"Last April, the supreme court issued a ruling confirming that the word sex in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex, not a person's legal gender. This has a wide-reaching impact on how equality law is applied in practice, particularly in providing sex-based rights such as single-sex spaces. Six months later, a draft code on the ruling's implementation was sent by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to the equalities minister, Bridget Phillipson."
"The court verdict was ostensibly clear. Girlguiding was for girls, the Women's Institute (WI) for women. If a toilet says it is for women, it means biological women. But the issue is not so clearcut for former supreme court judge Jonathan Sumption. He told the BBC that what the court really meant was that women-only services are allowed to exclude trans women from facilities, but are not obliged to do so."
"With this the outgoing EHRC chair, Kishwer Falkner, disagreed. Speaking to the BBC, she said: If a male person is allowed to use a women-only service or facility, it isn't any longer single-sex, then it becomes a mixed-sex space. Presumably, if the WI wanted to allow trans women as members, then it would become the Women's and Trans Women's Institute and would need unisex loos."
Jan Morris presented herself as a woman and had undergone an operation, and social encounters with her were previously unaffected by legal constraints on access to women's spaces. The supreme court ruled that the word "sex" in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex rather than legal gender, affecting application of equality law and sex-based rights like single-sex spaces. The Equality and Human Rights Commission sent a draft implementation code to equalities minister Bridget Phillipson, who has delayed action. Former judge Jonathan Sumption said the ruling permits but does not require exclusion of trans women, while EHRC chair Kishwer Falkner argued that allowing a male person converts a single-sex space into a mixed-sex one. The EHRC removed interim advice from its website.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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