A SCOTTISH hospitality workers' union has said “very little consideration” has been given to staff who will have to enforce the UK equality watchdog’s guidance on single-sex spaces and face abuse from members of the public.
Unite Hospitality Glasgow said that in the wake of interim guidance being published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) last year, workers had been “forced to engage with transphobic rhetoric and insults due to members of the public being legislatively supported in vocalising their bigotry”.
The union also pointed out that the hospitality sector depends “heavily” on the labour of trans workers, who will be forced to enact the Code of Practice that excludes them from essential services.
Last month, the UK Government published the long-awaited draft guidance from the EHRC, which banned trans women from using female toilets, changing facilities and sports teams, and trans men from male facilities.
The repeatedly delayed Code of Practice follows the Supreme Court ruling in April last year that said a woman is defined by biological sex under the Equality Act 2010.
It contains instructions for businesses and public bodies on how to operate under the law following the judgment, and explicitly states that in separate or single-sex service “a trans man will be excluded from the men-only service because his sex is female, and a trans woman will be excluded from the women-only service because her sex is male.”
The guidance also suggests it can be deemed legitimate, in limited circumstances, to ask someone to confirm what their sex is if “there is clear evidence of an issue with members of the opposite sex accessing or seeking to access the single or separate-sex service or association”.
In a statement released on Instagram, Unite hospitality Glasgow said that the guidance “opens the doors to more frequent questioning, misgendering, and increased public hostility towards transgender and gender nonconforming people”.
“In the months since the interim guidance last year, we have received an increase in stories of workers being harassed by customers complaining about (presumed) transgender people merely accessing services,” it continues.
“Workers, whom we represent, have been forced to engage with transphobic rhetoric and insults due to members of the public being legislatively supported in vocalising their bigotry. This is a direct impact of this Code and its predecessor, which makes exclusion and discrimination defensible.
“Furthermore, the hospitality industry relies heavily on the labour of transgender workers, statistically more than most other sectors. This Code makes it more likely for transgender people to face bigotry in their own workplaces.
A post shared by Unite Hospitality Glasgow branch (@unitehospitalitygla)
"It will make these workers ‘promote the exclusion of transgender people from ordinary daily life’ by having them carry out the same guidance designed to exclude them; thus, making it harder for them to work and live in dignity and safety.”
The statement criticised the “very little consideration” given to hospitality workers who will “shoulder the burden” of enacting the Code.
“We represent workers in the ‘hotels, restaurants, pubs, theatres, cinemas and shops’ who are expected to enact this guidance,” the statement adds.
“Our workers are the ones who will be instructed by their employer to ask intrusive questions about a person’s biological sex.
“Our workers are the ones who will be forced to remove transgender people from services.
“Our workers will be forced to deal with emboldened transphobic actors who believe that they have legislative justification for their discrimination.
“We at the Unite Hospitality Glasgow Branch stand in resolute solidarity with our transgender comrades.
“In times of uncertainty and vulnerability such as these, it is of utmost importance that we resolve to take care of workers facing hardship.
“In doing so, we enact the very core of what it is to be in a trade union: collectivity, equality, and solidarity.
“Trans rights are workers’ rights.”
We told how dozens of MPs have backed a bid to have the Code of Practice rejected, after it was laid in the Westminster Parliament by Women and Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson.
MPs and peers have 40 days to review the draft code, which was laid before Parliament on May 21, but there is no guarantee that the House of Commons will allow the motion, sponsored by Labour MP Nadia Whitthome, to go to a vote.
Advocacy groups said the guidance leaves trans people in the UK with “less rights” and that it has “weakened” protections for the LGBT+ community as a whole.
