Edinburgh Council report on EHRC Code ignores lesbians and women

On 18 August Edinburgh Council's Policy and Sustainability Committee will consider a report on the EHRC Updated Code of Practice. It should be about how the council has set about complying with the CoP and implementing the FWS judgment, ensuring that single sex spaces and services are properly single sex, and are available as required.

Instead, the Report largely focuses on how "trans" people will be disadvantaged and the steps the Council is taking to make sure they are provided for. The Council consulted with a long list of transactivist organisations, but not a single lesbian, gay or sex realist women's group. This is simply not good enough.

The Report talks a lot about the needs of "trans" people. But says nothing about the needs of lesbians, gays, women or men who do not want to see a mixing of the sexes. This does not meet the Public Sector Equality Duty - which requires councils to consider how their actions will affect people with different protected characteristics, and monitor the impact of policies on them. It includes advancing equality of opportunity and fostering good relations between different groups. The Report does none of this. This is not good enough.

We have written to the Council, and will also send a deputation to address the Committee meeting, to argue that the Report needs to be rewritten to take full account of the views of lesbians and other women, and to demonstrate exactly what the Council is doing to ensure it is complying with the law.

Submission to P&S cttee re EHRC CoP.pdf

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