Business secretary defends move, saying it ‘puts to bed myth that Rwanda is not a safe place’Kemi Badenoch, who is minister for women and equalities as well as business and trade secretary, is launching a move to root out “bad guidance” on access to single-sex spaces. The initiative seems intended to restrict the extent to which trans women use these facilities.She said:Single-sex spaces are essential for ensuring privacy and dignity for women. I do recognise, however, that the law in this area is complex, and I know that some organisations are confused and afraid of backlash if they are seen to get it wrong.So I am asking people to submit real-world examples of organisations using incorrect guidance, so that our policymaking continues to tackle any confusion and we ensure single-sex spaces are maintained.Where certain conditions are met, businesses and other organisations can legally provide single and separate-sex services such as toilets, changing rooms, and female-only fitness classes, which exclude transgender people of the opposite biological sex who do not have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). Where it is justified, they are also able to exclude transgender people with GRCs.In some cases organisations believe they are required to allow self-identifying transgender people to access these services. Now, as part of raising awareness and to understand how well single-sex spaces are maintained, Kemi Badenoch is calling on the public to submit their examples to the government.If I were to give an example of a school that had gender-neutral toilets and young girls there didn’t want to use the same toilets as boys so they weren’t going to the toilet at school and got urinary tract infections.This is obviously a terrible thing but the school though they were following a guidance because they had used some policy analysis that was by an organisation that wasn’t looking at the equality law. Continue reading…
Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/may/01/kemi-badenoch-rwanda-rishi-sunak-keir-starmer-uk-politics-live
Author : Andrew Sparrow
Publish date : 2024-05-01 11:10:11
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