Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Saved Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Flip

1 2

Labour destroyed the value of the EA for women with the GRA which over rides women’s protected characteristics – they didn’t care then, they don’t care now

48 replies

IwantToRetire · 02/07/2024 20:00

Sex is the only protected characteristic that is required to prove that providing appropriate services for that characteristic has to be shown to be "proportionate".

Even if you want to trust Labour, how can you when they have shown through their legislation that they just dont understand / dont care / dont empathise with women?

Show more

OP posts:

Report

FallinUltra · 03/07/2024 20:20

InWithPeaceOutWithStress · 03/07/2024 19:40

What is your issue with the Equality Act? The EA states that service providers shouldn't discriminate on the basis of protected characteristics. For example a landlord shouldn't deny people housing because of their sex / race / age etc. The exemptions are to allow discrimination in certain circumstances, where proportionate. For example, a women's refuge can refuse entry to men, to protect women. There isn't a problem with the EA.

On the off chance this is in good faith, there are two problems with the Equality Act.

The first problem is that it isn’t clear wether men with a GRC can use women’s single sex facilities and services, such as women’s refuges. The refuges don’t know whether they can legally exclude such men.

The second problem is the exceptions that allow discrimination on the basis of sex are optional. So even where a refuge understands that they can legally exclude men with GRCs, they will often be required to include them to acquire any funding. The funders, in turn, may be too intimidated by Stonewall and other trans lobby groups to fund any genuinely single sex services.

PencilsInSpace · 03/07/2024 20:48

Sex is the only protected characteristic that is required to prove that providing appropriate services for that characteristic has to be shown to be "proportionate"

Proportionate means/legitimate aim runs through the EA like letters through a stick of rock. As well as the single sex exceptions -

Direct age discrimination or discrimination arising from a disability is lawful if it's a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

Indirect discrimination against any PC is lawful if it's a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

Political parties can address the under-representation of candidates with a particular PC, e.g. by reserving places on shortlists for disabled people or black people, if it's a proportionate means of reducing under-representation. This applies to all PCs except for sex, for which there is the separate provision of all women shortlists. The party does not need to show that an AWS is a proportionate means of reducing under-representation.

Public authorities can lawfully take positive action to enable or encourage people with a particular PC to overcome disadvantage, to meet their different needs, or to increase participation in activities where they are underrepresented, if the action is a proportionate means of achieving those aims.

Employers can lawfully treat a candidate with a particular PC more favourably than other equally qualified candidates in order to address disadvantage or underrepresentation if it's a proportionate means of achieving those aims.

Charities can lawfully restrict the provision of benefits to people with a particular PC if it's a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

Employers can lawfully have an occupational requirement restricting a role to people with a particular PC if it's a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. This applies to all PCs, not just sex.

There are a few other obscure references in the EA and 'proportionate' also crops up throughout human rights law.

As already stated, adjustments for disabled people need only be 'reasonable', which is similar language.

One exception that is not required to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim is single PC membership associations. The WI could lawfully exclude all men just because they want to. The Garrick could lawfully have continued to be men only. They weren't 'forced' to admit women, 60% of members voted in favour of a change in the rules.

IwantToRetire · 03/07/2024 20:52

I think the big difference is that with out the single sex exemptions, there would not be any right for women only services.

this is wholly different from say a workplace being asked to make "reasonable" adjustments (which I think they should).

The mere fact of the SSE implicitly means that women have to prove that something should be women only.

OP posts:

maltravers · 03/07/2024 21:00

If the EA worked properly, we would be seeing plenty of single sex options for women. We’re not.

Girl guides, rape crisis centres etc are open to men who claim to be women and swimming baths seem to have moved over to mixed sex changing, leaving women vulnerable to cameras and phones.

PencilsInSpace · 03/07/2024 21:05

There isn't a right to women only services. The EA simply says it's not unlawful to provide them.

There is a right for women not to be discriminated against or harassed and the use of SSE is an obvious, explicitly lawful, means of preventing these.

Harassment is unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic that has the purpose or effect of violating your dignity, or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for you.

The nurses' case will be one to watch regarding this.

IwantToRetire · 03/07/2024 21:08

There isn't a right to women only services. The EA simply says it's not unlawful to provide them.

Exactly - what this law did was say that what had been a natural practice is society of women only changing rooms, toilets or what ever, was no longer "natural". They could only exist is they were deemed legally to be "proportionate".

So intentionally or otherwise, the law upended social norms.

OP posts:

InWithPeaceOutWithStress · 03/07/2024 22:14

FallinUltra · 03/07/2024 20:20

On the off chance this is in good faith, there are two problems with the Equality Act.

The first problem is that it isn’t clear wether men with a GRC can use women’s single sex facilities and services, such as women’s refuges. The refuges don’t know whether they can legally exclude such men.

The second problem is the exceptions that allow discrimination on the basis of sex are optional. So even where a refuge understands that they can legally exclude men with GRCs, they will often be required to include them to acquire any funding. The funders, in turn, may be too intimidated by Stonewall and other trans lobby groups to fund any genuinely single sex services.

Show quote history

I understand all that. It appears the OP isn’t talking about that though, and simply doesn’t understand the basics of the EA.

IwantToRetire · 04/07/2024 01:03

I understand all that. It appears the OP isn’t talking about that though, and simply doesn’t understand the basics of the EA.

Perhaps if you read the OP you see that the significant point is that the GRA meant that sex based rights were qualified to accommodate that.

So suggest you look at the Equality Act and see the characteristic of sex has had to be qualified to accept the existence of "legal women".

That is the fundmental issue and why this thread has the title is does.

Or do you not think it is a problem that the GRA has meant that the EA accepts there are two types of women.

Biological women and legal women.

Or maybe you are happy with that.

But many women aren't which is why FWS are part of a judicial review to challenge that.

OP posts:

Ereshkigalangcleg · 04/07/2024 12:56

PencilsInSpace · 03/07/2024 21:05

There isn't a right to women only services. The EA simply says it's not unlawful to provide them.

There is a right for women not to be discriminated against or harassed and the use of SSE is an obvious, explicitly lawful, means of preventing these.

Harassment is unwanted conduct related to a relevant protected characteristic that has the purpose or effect of violating your dignity, or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for you.

The nurses' case will be one to watch regarding this.

Exactly this.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 04/07/2024 13:00

Or do you not think it is a problem that the GRA has meant that the EA accepts there are two types of women.

The reason there is confusion and uncertainty is that the issue of whether a GRC makes a man a "woman" for the purposes of the EA hasn't had much of an airing in court until the FWS case so there is little case law. It's a matter of legal opinion, and not all legal minds agree on it.

CatsArentFansOfFans · 04/07/2024 13:20

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines - previously banned poster.

PencilsInSpace · 04/07/2024 18:20

IwantToRetire · 03/07/2024 21:08

There isn't a right to women only services. The EA simply says it's not unlawful to provide them.

Exactly - what this law did was say that what had been a natural practice is society of women only changing rooms, toilets or what ever, was no longer "natural". They could only exist is they were deemed legally to be "proportionate".

So intentionally or otherwise, the law upended social norms.

I'm not sure single sex facilities and services ever were 'natural' - women have had to fight for them. There have been some form of SSE since the Sex Discrimination Act 1975. Before then it was perfectly lawful for employers/service providers to just say 'we can't employ/admit women because we don't have facilities for them.' Going back a long way, there was the Gaols Act of 1823 which mandated single sex prisons, including staff, but again, this was fought hard for by Elizabeth Fry.

The Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999 introduced gender reassignment into the SDA, five years before the GRA, making a fudge of the SSE. GR was defined as:

a process which is undertaken under medical supervision for the purpose of reassigning a person’s sex by changing physiological or other characteristics of sex, and includes any part of such a process

Just as in the EA, people were protected from the time they proposed to undergo the process but there was a more definite sense of a process that would be completed and there had to be medical supervision. Some exceptions only applied before and during the process. After the process was 'complete' employers were expected to treat them as their 'new sex' for things like toilets and communal accommodation, although not necessarily for occupational requirements. The regs only covered employment and training.

https://sex-matters.org/posts/the-legal-system/a-guide-to-the-sex-discrimination-gender-reassignment-regulations-1999/

So these problems have been around for a long time and in some ways the EA was an improvement - at least the law itself. As we know the guidance and statutory code has historically been dreadful.

The GRA is a massive problem because it says 'if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a man and, if it is the female gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a woman'

It needs to be repealed.

Failing that the EA needs to be clarified so that a GRC does not change a persons sex for the purposes of the EA.

Failing that we need new, robust statutory code that makes clear to employers, service providers etc. that not only is it lawful to fully employ a SSE, but also that failure to do so may result in unlawful harassment or indirect discrimination on the grounds of sex for other employees, service users etc., especially women and girls.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 04/07/2024 20:29

What Pencils said.

IwantToRetire · 05/07/2024 00:50

By "natural" I mean up until 1950s(?) society assumed that certain services, whether through local government or charity or whatever, would provide them as single sex.

ie why the very concept of the "urinary leash" was a very real restriction on women's lives.

Nobody started a campaign to have unisex toilets, did they?!

And even though some of the sex divide in terms of provision was also about sex stereotypes, women became nurses, men doctors and so on, this did not undermine the underlying principles that in certain situations it was appropriate that provision was single sex.

So what the influence of the GRA had on the EA was it put into law a change to accepted cultural and personal preferences more in line with China's cultural revolution.

That's the issue.

No other protected characteristic has told that characteristic that we recognise that you suffer discriminate because of your age, disability, etc., but we are telling you that someone who identifies with that characteristic as the same legal status as you.

You might find that simplistic, but that is the fact.

No other protected characteristic has the very basis of what it is based on, material fact, been told that your material fact can be challenged by, effectively undermined by, a group that politicians decided could be considered equal to legally through identity, which on occassion requires surgery.

You wouldn't expect people who are part of a Black or other minority group to say, yes of course we accept people who have adopted through presentation that they are the same as us. Let alone (and they do exist) people who "aquire" or claim a disability.

So by allowing the thought process / belief behind the GRA to temper what would otherwise have been just listing the ways in which someone might be discriminated against because of sex or race etc., when then twisted, perverted to encompass a belief set of a minority group.

So on one level although you would think the EA would be a mile stone for women, it has become a step back. Sex is the only characteristic that has lost its unique reality.

Shame we didn't stick with the Sex Discrimination Act. Have never heard what the rarionale was for parcelling different groups into one act.

So the writing of the EA to accommodate the GRA (un)intentionally put into law that sex can be claimed, which no other characteristic can.

The law of unintended consequenes. And as usual they are bad for women.

OP posts:

Boudiccaofsteel · 05/07/2024 07:17

We need a separate Act something like the Autism Act to ensure women's needs are front and centre enshrining obligations for single sex provision. It's the only way to make these issues front and centre and not get the standard deflection to ' what about trans'

PencilsInSpace · 05/07/2024 09:21

I don't understand the argument that reverting to a separate SDA would be an improvement.

The Sex Discrimination Act was amended to include Gender Reassignment in 1999 - five years before the GRA and 11 years before the EA. The damage had already been done.

It would be no easier, or more difficult, to remove gender reassignment from a separate SDA than from the EA.

What am I missing?

CatsArentFansOfFans · 05/07/2024 09:24

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines - previously banned poster.

PencilsInSpace · 05/07/2024 09:26

Well, the whole act was repealed in 2010 when we got the EA.

So why would it be easier to make a new SDA without gender reassignment than to remove it from the EA?

CatsArentFansOfFans · 05/07/2024 09:32

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines - previously banned poster.

PencilsInSpace · 05/07/2024 09:48

The EA would be a helluva lot shorter if it treated all PCs in the same way! As it is, it's vast and sprawling because all the protections that were in the SDA, the DDA, the RRA and several other bits of legislation are all still in there.

What is missing from the EA that was in the SDA?

CatsArentFansOfFans · 05/07/2024 09:52

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines - previously banned poster.

PencilsInSpace · 05/07/2024 14:36

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines - previously banned poster.

No, because GR was added to the SDA in 1999, so when harassment was added to the SDA in 2005, it applied to both women and trans. The EA made no change to that.

Incidentally, there is case law that says lawful use of an EA exception cannot constitute harassment so at least the guy with the comedy breasts can't claim it violates his dignity to be excluded from women's spaces.

https://www.gov.uk/employment-appeal-tribunal-decisions/the-reverend-canon-j-c-pemberton-v-the-right-reverend-richard-inwood-former-acting-bishop-of-southwell-and-nottingham-ukeat-0072-16-ba

The Reverend Canon J C Pemberton v The Right Reverend Richard Inwood, Former Acting Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham: UKEAT/0072/16/BA

Employment Appeal Tribunal judgment of Judge Eady on 7 December 2016.

https://www.gov.uk/employment-appeal-tribunal-decisions/the-reverend-canon-j-c-pemberton-v-the-right-reverend-richard-inwood-former-acting-bishop-of-southwell-and-nottingham-ukeat-0072-16-ba

IwantToRetire · 05/07/2024 19:31

Well I think as so often happens in these threads the real issue is can we repeal the GRA.

As I say no other group called a protected characteristic has a legal requirement that on occassions they have to pretend that someone come somehow "become" (through identifying) as a "real" (legal) member of that protected characteristic.

Which other group is required by law to pretend that people who aren't actually part of their specific group, are part of that group.

So this isn't about lets tinker with this or that wording.

Its about the fact the characteristic of sex is not treated in a way equal to others.

Moreover it is about a minority group believe being imposed on a majority.

It is social engineering.

If we had actual Human Rights there are grounds to say the Human Rights of the unique group of sex, had not been treated equally.

How did that happen, and in whose interest was it, and why did the political class feel they could socially engineer society.

OP posts:

Mumsnet Weekly Hot Threads

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Woman smiling and making heart symbol with her hands

Email address

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

Flip

1 2

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.