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

Exactly. The use of 'deviant behaviour' in the context of men entering women's spaces is very different from Maugham's framing of SM calling people 'deviants'. Maugham seems to be thinking in terms of saints (who do no wrong), and sinners (who do no right) aka 'deviants', whereas SM called out specific behaviour without putting those who perform it into those black and white categories. I think a court, well versed in the precise use of language, is likely to spot that linguistic sleight of hand a mile off.

People are not wholly good or wholly bad. To call someone a criminal is not the same as saying that someone has committed a criminal offence (such as exceeding a speed limit). Most of us who have exceeded a speed limit would be offended at being classed as a criminal. It is Maugham who has categorised men who enter women's spaces as 'deviants' as if the entering of a women's space defines their characters in their entirety.

[I do not suggest that all cases of speeding are equivalent to all cases of men entering women's spaces. Both of these can vary in seriousness, so a man joining the WI is not the same a man swanning into a female changing room, and doing 71 on the M5 is not the same as doing 48 past the entrance of a primary school.]

Am pretty sure SM meant behaviour that deviates from the law, as in behaviour that breaches the law, that the person should, or ought to know about.

This is exactly what SM have written "deviant behaviour". The GLP are complaining about something that SM have not said "describing women who are trans using women's spaces as 'deviants'". However if the cap fits...

"describing women who are trans using women's spaces as 'deviants'"

See, that doesn't even make sense due to the fact that JM can't say "men"
It sounds like he's saying "women who identify as trans" i.e. actual women
He's tied himself in knots

(irrespective of the fact SM didn't even say that in the first place)

IMO Sex Matters actually go out of their way in the material they publish on their website to refer to trans-identified people with respect and to point out that they have needs and rights. They are at pains to make it clear that any issues that are causing friction are because trans-identified men are men, not because they are trans. They want the onus to be on employers and service providers to make it absolutely clear that their single-sex services are actually single-sex and to ensure that they signpost gender neutral services for anyone uncomfortable with using the service for their sex.

Absolutely fascinating that sex matters said MEN indulging in deviant behavior and GLP immediately thought they were referring to transwomen. I thought transwomen were literally women.

That you choose to pretend common social associations to words don't exist is your denial issue.

My irony meter has exploded.

And being male, marching into a female space where you know you should not be and where women in a state of undress will not be comfortable with you being, in some cases able to remain in the space, and denying women their inclusion, equality and legal resources for your own personal agenda (whatever that might be) -

how is that not deviant? It is not an appropriate or acceptable thing to do, and with the guidance and law clear to all now - a man doing this is advertising that he is untrustworthy and not acting in good faith towards those women.

And that's before we get onto the fully evidenced (by men, proudly advertising their actions on their social media) waving of swords and machetes with threats of GBH, bins raided for wet tampons to push up bums, wanking with cubicle doors open, taking selfies of self with women while posting about hoping a little girl is walking about with her tampon string dangling or wants your help to insert one....

Seriously, how long is this Emperor going to wag his stuff around while demanding everyone say his trousers are lovely and they can't see a thing?

I also think that Helen Joyce does specifically mean deviant. She is arguing that the lack of respect for boundaries is a violation. It might sound extreme, but I think I have heard her use the word before in an intentional way.

Some people might not like it, but it's not unusual for feminists to talk in these terms when referring to men.

I nearly choked on my coffee! Quote of the day. Thank you.

It is certainly transgressive for a man to enter a designated women only space - certainly when he knows he should not be in there. Why is he doing it? What are his motives? These motives must by their nature be deviant or perverse in some way. People ( men) who transgress boundaries knowing full well that some other people ( women) will be discomforted or feel compromised by that transgressive act. What word might you might you use to describe that type of action or behaviour?

Stubbornly Wrongheaded: Deliberately choosing to do something that goes against reason, logic, or accepted norms.
Contrarian Pleasure: Finding an odd, often dark satisfaction in doing something disagreeable or unexpected (e.g., taking "perverse pleasure" in an argument).
Perverted or Immoral: Occasionally used to describe something deviating from what is considered natural or morally correct

One of the most recent ruses - to disguise/obscure the fact that everyone knows that what we are talking about is men; about men who adopt trans identities and then try to impinge upon female boundaries and dignity - by talking more generally about 'trans people' ( as if trans people are not either male or female like everyone else). As if trans identified people do not have a sex. It is purely a diversionary tactic used to obscure the crux of the issue.

The whole business relies on blnd acceptance of 'the faith' and an unwillingness, or an inability, to think critically. People have been encouraged to associate critical thinking only with ideologically based criticism of 'oppressive' systems, or the 'oppressive' establishment.

I knew, with a high degree of confidence, that statistically the poster wouldn’t answer. Safety always gets in their way.

lol.

Apart from the fact that the word was used to describe behaviour, not people, any and every man who enters women's space unlawfully, is absolutely representative of all men who do it.

Don't want your behaviour to be called deviant? Don't do it.

You think men who think (know) they are right are going to respond to "subtle". ????????????????

This is a real life scenario.

It should be in their face that if the contravene the signing that a facility is only for biological women that is breaking legal ruling.

That's why clear signage and short statement of how is it now a legal requirement should also be mandatory.

Whether a man who isn't pretending to be a woman needs acess to women's facilities for whatever reason should be sorted out with whoever runs the building where it is.

It's important to remember that this has been the norm for years.

Its not that long ago when on a day out to a city I didn't know I was really grateful to see well signposted notices to women's toilets.

And also please to see when I got there that the local authority had put a notice up to advise women in advance that the toilets would be cleaned at a particular time and they apologised as they need to let users know the clearer would be a man.

I think we are giving much to much weight to these primadonas.

Again this is assuming men like this care about this more subtle aspect of the problem and threat they are creating for women.

If they respected this they would never have made the determinded and ongiong onslaught of women only facilities.

If men were likelt to respond to a subtle suggestion they are conforming to expected behaviour must be living in cloud cuckoo land.

What they are doing is illegal.

They need to understand that.

What we need to know is what level of punishment they will incure for their illegal behaviour.

Seriously! Does anyone think the men who should be taking notice are going to go, oh my goodness, it never occured to me that I was being deviant!

Just as men dont think it is deviant to think man have a right to buy women's bodies.

The problem is that 'illegal' is quite a specific word.

It isn't a crime to walk into an opposite sex toilet, and you aren't going to face any kind of prosecution unless you refuse to leave and/or are found different of another crime.

I think perhaps you need to remember that "deviant" can be either a noun (in which case it often does mean a person whose sexual behaviour is unacceptable in some way) or an adjective. The latter is how it was used in the sentence under discussion, and as an adjective it means "different from the norm or the socially acceptable", not "sexually a bit strange and unpleasant."

That a woman was wearing trousers would have been described as "deviant" not so long ago. I doubt this was because it was pervy, when it was being done for instance for safety at work – landgirls wore trousers because skirts getting caught in farm machinery would be dangerous, but at the time their wearing trousers was described as deviant, as in deviating from the accepted norm. And a planet with an irregular orbit, such as Pluto (if that is still a planet, I lose touch) is described as deviant.

Some people just do have to drag sex into everything, though, as the fox-botherer demonstrates.

And in the matter of women claiming that all transwomen are sexual deviants and all the rest of it, that's garbage too because they don't. What they patiently explain over and over and over again for the hard of thinking is that sexually perverse or downright criminal men can and do use trans women as a stalking horse to get them access to little girls and naked women – a practice which every transwoman I know (a fair few) would condemn as both horrible behaviour and not at all good for the real trans people.

In fact I feel that we should call such opportunistic perverts "fake trans" to make it clear they are men pretending to be transwomen in order to gain licence to behave in a repugnant way.

charged with another crime!

A Telegraph article on Sarah Phillimore's lawsuit against the fox basher has just dropped. Following more recent publicity for the case.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5511121-glp-are-going-after-sarah-phillimore-and-are-going-to-lose-part-two?page=16

The recent actions by GLP need to be put in that context. They are panicking.

AS I keep saying if the toilet or whatever is clearly labelled as being for women, and that this means biological sex as clarified by the Supreme Court and now the guidelines, what is it if not illegal for a man to then persist in entering.

Whether it is deliberate provocation and intended to be an act of aggression they should be dealt with by the law.

Staff shouldn't have to deal with a man who has gone out of his way to break the guidelines.

The need to be shown there will be direct consequences.

It will help that the legalities are clear and women can now loudly and openly challenge men in their spaces. It helps that everyone - those women's husbands and male friends included - also now know that those men have alternative options and should not be using their wives/sisters/mothers/daughters for validation.

No, one cannot stop men prancing in and out of public toilets, depriving women of access, privacy, dignity and inclusion, in particular vulnerable women who unlike them don't have two other options they can fall back on. If this turns out to be a long term issue then women will need to campaign for the law to catch up with modern times and the behaviours of some modern men.

However - service users not obeying the law and respecting the law, other service users, and their access needs can be denied access to the service. Signs everywhere these days about 'anyone abusing our staff will be asked to leave/removed from the service/reported' - that sadly weren't needed before covid. This could be a natural extension, if needed. Along with clear public messaging that yes trans people are very special and important and so are women, and women's access and equality needs must be respected.

This whole thread has been interesting, especially the 'illegal' vs. 'deviant' discussion. Joyce has alluded to this multiple times and has clearly thought deeply about it and discussed it generally at Sex Matters.

A major argument against the EHRC guidance has been that it's unenforcible. Joyce (and others at SMs) have made the point that enforceability is not the primary concern of drafted law and regulation. That drafters assume people will comply out of civic responsibility, living as they do in a society that's governed by law. That's in fact how laws work in practice - by social force. That force, however isn't just altruism, it also works through stigma - flagrant, selfish lawbreaking is stigmatised: even if you don't agree with a law, even if you're unlikely to be taken to court for violating it, even if you're selfish and non-altruistic, you're still most likely subject to shame and fear of being stigmatised as an anti-social scoff-law.

By noting the behaviour is deviant (not just potentially illegal sexual harassment), SM is underlining that men entering women's toilets or supporters advocating for men to enter women's toilets (GLP & TRAs) ought to be stigmatised. SM is trying to build the social force necessary to make the regulation effective. It' will take time, but I think public sentiment is such that compliance will build.

The GLP's efforts to publicise the word may well, in the short term, galvanising the non-compliance faction of TRAs, but I think it actually works to SM's objectives of motivating social force in the long term. After all the GLP is essentially complaining that SM is stigmatising them, and they're right if you follow the logic, the implication is that GLP should be stigmatised! SM is isn't allowed to make that connection by name (being a charity) but GLP is making that connection for them amping up social media publicity. And it seems unlikely that the Charity Commission will come to the GLP's defence and bail them out of their self-designation.

One wonders if there isn't an aspect of SM waving around the red cape of a matador. Maybe more people should take the suggestion of donating to the GLP seriously.

I imagine that Sex Matters have been very careful about choosing the word 'deviant' rather than 'illegal' because they have access to excellent equaliites law lawyers. GLP would be more likely to have a case against them if they used the word 'illegal'. With 'deviant' he will get nowhere.
I think that you have misunderstood the law in this area, but IANAL so I'm not going to pontificate further.

Yes, I think that this is exactly the case.

I think disapproval from other men will be crucial. My DH says he was never explicitly told why he shouldn't enter a women's space but the idea that it was a completely unacceptable thing to even think about doing was modelled to him by adult males from a young age.

Woman are not to be shamed for wanting their own spaces and resources. The men who try to cross their boundaries are to be shamed. #shamehastochangesides