For which services is separate by "gender" appropriate?

[MyAmpleSheep]

Assuming it to be compliant with all relevant legislation (which is another discussion), which public services make more (or enough) sense to separate by self-defined gender rather than by sex?

We are often told that segregating by sex is permissible but not the only way to split "men" and "women" and that it's proportionate and appropriate to split men-identifiers from women-identifiers in some services in "appropriate circumstances" or some other phrase.

What are those services, and what are the appropriate circumstances?

This is a question about services, so I'm explicitly not referring to what the EA2010 covers under associations. Social groups are not services, and they can already be split or made exclusive in a much wider range of ways; I'm not asking about them. Only about public services. For clarity it's probably best to avoid terminology like "single sex spaces" because it's easy to misunderstand whether a "space" is a service - or an association.

So - which services can appropriately be segregated as women+trans-identifying men (women+ "trans women") and men+trans-identifying women (men + "trans men")?

I'd say none. If it doesn't need to be segregated by sex, then it doesn't need to be segregated. I have nothing in common with TW that I don't have in common with any other man.

None for me too.

For me the only thing that needs to be segregated is gym changing room to the extent that there are no cubicles! Now given I am taking off all my clothes I think it needs to be by sex. I’m less bothered by hospital wards assuming fully dressed there will be male visitors so don’t see the big deal about male patients. Even shop changing rooms as long as locking doors and no way to use cameras to take photos under the wall etc then I don’t care.

I am looking forward to finally finding out.

This.

I know a lot of people think the answer is "none", but I'd really like some details from someone who disagrees! I'm sure they've put a lot of thought into it.

😂 Good luck with that!

Seriously though, we'd need to define services first. E.g. I don't think a book group is a service.

Oh god. The book group.

Well I did have to drop it in there!

That’s exactly it: what do women have in common with TIMs? OnIy what they have in common with all men. What do women have in common with TIWs? The same as what they have in common with all women.

Separation by gender is an issue of belief, not physicality. Just as a religious faith group can restrict membership to co-religionists, I would expect that a genderist group could restrict membership to believers in gender. So that could be a mixed-sex group of women and TIMs or of men and TIWs. But what purpose would it serve? What aim could such a group have that could be described as legitimate? Legitimate aims address needs unique to the defined group. What needs would both women and TIMs have, that men and TIWs do not? And vice-versa.

Book group? Please remind/inform me!

This.

A book group could be a service or an association. "Book group" doesn't give enough information to decide. To be sure you have to know (or assume) more about how it's structured. So it's a good cypher; it can be whatever strengthens the argument you want to make.

Some people think that book groups limited to "women+trans-women" are ok. Some people also think that if a book group says it's for "women only" then it must not admit trans-identifying men. Some people think that "women+trans-women only" is not ok.

Leaving aside the issues with "gender" having fundamentally sexist roots and imagining a world where gender was entirely separate from sex, with no subconscious expectation whatsoever that female people would prefer the "girly" gender stuff and male prefer the blokey....

The only one I can really think of is hairdressing. I can imagine the skills and training for girly-gender hair to be pretty different to blokey-gender.

Then I guess you might say, ooo, a social cycling group might want to be "supportive non-competetive gender" rather than "pushing our personal best gender" so I can see a case there as well.

But whether "supportive non-competetive gender" is the same gender as "girly-hair-styles gender" is very much an open question.

I think once you take the anchor of "it's what used to be the old sexist ideas about men and women, and because we aren't sexist like that anymore we don't think your sex determines this stuff any more but for some reason we still want to keep those identities somehow" away, even if the idea of separating some things by attitude and aptitude still makes sense, bundling a bunch of different and fairly unrelated attitides and aptitudes together into one "gender" or another doesn't.

The only one I can really think of is hairdressing. I can imagine the skills and training for girly-gender hair to be pretty different to blokey-gender.

This is addressed in EHRC guidance, in the context of afrocarribean hair styles. Adjusting for context, a hair dresser is a service, and in law they can refuse to attempt a hair style they're not skilled at, but not based on who asks for it. There may also be issues of cross-sex touching to consider.

The legal position (I think) is that a man with long hair who wants a feminine hair style is as entitled to receive one from a hair dresser skilled in feminine hair styles as is a woman.

Are you saying that it would be acceptable for a hair stylist to refuse to style a man (identifying as a man) who wanted the same style as a woman-identifying man?

I'm sure I've read of male barbers not serving women who want a male haircut, even though it's what they do.

Some men object to touching women (they're not married to), orthodox Jewish men for example.

But a barber not serving women is an old-fashioned segregation by sex; the different question here is is it ok for a barber to serve a trans-identifying-woman but not a woman-identifying-woman who wants the same haircut? Is that appropriate?

That will be sweaty, smelly, prone to hidden cameras, less easy to clean, easier to misuse inc shop lifting and be dangerous if anyone gets trapped or has a medical emergency. It excludes those of certain religions and women with trauma.

Have you been on a hospital ward when you are bedbound? How do you think you change clothes or go to the toilet or change a tampon? If everyone is asleep at night and you can’t move out of your bed but the two male patients in the bed either side of you can, how does that make you feel?

I'm not suggesting anything in terms of the law, I'm thinking if there are any contexts where ones gender would make a difference in practice and therefore a single gender or gender-split would be practically/morally reasonable.

In my hair example, it's not the punter that is gendered, it's the hairstyle. If you want a girly-gender do, you need a girly-gender hairdresser.

None.

I can't think of a single circumstance where it would be necessary, when seperating by sex wouldn't be.

I do wish 'gender' markers were removed from all NHS records though, with only biological sex being relevant. Having to ask a 6 ft 2 rugby player if he may be pregnant because we gave patients the ability to falsify medical records is a complete pain in the arse.

They'd got so used to it being a routine question pre xray that someone actually asked my 70 year old dad. They both burst out laughing apparently.

My follow on question would be who would be excluded from this segregated service? What would distinguish it from any other mixed sex service?

It's a good question, and I'd say no. But then a publican can refuse to serve for any reason, so I don't know.....

Edited to say as long as it's not for protected characteristic reasons.

Wouldn't that be old fashioned sex discrimination?