• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Fair Play For Women

Fair Play For Women

  • Prison
  • Sport
  • GRA
  • Language
  • Changing rooms
  • Resources ▼
    • Key facts
    • UK law
    • Science
    • Sex vs gender
    • Materials
    • Transgender Media Guide
  • About Us ▼
    • Review of 2020
    • Our aim
    • Our beliefs
    • Our spokeswoman
    • Our history
    • Our supporters
    • News
      • Newspapers
      • TV Interviews
      • Radio interviews
    • Contact
    • Donate

Toilets and changing rooms

Changing Rooms

All toilet and changing room resources

Gender-neutral changing rooms and toilets are becoming more prevalent, but that is not what most women want, and the law supports us. When a woman or girl enters the women’s changing rooms or toilets she reasonably expects to be sharing that space only with other members of the female sex and for service providers to have in place the lawful single-sex policies she relies upon for her privacy, dignity and safety. She expects a male-free space.

The Equality Act 2010 contains provisions that make male-free spaces like this lawful. EA2010 Schedule 3 Part 7 Paragraph 27 sets out a range of the conditions under which single and separate sex exceptions can apply. This includes condition 6b:

“the circumstances are such that a person of one sex might reasonably object to the presence of a person of the opposite sex.

However, this lawful and well-established contract between women and service providers is now being broken. We are now see many organisations changing their policies to open up their female-only spaces to members of the opposite sex in the name of ‘transgender inclusion’. This is even happening in schools, where girls are being told it is transphobic to object to “gender-neutral” changing rooms and toilets, even though the law is on their side.

Women are now becoming aware of this and voicing their concerns in increasing numbers. But they often get shamed into silence by getting called transphobic for wanting a male-free space.

Service providers are putting themselves at an increased risk of litigation and reputational damage by relying on simplistic and incomplete trans-inclusion guidance and elevating the needs of one protected group over another.

Fair Play For Women actively campaigns on this issue, speaking up for women and girls and engaging with policy makers.

Government is becoming aware there is a problem and has launched a ‘technical call for evidence’ on toilet provision. They are aware that many women want male-free toilets. They know that so-called gender-neutral changing rooms and toilets are really mixed-sex, noting that  “Women are also likely to feel less comfortable using mixed sex facilities and require more space”

Fair Play For Women will be responding to this call for evidence in relation to the protected characteristic of sex.

Read more:

  • Our advice to service providers about female-only changing rooms
  • Consensus between pro-women and pro-trans groups: All want clearer guidance on single-sex spaces.

 


You can help to defend female rights by making a donation. Fair Play For Women receives no formal or government funding to support the vital work we do. We rely completely on donations made by our supporters.

DONATE NOW

 

 

Primary Sidebar

Categories

  • Biological sex
  • Children
  • Gender Identity
  • Male violence
  • Scottish GRA reforms
  • Silencing women
  • Policy guidance

Our materials

  • Our factsheets
  • Our short films and animations
  • Our memes
  • Our research

Our latest articles

  • Violence against women and girls: our response to the Home Office call for evidence
  • What do we know about the research ONS used to justify changing the meaning of sex in the census?
  • Legal grounds: Fair Play For Women v The Office For National Statistics
  • Sex in the Census: Our legal challenge to stop the ONS redefining sex
  • ONS boss reverses commitment to collecting high quality sex data in Census.

Archives

Footer

Prisons, crime and protecting women

  • The facts about transgender prisoners
  • Karen White & prison review
  • Sex attacks in female prisons
  • Female inmate suing the government
  • Refuge shelters deeply worried
  • How do women in prison feel about sharing with transgender prisoners?
  • Can you believe what you read about sexual and violent crimes?
  • Factsheets

Sport and the human body

  • Biological sex differences
  • Chromosomes, sex and gender
  • Guidelines for single-sex sport policy
  • A scientist reviews the IOC’s transgender inclusion policy
  • The science and statistics behind the transgender debate
  • Safeguarding in sport still matters
  • Testosterone reduction policies
  • Rachel McKinnon transwoman cyclist
  • You can help

Making policy and the law

  • The Equality Act 2010 and women’s rights
  • GRA reform
  • Advice and guidance for policy makers
  • Equality impact analysis advice
  • Public Sector Equality Duty
  • Changing room policy advice
  • Scottish Government omits women’s evidence
  • The Scottish bill that stole the word woman
  • What can I do now?

© 2021 · Fair Play For Women