Pathetic. The Fawcett Society responds to EHRC guide for separate and single-sex service providers:

The recently published EHRC guide for separate and single-sex service providers confirms our understanding of the current law. Providers of single-sex services can restrict or modify access for trans people when doing so is necessary to achieve a legitimate aim, and when the action taken is proportionate in balancing impacts on different groups of women.

But (yet again) the issue isn’t “trans people,” it’s men who claim to be trans women.

But much more to the point – “balancing impacts on different groups of women” shouldn’t have anything to do with impacts on men, including men who claim to be trans women. The set “groups of women” doesn’t include men.

Fawcett supports this position and believe there are occasions where services, in particular those for trauma survivors, should be able to make this decision. We welcome the guide for providing that clarity.

Gee, how nice of it. In some circumstances, especially in the wake of brutal violence, services get to exclude men, but mostly, they don’t.

However, we have some concerns with the guidance. We believe some of the examples that are given to wider service providers as they consider their approaches to the inclusion of trans people are confusing and lack detail. In some cases, we believe the examples used suggest a threshold for the exclusion of trans people that is too low. We are worried that this will have a disproportionate impact on trans people. 

There it is again, that shockingly dishonest obfuscation – all the more dishonest coming from an organization that used to be feminist. They’re not talking about “trans people,” they’re talking about trans women, i.e. men. Isn’t it interesting that this obfuscation is so pervasive. Isn’t it interesting how it betrays the fact that these groups and institutions know they’re stabbing women in the back and are trying to hide both the stabbing and their awareness of the stabbing.

Fundamentally, everyone deserves access to high-quality services and to be treated with fairness, dignity and respect.

No shit, but it doesn’t follow that women don’t deserve access to high-quality services for women. Men can be treated with fairness, dignity and respect without being allowed to invade services for women.

Whilst this is a complex discussion and balancing the rights of different groups of women is challenging, acceptance and support should always be the starting point.  

But men aren’t a “different group of women”; men are men. We don’t have to “balance” our rights with men’s rights. We’re not the dominant group in this particular pairing.