Hackney’s Green Party mayor Zoë Garbett has said trans women will continue to be able to use women’s toilets and other council facilities in the borough, despite new Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) ‘guidance’ stating that single-sex spaces should be organised according to biological sex.
I fully expect J. K. Rowling to donate 2 million to suing the borough for this.
Btw, if you pay for any Harry Potter merch or media, you are complicit.
Yet another green W.
See how easy it is?
What I find really fascinating about the response to this comment is the fear of “what if…” with respect to being challenged on it.
I’m not downplaying what a pain that will be. The alternative is making discriminatory rules based on something that isn’t even technically required, and that feels so… wrong? It’s so much easier to say “nah” to a “should” rather than a “shall”. It just takes a tiny bit of chutzpah.
What is chutzpah?
It’s a Yiddish word that I think originally had more negative connotations but means nerve or audacity. It is used in more positive ways today, more like courage.
Cheers!
Although I like this, it is currently against the law and they’re going to get drowned in litigation from the TERF lobby.
It’s a guidance not a law. As such if taken to court a judge must take it into account, but it does not automatically mean it is a clear case of breaking the law. Actual ruling and case law are going to be what defines how much teeth it has.
I’m glad to see it being challenged like this because it could very well set the precedence that undoes it all.
I retain hope that case law will find the guidance unlawful because of how violating enforcement would be. But as another commentator pointed out, damage is already being done as it is being adopted.
Exactly. Its been one of the most depressing things of the past year or so to see some very specific legal guidance (essentially that it is allowable to have strict single sex spaces excluding trans people if it is essential to achieve certain aims (like women’s refuges)) being used to enact sweeping bans by governments and companies out of reflexive ass covering.
Too early to tell if it’s easy, because they are likely to get sued to hell and back.
Presumably the EHRC guidance that led to this situation, based on the Supreme Court ruling, is itself legally challengeable, which might be the result… If so, the Supreme Court really fucked up by issuing such an ambiguous ruling.
Hooray for the Greens and hooray for Hackney!
