Defending our sex-based rights

Our fight to retain women-only spaces, services & opportunities

The Equality Act 2010 is the law that protects women from discrimination and harassment through the protected characteristic of ‘sex’ (not gender). That means it’s illegal to treat women less favorably than men. In addition, the law provides for ‘single-sex exemptions’. This is the aspect that ensures our right to women-only spaces, services and opportunities.

The legal definitions are clear: ‘the protected characteristic of sex’ refers to ‘a man or a woman’. A ‘man means a male of any age; a woman means a female of any age.’

The intention of the Equality Act is to ensure the safety, dignity and privacy of women and girls, and to ensure equality of opportunity and of representation. It exists to minimise discrimination on the basis of sex, and to enable women to participate fully in civic society.

These rights are under attack. Stonewall and their allies are campaigning to redefine the word ‘woman’ to mean anyone who identifies as a woman, to substitute the word ‘gender’ instead of ‘sex’ in legislation, and, ultimately, to end single-sex exemptions. The Welsh Government is a Stonewall Diversity Champion. They are part of the problem.

The implications are profound. Female sports, changing rooms and toilets; single-sex hospital wards; the right to request a female clinician for intimate examinations, or a female care-worker to help you bathe or dress; women-only refuges, shelters and prisons; women-only shortlists; women-only awards and opportunities; women’s officers and female role models; lesbian dating sites; social and cultural groups that are allowed to exclude men (even those who say they are women) … all are under increasing threat.

For example…

Across the UK, female changing rooms in swimming pools, gyms, leisure centres, and shops, are being quietly relabeled as gender-neutral or unisex. In the name of inclusivity, female changing rooms are increasingly open to men who identify as women, just on their say-so.

Setting aside the fact that mixed-sex spaces will automatically exclude many religious women, research from 2018 revealed that ‘two-thirds of all sexual attacks at leisure centres and public swimming pools take place in unisex changing rooms’ and 90% of complaints of sexual assault, voyeurism and harassment relate to unisex facilities. Equally worrying is the rise in spy-cam porn: in 2018 in Seoul there were 6000 cases of women and girls recorded without their knowledge. The resulting videos remain forever on the internet.

And yet the list of the proudly inclusive continues to grow: PureGym, Virgin Active, Nuffield Health, EasyGym, M&S, Primark, Topshop, Urban Outfitters and increasing numbers of local authority leisure facilities across Wales and the UK.

Women’s complaints have been dismissed. The exclusion of women and girls who do not wish to have their safety and dignity undermined, or of orthodox Jewish or Muslim women, is of no account it seems.

The campaign to remove single-sex exemptions is also having a direct and negative impact on female sports. Males who identify as female are now competing in female sports at all levels, as amateurs and professionals, nationally and internationally. This is in spite of the very obvious fact that men are bigger, stronger and faster than women. Even after taking hormones to suppress their testosterone, these advantages remain. The impact of this ‘inclusive’ policy, is already being felt by the women who are excluded – from a place on the team, from medals, scholarship and sponsorship opportunities, from realising their own potential on a level playing field.

They are also expected to share communal changing rooms with their male team-mates – a requirement which automatically excludes many women from BAME groups, as well as any woman who feel uncomfortable undressing in front of a male-bodied person, regardless of how they identify.

Women who complain about this unfairness are branded transphobic or bigoted. UK Olympic-medal winner Sharron Davies was attacked as ‘transphobic’ when she pointed out that men who identify as women have an unfair advantage when competing against females; Tanni Grey Thompson, one of our greatest paralympic athletes, received threats and misogynist abuse; Martina Navratilova, an LGBT role-model, was forced to step down from her ambassadorial role with Athlete Ally after speaking in support of women-only sport.

Domestic abuse and sexual violence is endemic in our society and the lockdown has exacerbated the problem. The UK saw a rise of 49% in the number of calls to domestic abuse services and the number of deaths trebled in 2020 compared to 2019 figures. There was already a serious shortfall in refuge spaces: six families are turned away for every four who are offered a place.

The overwhelming majority of victims are female, the perpetrators are overwhelmingly male.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, single-sex refuges are considered ‘a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate aim’ under the Equality Act. This is what victims want and need. Indeed, many victims are so traumatised that they are unable to use services that are staffed by or that admit males – regardless of how they identify. Female-only provision is particularly important for women from ethnic backgrounds, who already face additional barriers in accessing these services. And yet it appears that prioritising women is unacceptable.

A Specialist VAWDASV Consultant & Trainer says:

Specialist services for women and children affected by male violence are being jeopardised by the misinterpretation of the Equality Act. Funders increasingly insist on trans inclusivity and are forcing much needed refuges and services to accept men who identify as women, regardless of the needs of the women themselves. This is happening in Wales now, and women-only services are too scared to speak out, fearful of losing the scarce funds that they already have to fight for. Organisations like Women's Aid that came out of the women's movement in the 1970s are now stuck between a rock and a hard place because Welsh Government funding insists on trans inclusivity to the detriment of women and children.

The Equality Act 2010 specifically recognises the need for single-sex prisons as a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate goal: the safety and dignity of female prisoners who are amongst the most vulnerable groups in society. Over 60% have experienced domestic or sexual violence; around 65% have traumatic brain injury as a result of this abuse, and over 50% have mental health problems.

Yet there is a current Judicial Review in the High Court challenging the Ministry of Justice’s policy of housing males who identify as women in women’s prisons. The prisoners concerned don’t need to have undergone surgery, medical treatment or have a Gender Recognition Certificate. The case has been brought by a female prisoner who claims she was sexually assaulted by a trans woman prisoner who had convictions for serious sexual offences against women.

The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners state: ‘Men and women shall so far as possible be detained in separate institutions; in an institution which receives both men and women, the whole of the premises allocated to women shall be entirely separate’.

UK law, endorsed by the UN, allows the Ministry of Justice to exclude all male-born prisoners from women’s prisons, regardless of their transgender status. They have chosen not to do so. Instead, the feelings of men – often men with a history of violence, sexual violence and child abuse – are prioritised over the safety, wellbeing and dignity of women.

The Regulations for school buildings in Wales specify clearly that children over the age of 8 must have separate single-sex facilities. Nevertheless, there are concerns that many new build schools are planned from the outset with mixed-sex toilets or existing toilets are redesignated as ‘gender-neutral’ in a mistaken attempt to be more inclusive. This development is often cost or design-driven and claims that such swish facilities reduce bullying don’t seem to be backed up by any research or evidence.

We conducted informal research into this trend two years ago and were shocked by what we heard. Many boys are unhappy with mixed-sex toilets, but the impact on girls is far greater. We heard of learners restricting fluids, holding on all day or avoiding school altogether because of anxiety over period-shaming and sexual bullying. We also heard that pupils and parents were rarely consulted in a meaningful and balanced way before changes went ahead.

The fact that communal mixed-sex school toilets actually breach the regulations was never mentioned and pupils consulted often felt a pressure to ‘be kind’. Little consideration is given to the impact on their health and well-being. Schools and Local Authorities should be conducting Equality Impact Assessments to consider the impact on ALL learners, especially those with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. Sex is a protected characteristic, as is Disability and Religion/Belief. Learners from some religious groups find that mixed-sex facilities interfere with their ability to adjust their clothing or perform ablutions before prayer. In some cases the claimed benefits of mixed-sex toilets do not apply to any pupils in the school, while the downsides impact on a majority of learners.

The Equality Act allows for single-sex provision where this is a ‘proportionate means to achieve a legitimate aim’. Clearly, women-only hospital wards, toilets and washing facilities fit this category. Female patients are unwell, vulnerable, in a state of undress, often scared or confused. Their safety, privacy and decency is directly compromised by having mixed-sex wards. Arguably, so is their recovery, particularly in mental health units. In 2010 this reasonable and legal provision was written in to the NHS Constitution and the UK Government pledged to eradicate mixed-sex accommodation.

This goal conflicts with new guidelines which require trans people to be ‘accommodated according to their presentation: the way they dress, and their current names and pronouns’, regardless of whether this superficial presentation accords ‘with the sex appearance of the chest or genitalia’. This oddly-worded phrase obscures the reality: male-born and male-bodied people who use a female name or wear feminine clothing must now be treated as if they are women. This edict applies to ‘toilet facilities, wards, outpatient departments, accident & emergency or other health and social care facilities, including where these are single sex environments’.

 

Women in Wales can no longer assert their right to single-sex wards or facilities. A guide published by Public Health Wales insists that the ‘absolute dignity [of the trans person] must be maintained at all times’. No-one would argue with that in principle. But the ‘absolute dignity’ of women – and their right to privacy and safety – is being entirely ignored..

Our legal sex-based rights are under threat in Wales.

Please help us fight to retain and strengthen them.