Delayed guidance
The government is facing renewed pressure to publish delayed guidance on single-sex spaces after the new chair of the equalities watchdog insisted the document was “legally sound”.
Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson addressed the issue of the guidance after replacing Baroness Falkner of Margravine as head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) earlier this month.
The EHRC submitted its updated code of practice to Bridget Phillipson, the women and equalities minister, in September. But four months on, the guidance, which will be used by businesses and other organisations to inform their provision of single-sex services such as toilets and changing rooms, is still awaiting ministerial approval.
The government has defended the delay in publication, saying it needed time to properly assess the complex 300-page document.
They might as well say the dog ate their homework. The government has had time, months of it. They just don’t want to, because The Ideology has eaten their brains too.
Rosie Duffield, a former Labour politician who stands as an independent MP after resigning from the party, said in the wake of Stephenson’s comments women’s groups were “furious” about the delay and urged the government to act.
Duffield, who has been a long-time campaigner for female-only spaces and services to remain single sex, told The Times: “As the chair of the EHRC says, the work they have done is comprehensive and legally sound. All the government have to do is implement that and give clear guidance to the organisations who have been waiting for almost five months now.
“They have to abide by the Supreme Court’s ruling and have said they will, so why the huge gap between saying that and acknowledging the work of the EHRC, who have issued clear and straightforward guidance?”
Because they don’t want the trans lobby shouting at them. That’s obviously much more important than women and our pesky rights.
Maya Forstater, chief executive of Sex Matters, which campaigns for single-sex rights, warned that any further delays could land the government in court. She said: “The government seems to be engaged in a frantic search for loopholes in the Supreme Court’s judgment that sex in the Equality Act means biology, not paperwork.
“This is a shameful way to behave. Rather than dragging its feet, the government needs to lay the EHRC guidance before parliament without delay, and moreover ensure all its own policies comply with the law. The government has only two choices: follow the law or change the law. If it continues to prevaricate, it will end up in court.”
But ending up in court is much less scary than being yelled at by Sophie Molly and India Willoughby.
300 pages to the guidance. I could do it in under a page: “No men in women’s single-sex spaces. Transwomen are men.”
Unfortunately, the simple approach has been undermined by governments allowing people to lie about their sex on ID documents. While the UK Supreme Court ruled that TIMs with a GRC are not recognized as women, there are still plenty of people, including children, with birth certificates, passports and other documents that lie about their sex. What was once a simple matter of checking someone’s ID has become a minefield. The government first needs to ensure that all ID documents correctly identify the holder’s sex.