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")?

And the very large number of trans identifying people who don't identify as either male or female or are gender fluid? Is there a cut off point where you decide that somebody is too male? On what basis are you assessing somebody's gender?

Many thanks.

Why would I need to do that? If becoming pregnant against your will is the barometer of being a woman then there's going to be quite a lot of females who are no longer considered women. What a very strange and weak attempted gotcha.

IIRC You can discriminate on the basis of nationality, but not race (I think examples normally talk about skin colour) for associations, though you may also be able to have one limited by race if it’s reasonable means for appropriate ends.

The intention being to stop you from having a Scottish association that only accepts white, Scottish people but still allow minorities to have support groups for combatting the effects of racism.

Then they wouldn't want to use a single-gender service then, would they?

How many men have ever become pregnant against their will
trans identifying or otherwise

men no matter how they identify
are not and never will be women

gender is meaningless because it is fluid and etheral and subjective and unobservable

They might if they didn’t care and it was more convenient for them than the non-gendered version or if they had bad intentions.

Except it isn't. You are minimising the very real trauma that many women experience and claiming it is the same for biological men. It is not. To claim it is, is abhorrent.

Did you wander into the wrong thread? Or did you just pop in to say whatever it is you're trying to say?

I've pointed out that there are shared experiences and vulnerabilities - not that there are none that aren't shared. You seem to have wilfully misunderstood what I've plainly written in order to get angry and abusive.

But then you’re saying men and women can share the same experiences and feelings of of vulnerability, so therefore all humans have that. Or are you saying men without a trans identity do not have feelings and experiences of vulnerability? Why is the experience of a man without a trans identity different from that of a man with a trans identity?

Why did you respond to Talkinpeace like that, alcovecupboards?
She was making points that are both understandable [to me anyway] and relevant to the thread.
What was your problem with her post?

Openly racist business are unlawful, so they tend not exist. They were not unlawful and did exist until the passsage of the Race Relations Act 1965. Or are you saying that was simply unnecessary legislation? Or was it once needed but has society now moved on so that there is no longer a need for anti-racism legislation?

Either way I want to be clear, your claim is that there is no need for race, disability or sex discrimination protection in the provision of services, because it simply wouldn’t be popular enough to disadvantage anyone - a black person denied service at a bar can simply go to another bar?

Do you think there a need for sex discrimination protection, or do you feel that even if it were lawful women wouldn’t be disadvantaged by discrimination?

Doesn’t the heavy work load of the Employment Tribunal in discrimination claims today suggest otherwise?

Presumably they would want to use it if they were in what Eddie Izzard calls girl mode.

But are you just saying that anyone can use the service if they want to use it? So it's like a nail salon that provides a service that is more associated with women but doesn't exclude men?

That makes sense, but then it is just mixed sex.

I'm asking for examples of the call for them which is apparently so overwhelming very little evidence can be produced.

You tried to equate rape and murder of women with rape and murder of men. Nothing misunderstood. Biological males will never have this same shared experience as biological females.

I'm not sure why someone who thinks gender doesn't exist would pop into a thread like this.

'Meaningless' is not quite the same as 'doesn't exist'.

We can all observe that there are social expectations of sex, but they are not static and they vary from culture to culture, so it's not clear why a service operator or government department would want to segregate users according to gender.

Gender exists in the same way that Sexism exists.

No Feminist would argue sexism doesn't exist, it's just that no Feminist would argue sexism existing is a good thing, nor advocate for sexism as something we should be building society around other than where necessary to protect us from it.

So it's exactly the same for Gender. For one very obvious reason.

Because public services affect all of us. Just as, for instance, an atheist might have reason to comment on public services for religious groups from which they may be banned.

@alcovecupboards but to your point, about the demand for racist businesses, let’s assume it’s not an overwhelming demand, but a very limited and niche demand. We can’t judge the lawfulness of my long awaited no-Jews wine bar according to how many other bars admit Jews. It should be lawful (or not) if it’s every bar, or just mine.

So, going back to the point, is there a need for any discrimination protection at all in the provision of services?

Would a “no trans identifying people admitted” wine bar be ok, because the “proprietor “just wanted to”?

No, I didn't. I pointed out that someone who is raped and murdered can have exactly the same experience as anyone else raped and murdered - regardless of sex. Please don't try to misrepresent what I wrote.

There are a number of examples of non-binary males wanting to use female-only facilities as they feel more comfortable

https://metro.co.uk/2022/04/12/birmingham-non-binary-teen-kicked-out-of-changing-room-at-monsoon-16452430/

I think the answer is that the clientele are supposed to be self selecting.

But we are yet to find out how that is different to a mixed sex service.

I can’t see any: segregation by gender not sex would mean that it would be inappropriate for any transmen (ie women) to be with women in certain situations than biological males. Even though many transmen are very obviously just women with short hair (and in some tragic instances mastectomies) whereas many transwomen are like Theo/Beth/Lis Upton - if not worse, like Katie Dolatowski, Amy George/Andrew Millar or Isla Bryson.