Thread by @GeorgiaXCross

Privacy and single sex services: an analogy of workable policy.

You must be 18 to purchase alcohol in a pub in the UK. This is an age-based safeguard for young people. There are sanctions on pubs who serve under-age customers.

If the pub suspects a customer is under-age, they ask to see an identity document proving age. If the customer does not have one, the pub must refuse service or face those sanctions, which can be significant.

Therefore, the policy set in law has ways to make it relatively simple for providers to administer, sanctions if they ignore it, and the legitimate policy aim of safeguarding minors is largely achieved.

Some services are for women only. This a sex-based safeguard to protect women's need for safety, privacy and dignity. One example is a woman-only swimming session at a local leisure centre.

A male trans person attempts to join the session. The service worker says "I'm sorry, this session is women only." The male trans person says "But I am a woman" just as the kid in the pub says "But I am 18".

What does the service worker do next? Because the male trans person has "privacy rights" and there are no ID documents reliably providing sex information, what is her method of demonstrating ineligibilty to the session?

Therefore, the policy set in law, the sex-based safeguards of SSEs, is impossible for providers to administer. And why should they bother even trying, since there are no sanctions if they don't?

The legitimate policy aim of a sex-based safeguard providing women with safety, privacy and dignity is in no way achieved.

We wouldn't give the kid in the pub privacy rights, would we?

Addendum: I would also assert this is a matter of (often low paid) workers rights not to be put in impossible, embarrassing and potentially aggressive situations at work.

That the Labour Party - THE LABOUR PARTY - can't or won't recognise this is proof positive of its recent embourgeoisement. Not a place for ordinary working class people, let alone women.