A coalition of leftwing councils has agreed to defy new rules around single-sex spaces on the grounds that they are “harmful to the rights of trans people”.

On Wednesday, a new Equality and Human Rights Commission (ECHR) code of practice stating that sex refers to biological sex came into force. The guidance states that public bodies should operate single-sex spaces on the basis of biological sex – meaning trans people should only access the service corresponding to their gender assigned at birth or use gender neutral facilities.

The leaders of six London councils – Hackney, Haringey, Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark and Waltham Forest – have now said in a letter to women and equalities minister Bridget Phillipson that they will not enforce the policy.

  • flying_wotsit@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    I really wish nominally progressive media outlets would stop adopting fascist uses of language without even putting it in scare-quotes. The EHRC code of practice is not based on biological sex ((mutable) physiological elements of the social construct ‘sex’) it’s based on sex assumed at birth – no matter the language they use in the text. Every time ‘biological sex’ is used unquestioningly to mean the latter, it reifies a fascist understanding of sex, and we slide a little closer to losing the rhetorical battle.