Slowly, inch by inch, institutions are rediscovering that people can’t change sex even if a piece of paper says they have done so.

The equalities watchdog is urgently reviewing its guidance for employers on single-sex jobs as women’s refuges are “routinely” and “unlawfully” advertising positions to male-born applicants.

The Equality Act has exemptions which allow employers to restrict a job role to a particular sex if they can show it is an “occupational requirement” and is “a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim”. Under these rules, it is lawful for women’s domestic violence and rape charities to advertise female-only positions.

But there’s a catch!

However, the feminist campaign group Fair Play For Women (FPFW) has alerted the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to nine different charities which allow men who identify as women to apply for jobs reserved for female candidates.

Because guess what: this is what happens when large mobs of people shout “TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN” and way too many people nod solemnly in agreement.

When you make it taboo to say that men are not women, you’re going to get men applying for and getting jobs reserved for women. That’s why we’ve been saying men are not women all these years.

Dr Nicola Williams, director of FPFW, said fresh guidance on this issue was needed because many organisations are “misinterpreting” equality laws.

She said: “The Equality Act has exemptions which allow employers to lawfully restrict a job role when necessary, such as with positions in women’s domestic violence refuges, to people of the female sex.

“This does not include people whose sex is male even if they identify as women and have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.”

Because people whose sex is male are male. It doesn’t matter how they “identify.”

“But domestic violence and rape charities are now routinely misinterpreting this law because of the mistaken belief that they must still invite trans women to apply for female-only jobs for fear of being accused of discrimination.”

And because men refuse to be told “No.”

And in January this year Dundee Women’s Aid was criticised for publishing a job advert for a women’s support domestic abuse practitioner, which encouraged applicants who “identify as women” to apply for a female-only position.

Arguably men who “identify as women” are worse candidates for such a job than men who just are men. Men who claim to be women are performing a kind of contempt for women by claiming to be women. It’s a hostile act. This gets veiled because of the many deluded women who cheer them on and call the rest of us rude names.