Gwent Police receive letter before action over allowing trans women into changing rooms and toilets

[SpringCalling]

Police force ‘insists trans officers can use women’s toilets’. Well done WRN - this really is going to be a long hard slog.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/15f0e7d6-bcfa-4413-9daf-e031287c18ea?shareToken=8ec1e36d08121fa2ed3b3117d03c7270-9daf-e031287c18ea?

Thank you. I will read with interest.

Apparently they are now awaiting 'further guidance on workplaces.' 🙄

Yes - and need to consult with their special interest groups. Who wants a bet that won't include any women's groups?

So worrying that these people are the forces of law and order yet so willing to breach the law and enable voyeurism and indecent exposure.

There is a two step line of defence they have. 1) awaiting guidance re workplace

2. Consulting staff networks. Neither hold water, thanks to the GLP.

Interesting as there was an article from a few days ago about WRN Wales facing legal action over women only spaces and services.
https://nation.cymru/news/welsh-government-warned-it-will-face-legal-action-if-it-fails-to-keep-womens-spaces-and-services-for-biological-women-only/

I wonder if this is part of it - and eventually the Welsh Government will be sued!

It's very worrying when the police don't understand the law. If they don't understand it, how can they enforce it. Which begs the question of what is the point of them if they can't do either?

Actually scrub that, they don't understand car crime, or shop lifting, or burglary, or stalking, or violence against women, or rape or... they do seem to understand tweets though. Funny that 🤔

They're banged to rights.

I wonder how many of these cases, or letters, or actual court appearances it will take, before it finally sinks in that, actually, women have won.

They want guidance on the guidance, do they?

Remind me again what the police are supposed to do re the law?

It’s not the officers who are making these decisions it’s the higher ups. The actual officers who are enforcing the law, who do help people etc have no say

Absolutely ridiculous.

Law schplaw- we’re actually expecting police forces to follow the law now are we? How very 2026.

Well done WRN! Best of luck to them and let this be the Year of the Return to Sanity.

I don't know where the GLP v EHRC ruling comes in the hierarchy of significance, but Justice Swift seemed to take the view that 'sex' in workplace regs also means 'biological sex'. He didn't quite add 'duh!' but nearly:

35 ... Short of this, 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.
[my emphasis]

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.

'Duh!' [my addition]

Like the officers who arrested Henry Nowak and handcuffed him when he was bleeding to death from an unprovoked knife attack so the last words he heard as he was dying were the words of the caution?

I don't think ordinary police officers do help people. They're all "woke" activists

This is so dangerous for the police to mess around with obeying the law like this. Policing by consent is a bit wobbly at the moment anyway. They are playing with fire.

Ah right. I didn't realise they had to check in with the big boss to see if they can arrest someone. No wonder nothing gets done.

It’s mental this happened especially after George Floyd. It’s a sheer and horrific accident. The officers would have been told by the dispatcher or the offender themselves that Henry was the aggressor. They should have noticed the blood but maybe thought it was digwas blood not Henry’s. If they hadn’t ‘believed ’ what digwa said they they would have been accused of other things and at the same time lots of times they arrest people they all say they are innocent, they’ve been stabbed etc so truth be told being a police officer these days is a just a muddle of shit to try and get through.

We are witnessing an over adjustment by police force's. Where they make assumptions about white people, in this and other cases.

Which can only succeed in inflaming those who hold a racist agenda.

This is insane because it's not even about the Equality Act - as Marie says, the 1992 Workplace Regulations mandate separate toilets and changing rooms for men and women in the workplace. And also, as Marie says, this has been clarified by Justice Swift in a recent ruling. So Gwent Police are simply wrong, and are in flagrant breach of the law, which doesn't inspire much confidence.

Of course, Gwent Police have form. Anyone remember this story?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-60130082