00:00Green-run London councils will resist new trans guidance on single-sex spaces.
00:05I think these guidelines have been unworkable from the very beginning.
00:08Here's everything you need to know.
00:10Single-sex facilities such as toilets, changing rooms and refuges
00:13must be used by people based on their sex at birth rather than the gender they identify as.
00:19Places will be allowed to exclude trans people from some spaces
00:22if they decide other users might object to them being there.
00:26If trans women are welcomed in some spaces, it will not legally be regarded as women only,
00:31and the same with trans men.
00:32Is a trans man now meant to use a cis woman's bathroom,
00:38that clearly wouldn't be acceptable to almost anyone in that situation.
00:42So I think it's clear that the guidelines are unworkable.
00:44It comes following a Supreme Court ruling last year,
00:47which critics warned will damage the trans community.
00:50Being trans in and of itself is hard enough,
00:52and then, and you already face a tremendous amount of scrutiny from other people,
00:58even when you had the legal protection to use the spaces that you felt most comfortable in.
01:04Now without them, I think a lot of people are just withdrawing.
01:08I want the government to actually come up with a plan that is workable,
01:11that recognizes that we can both and must respect the right of women,
01:16where we have a huge issue with violence of women and girls in this country.
01:20But to note that violence against women and girls often comes from a partner
01:24or someone in the family and not a trans woman.
01:27Lambeth, which has been run by a minority greed administration since the local elections in May,
01:32was the first to back calls to defy the new rules,
01:35with other local authorities in the capital expected to follow.
01:38The borough, along with Hackney, Wolven Forest, Haringey, Lewisham and Southwark,
01:42has demanded the government clarifies that the code must not be used to exclude trans people from services.
01:48The code doesn't make the law. The law is the Equality Act.
01:51Local authorities can't decide to disobey the Equality Act.
01:57I mean, if they do, they are in danger of being sued by service users for discrimination or for harassment.
02:05And we also have powers to take enforcement action.
02:08You know, you're asking counsel to basically ask their staff people to police people's gender,
02:12to try to ascertain people's sex at birth.
02:15And the code of practice doesn't include what that would look like,
02:19because they know that if they actually did, it would be very clear that it's enforcing gender stereotypes.
02:25So they've always refused to answer what exactly is it that we should be looking for
02:29when we're trying to figure out somebody's sex at birth.
02:31We don't have a single document in this country that people can use to prove their sex,
02:36because some people can have got a gender recognition certificate.
02:40On the other hand, human beings are very good.
02:45You know, there's been large amounts of research in this area identifying the sex of other human beings
02:50from thousands of pieces of information.
02:53There's not one indicator, but most of us can tell somebody's sex straight away.
02:57Lambeth's deputy leader, Natalie Kane, said the updated guidelines would have
03:01significant negative impacts for people in the borough who identify as LGBTQIA+.
03:07Trans women are women, trans men are men.
03:10Trans rights are human rights, she added.
03:13On a really personal level, I think trans people are just really hurting.
03:18And they are, you know, we can do what we can to kind of build our own spaces
03:25and create our own things for ourselves, but the reality is we're already a marginalised
03:28group of people who don't have a lot of money, who struggle to get employment,
03:33who struggle with health, you know, worse health outcomes than other people.
03:38And I think, like, we can only do so much to sustain ourselves from, you know,
03:43when the society is so hostile to us.
03:46A government spokesperson previously said it is about giving organisations the guidance they need,
03:52not changing the law or creating new rules.
03:54They suggested that many businesses will already be largely compliant with the code,
03:58so there will be no cost at all.
04:00We'll move and carry on and we'll keep fighting.
Comments