Won’t someone please think of the anguish of men who are told they can’t barge into women’s toilets?
The equalities watchdog has updated its guidance on how to implement the supreme court ruling on gender after the government requested changes to the original proposals submitted last year.
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The code sets out how businesses and other organisations should respond in practical terms to the supreme court ruling that sex in the Equality Act refers only to biological sex.
How about the way they always did until way too many people suddenly decided that men can be women simply by saying so? That used to work.
In January, the Guardian reported that under its new chair, Mary-Ann Stephenson, the EHRC was looking at ways to adapt the formal code to lessen its impact on businesses and to ensure it tried to balance the protection of single-sex spaces with the lives of transgender people.
Sigh. You can’t “balance” the protection of single-sex spaces with the grotesque misogynistic demands of men who claim to be women. It can’t be done.
Maya Forstater, the chief executive of the sex-based rights campaigners Sex Matters, raised concerns about “negotiations and horse-trading” between the government and the EHRC.
Government sources rejected this, saying Phillipson was seeking both to get the guidance right and to take a sober, collaborative approach.
What’s that supposed to mean? Is telling men they can’t use women’s changing rooms drunken? A “collaborative approach” is not a good plan when one of the parties is ruthlessly self-serving and misogynistic.
In a written statement, Phillipson thanked the EHRC for its updates and said: “This government has always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex.”
She said the government was unable to make further announcements because it was within the pre-election period for the Scottish and Welsh parliamentary elections.
However, Forstater rejected this, saying: “It’s extraordinary that a year after the supreme court judgment, and seven months after the independent regulator first submitted its code of practice, the government has found another excuse for delaying the guidance,” she said.
“The past year’s delay has caused serious harm to countless women. The statement that the government has ‘always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex’ is a slap in the face to these women and girls who have faced harassment and hounding from jobs and services for saying the same thing.”
They seem to think women deserves slaps in the face. Funny how that works.
The Guardian does not give women the last word.
Alex Parmar-Yee, the director of the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance group, said: “We’re glad that the government has heard how cruel and unworkable the EHRC’s original proposals were. A national bathroom ban under the guise of equality law is not in line with Labour’s values, and we hope any new guidance scraps that idea for good.
“For trans people and inclusive organisations, the last year has been horrific – now we have to find out whether this government has taken its responsibilities seriously and fixed this mess or not.”
The equalities charity Stonewall welcomed the “constructive working” between the government and EHRC. “Following a year of complex judgments in the courts and the uncertainty this has created, it is essential that organisations can look to the code for practical, workable guidance and feel confident about their legal obligations,” said a spokesperson.
The end. Clear enough? Pesky stupid women, causing all this trouble, being so selfish and demanding about their rights. Thanks, Graun.
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