The law on single-sex spaces is a mess. It needs fixing, not political point-scoring

friend of mine runs a residential writing retreat attended by women with experience of trauma and abuse. It is vital to those who take part that it is female only: past attenders have told her it enables them to talk about their experiences in a way they couldn’t if men were present. But she has begun to worry whether excluding all men – regardless of how they identify – might put her at risk of legal action.

I put her in touch with an expert to explain the law in this area. The upshot: it isn’t clear exactly when it is lawful to operate female-only services, and that ambiguity means she is right to consider the risk of being sued. For a freelancer it could ultimately be catastrophic. She has been agonising about this since and may stop running the retreat..

Spelling out that sex in the Equality Act means biological sex would make the law on single-sex services much clearer. The Equality Act includes important exceptions that allow the provision of single-sex spaces, services and sports. If having a GRC means that someone male must legally be considered female, it makes the test for lawfully excluding someone male who identifies as female from female-only services significantly more complex.

This really matters, because for many women the existence of single-sex services and spaces such as rape crisis centres and changing rooms is a matter of basic privacy, dignity and safety. This is particularly true given that some men who identify as female are open about deriving sexual fulfilment from doing so; that is their private business, but it is profoundly wrong to expect women to participate in that in public spaces.

So why the frenzied anger about Badenoch’s proposals? It is the symptom of a mindset often found in those who spend too much time online, which rots their critical faculties and drives them to see the world as a cartoonish set of heroes and villains. To them, Badenoch is hateful and so anything she says must be wrong.

Law Law Latest News, Law Law Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Tories will allow bars on trans women, says Kemi BadenochConservatives would change law so trans people could be excluded from single-sex spaces, if party wins election
Source: GuardianAus - 🏆 1. / 98 Read more »

General election: Labour dismisses Tory announcement of plans to amend Equality ActKemi Badenoch says trans people could be excluded from single-sex spaces as Labour says party has had 14 years to change law
Source: GuardianAus - 🏆 1. / 98 Read more »