Mick Hartley

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has shown under its new chair Baroness Falkner that it's unafraid of tackling the trans activists. This latest guidance is really going to annoy them:

Trans women can be excluded from female only changing rooms and toilets, the equalities watchdog has ruled.

Guidance surrounding single-sex spaces has listed examples where it is lawful to exclude someone who is born a man from women’s services, including rape counselling, refuges and fitness classes.

Legitimate reasons for excluding trans people from single-sex services include the privacy and dignity of the users, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said.

The long-awaited guidance on the impact of equality law has been welcomed by women’s rights campaign groups, including Sex Matters, who described it as a “positive” and “welcome” step.

“It recognises that people wanting single-sex services for reasons of privacy, dignity, safety or trauma have legitimate needs,” the group said. “It doesn’t call them bigots or transphobes, or accuse them of ignorance or bigotry.”…

Clarifying the law which has become a battleground in recent years, the EHRC notes that there “are circumstances where a lawfully-established separate or single-sex service provider can exclude, modify or limit access to their service for trans people”.

The examples of single-sex services include wards in hospitals and nursing homes where “users need special care, supervision or attention” or separate male and female changing rooms where “a woman might reasonably object to the presence of a man”.

Examples of where single-sex services can be provided are group counselling sessions for female sex assault victims where it is judged the victims are “likely to be traumatised by the presence of a person who is biologically male”.

Trans women could also be excluded from a domestic abuse refuge that offers emergency accommodation to female survivors if they “feel uncomfortable sharing accommodation… for reasons of trauma and safety”. The provider should compile a list of alternative sources of support, it is suggested.

I'm not sure where that leaves someone like Mridul Wadhwa, for instance: the trans head of the Edinburgh Rape Centre. Looking for a new job, let's hope.

See the new guidance here.