The Houses of Parliament—hypothetically still the primary law-making body in the United Kingdom—have yet to comply with the Supreme Court ruling that sex is a biological fact and not a question of ‘gender identity.’
In narrowly legal terms, the primary part of the ruling established that the category of ‘sex’ in the Equality Act (2010) applied to people born female. Gender reassignment is a protected category elsewhere in the law, but its recipients (‘transwomen’) are not covered by the legal category ‘women.’ Males who subjectively identify as women are also not legally women.
Secondary clauses in the legislation give guidance as to where single-sex provision is lawful—such as prisons, sports, and lavatories. Now it transpires that the House of Commons is refusing to comply.
Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) chair Baroness Falkner has told this organisation (and others) that updated guidance published on Tuesday, May 20th should be followed immediately, barring ‘transwomen’ (i.e. men) from women’s lavatories. While Falkner accepts that some fine-tuning in the guidance might occur, there will be no fundamental changes to the law itself.
Some state organisations, including the National Health Service and specifically the House of Commons, appear to be dithering—critics might say backsliding—while they await guidance from the EHRC.
Meanwhile, the first known trans (now ex-) MP, “Katie” a.k.a. Jamie Wallis, is facing harassment charges while claiming to be in mental health treatment, so it’s unlikely that parliamentary delays on updated toilet guidance will benefit him. Or her. Whatever.
The serious point is that the seat of British law-making is not complying with the law of the land, paving the way for future problems in the face of an aggresive transactivist lobby.
