If the guidance is as reported it's a utter, offensive mess. Ideology over all else.
This basically means that trans men are excluded, practically, from almost all spaces. And that legitimate aim is so broad as to be impossible to challenge
Ok, so we’re really doing this (archive Times link indicating that the EHRC guidance on single sex spaces will be just as unworkable as the draft). archive.ph/taXyE
Did you know that the EHRC is not a legislative body & can only offer guidance on the law as passed by parliament & clarified by the Supreme Court? The consultation process was done in order to ensure that the guidelines were easy to understand & follow. You are free to call for changes to the law.
But as a socially progressive party with a massive majority,surely Labour will just legislate to fix this?
If anything, having such a broad “legitimate aim” will make it easier to challenge…
The mistake you're making is mixing up different ways of categorising people. People who call themselves "trans" are also either male or female, just the same as people who don't. All those who are MALE are excluded from spaces legitimately reserved for those who are FEMALE. Do you see?
What if I'm alarmed by drunken hen parties?
"Basically" doing the heavy lifting here. Not all single sex services are going use this to exclude trans men. I imagine only groups/services for victims of sexual violence would want to exclude transmen.
Presumably we are to infer that nobody would be alarmed or distressed to see a woman in a men's restroom. It's only the poor defenseless cis women who need protecting from (1) people who look like women and (2) people who look like men.
Bridget Philipson is a dangerous ideologue who needs getting out of government before she does any more damage.
And when they roll out ID cards it will have a marker i bet for trans people
And yet that is directly against Goodwin 2002 findings, which directly ruled while that distress for small part of the population may be real, it does not align with the harm to trans people to be denied access.
But who cares about the law anymore?
Basically it perpetuates what already happens. Non “feminine” (what we used to call androgynous or tomboyish) girls get asked to leave women’s loos all the time now. Being a teenage girl is just a nightmare of being bullied by one side or another.
It seems rife for mallicious compliance if you now have to provide a birth certificate to use a toilet & an acceptable justification for demanding this is “we just know”. I’m sure that won’t end with complaints
Women are very unlikely to object to a Trans man from the women's loos because a Trans man is still a biological woman and presents no threat to them. Most Trans men will probably continue to use women only facilities. Why? B'cos they're a lot safer.
cool can a racist now argue that she should exclude black women from toilets bc she feels discomfort when a black woman uses the same spaces? or exclude a lesbian?
if subjective discomfort of a hegemony beats the human right to privacy, dignity etc of a minority population why not go full hog?
It seems to me that we now have a society where if something (objectively not dangerous) makes you uncomfortable, you want and expect whatever or whoever it is to be removed. Where actually you should be working on yourself so you can deal with your problem.
The thin core of sense in this ruling is attempting to match minimizing 'alarm or distress' with a proportionate service exclusion.
The bathroom obsession is the antithesis of that. It's mostly manufactured alarm (for all gender non-conforming, not trans), plus massive disproportionary exclusion
It's hard not to conclude that the aim here is to just exclude trans people from society altogether.
