clear sense of what Swift J was discussing here. www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/good-law-project-EHRC-AC-2025-1953-judgment-13Feb26.pdf

If you haven't got time, just reading paragraph 61 in full makes clear (my emphasis) that he is discussing whether it could be arguable that a mixed sex provision for women and transwomen may not directly discriminate against other men if they were offered materially similar provision.

If you read the preceding paragraphs (from 33) addressing the claimants point 4 ((4) Are the points made in the Interim Update accurate?) It is clear that discussion is in the context that single sex provision for women is also provided, i.e. this is not the only provision for women.

"61. Whether different treatment is also less favourable treatment is, therefore, a qualitative question. In a case where the provision of separate lavatories labelled male and female was materially similar in terms of the extent of the provision, location, and so on, I consider there would, in principle, be scope for a strong argument that a rule or practice that permitted trans women to use the “female” lavatory but required other biological men to use the male lavatory would comprise different but not less favourable treatment on grounds of sex. However, the circumstances of the case would be decisive. (For the purposes of the EA 2010 the lavatory would be mixed-sex, but for the purposes of the Claimants’ submission in this case it would still be labelled “women”.)"

IANAL but this judgment is written in nice clear language and fairly simple to understand IMO. Cherry picking bits out of context may sound nice but does not reflect the points the judge was making.

You’ve completely misunderstood what he said if you think it means that so called “trans women” men can use female only spaces.

This is what infuriates me the most, they are the ones making the choice to try and change themselves into something they can never actually be, yet somehow the onus is always put on women to compromise our safety, privacy, and boundaries to accommodate them. It is complete entitlement. Women did not create this situation, and we should not be the ones expected to manage the reality of their choices at the expense of our own basic rights.

Yes. Also NAL but he was discussing whether this arrangement would be discriminatory to men who are not trans. And the answer is 'it depends'. Presumably if even a single man wanted in to the space to watch women undress or deal with periods then yes, indeed, it would be discriminatory as he's not getting the same 'benefit' (shudder) as the trans-identifying men.

This arrangement IS clearly discriminatory to women as it prevents them from having a single sex space and the safety, dignity and privacy (and in some cases conformity with religious rules) that comes from that. Including not having to deal with periods in front of men or undress in front of them.

Still, one of the greatest, most civilised toilets this country has is the disabled toilet, now called the accessible toilet. It shows we care for everyone in society. People need to respect this toilet and not misuse it whilst inside. It should be well supervised and cleaned well and conform to regulations (for easy transfers etc) so it’s fit for purpose.

Ambulant toilets are also great, helping frailer users and freeing up the accessible.

My views are in contrast to Jolyon Maugham, who despite spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of others money on court cases about toilets, he seems to think accessible toilets are still called disabled toilets and are in the basement. He has no clue about toilet design and thinks fully enclosed, mixed sex toilets are the sophisticated solution for keeping children safe in education. If he had used that money to do one iota of research, he would see he was wrong. Also, where the hell does the money come from? Has he seen the building regulations for one of these toilets?

Exactly. And he made it very clear that not providing a female only toilet (ie only providing unisex) may be discrimination against in and of itself.

Bingo! @Baileyonice didn’t or couldn’t reply because as you know Satan could quote the bible for his own benefit.

For clarity sake I am not calling you the Devil @Baileyonice its a usuage of a phrase.

Swift said toilets, showers and changing rooms at work need to be single sex spaces.

Mixed sex spaces that exclude men who accept they are men are likely to be discriminatory. It’s an aside from the judge. A bit of you know philosophical thinking perhaps. They are additional spaces in addition to legally required spaces and it’s unlikely that any women will go there to affirm trans identified men, so they’ll soon become single sex spaces for men in any event.

Stop showing off that you read, understood and didn’t misquote the judgment.

Using evidence isn’t truth. My truth is truth. 😂

Justice Swift's judgement was on the whole clear and accessible e.g.
35 ... the Claimants’ submission was that having provided a room for women, the 1992 Workplace Regulations do not prevent the employer adopting a policy that the room could be used by both women and trans women. Thus, the submission goes, regulation 20 requires no more than the provision of facilities and says nothing as to the manner in which those facilities should be used. I do not accept this submission. First, it places form over substance, disregarding the obvious purpose of regulations 20 –21 and 24 The obvious albeit unspoken premise of regulation 20 is the provision of private space for each sex for reasons of conventional decency.

37 It is clear from this that the objective of regulation 20 is that men and women should use conveniences in separate rooms, not together in the same room.

However, he also indulged in some regrettable asides and 'what if's, e.g.

61 I consider there would, in principle, be scope for a strong argument that a rule or practice that permitted trans women to use the “female” lavatory but required other biological men to use the male lavatory would comprise different but not less favourable treatment on grounds of sex. However, the circumstances of the case would be decisive. (For the purposes of the EA 2010 the lavatory would be mixed-sex, but for the purposes of the Claimants’ submission in this case it would still be labelled “women”.)

He was musing on whether a non-trans man would really be 'disadvantaged' if the segregated Men's toilet he was restricted to, unlike his putative transwoman colleague, was exactly the same as the Women's toilet, which is unlikely - men's and women's toilets tend to have different 'furniture', facilities etc.

Either way, Justice Swift also said that if transwomen were allowed use the 'Women's' toilet, it would then cease to be a women's toilet, and would become a mixed sex toilet,
5 One clear consequence of the conclusion reached in For Women Scotland was that if, for example, a service provider provided a service to be used both by women and transsexual women, that service would not be a single-sex service.

So his thinking-out-loud about this technicality was unfortunate, as it was seized on and misinterpreted by some commentators.

While safety is a very important reason for single-sex spaces, it is not the only one. Justice Swift asserted that separate toilet facilities for men and women are
35 for reasons of conventional decency and
28 "necessary for reasons of propriety”.

No. My truth is truth. Your truth is not truth. 🤣

@MarieDeGournay to be fair to Swift J, he was addressing one of the claimants specific claims- that it wasn’t lawful to state it would be direct discrimination against men to have a facility that admitted women and transwomen but excluded men. He says you could argue the point but not so far as to make the EHRC’s interim guidance legall wrong.

IMO it’s not what he said that’s the problem but the people quoting out of context, incompletely and paraphrasing for their own purposes

.

Our truth is truth but them over there, their truth isn’t truth. They might have the law but they can’t have truth too.

Noooo. All truth is subjective except my truth.

Ok you’ve convinced me with your erudite arguments and critical thinking. I doff my cap to you dear Lady Sir.

😂😂😂

I should have said the TW + biological women arrangement is discriminatory to women if no adequate (in terms of numbers of women) true single sex space provided in addition.

Whether it's discriminatory to men is unclear and might need a legal case (I personally think it probably is).

However as PP says in practice if there were single sex spaces, a TW + biological women mixed sex space, a mixed sex space (plus accessible) then in fact you'd end up with two men's only toilets because for all the handmaidening going on, particularly in places like the NHS, no woman is going to keep using that space when single sex is available.

I live in France.

Never seen any unisex facilities. Not one.

In case you were wondering, this is a complete fabrication.

I shall look at standard deviations in a whole new way...statisticians ! Who knew?

If Jolyon Maugham is on here I would like to ask him a question:

If someone was having a cardiac arrest in a non-domestic toilet, would you rather them be in the design I promote, or yours?

Academic studies have shown up to 11% of cardiac arrests are on the toilet - it’s where people rush to when they are feeling ill and people often feel the need to empty their bowels. The Valsalva maneuver (holding your breath and pushing) puts strain on a vulnerable body.

When people collapse on to the floor of a toilet, they can end up being left for hours or days, in busy places like hospitals, schools, council offices, gp surgeries, restaurants. You need to be able to see into the toilet compartment to rescue someone quickly. That is only permissible in single sex environments.

If you really want to use that money for good, look at ways to incorporate the health and safety benefits of single sex designs into mixed sex design and negotiate with people in Building Control to put them in place. But what you are doing at the moment is reducing the health and safety benefits for everyone at their most vulnerable by trying to eliminate the single sex environment around the toilet cubicle.