It is encouraging that Liz Truss has said the govt is committing to protecting single sex spaces.

The era of #nodebate has meant there has been very little discussion of what the issue is, what the law is, why it matters. https://twitter.com/trussliz/status/1253020587460636672

People say there is a "conflict of rights"which should be resolved through clear & respectful consideration of the rights of all

OK

So we need to be able to talk about what those rights are.

There has been a notable lack of interest from the human rights community on this

The right in question is the right to privacy (Article 8).

Everyone has a right to bodily privacy. You get to decide who touches & looks at sensitive parts of your body

Everyone has the right not to have to disclose information about their body to all & sundry

To put it baldly:

You don't have to show anyone your genitals and you don't have to see anyone else's

Noone should force you to talk about your genitals or make you listen to them talk about theirs

(and this applies to other parts of the body too, your underwear etc...)

So because we all have embarrassing bodies, we have spaces to enable privacy as we go about in public

In general people require more physical privacy from members of the opposite sex than the same sex.

So often reasonable privacy is provided by communal same sex spaces

The Equality Act allows for single sex spaces in a situation where one person might reasonably object to the presence of a person of the opposite sex.

But this is not a right that comes from an obscure part of the Equality Act.

It comes from your human right to privacy.

So the practical question is how do you provide a space where people can feel comfortable they wont be surprised by (or perved upon) by a stranger of the opposite sex? Do you have

A) clear rules about who can come in
or
B) ambiguous rules

(The answer is A.... )

So it is established: single sex spaces can protect everyone's Article 8 right to privacy if they have clear rules
(so people know who they are consenting to undress with)

Then what should the rule be?

The obvious option is the rule could be single sex means single sex.

Pragmatically some people think it could also include people of the opposite sex who have had genital surgery....?

The trouble w this is you would have to be able to ask people if they have had genital surgery (and be able to assure others) and that would undermine their Article 8 right to privacy.

Also this doesn't help the people who haven't had surgery but also don't want to use single sex spaces with people of the same sex as them.

The obvious practical answer is if you are providing services separately for the two sexes you also provide a unisex option for those for whom being on their side of the sex binary causes distress (and who may or may not have surgery to ease this distress)

If you are providing a service only for one sex (like a woman's refuge) you do not have to provide the service to members of the opposite sex.

And simply saying no, and having a clear policy does not undermine anyone's Article 8 rights.