1       Purpose and scope

1. Outdoor Adventure Girls aims to provide a safe environment for women over 18 to reconnect with nature and the outdoors through local meet ups, weekend getaways and international trips.       
2. We are passionate about women’s mental health and the huge burden women carry throughout life.  Through our events, we wish to give women the time to recharge, reset and be their authentic selves – whilst in a safe, women only setting.
   1.  All our services are female only events for women over 18 years old.
   1.  This policy sets out our approach to providing a single-sex service. Its aim is to provide clear expectations for all.

2     Terminology

• This policy uses the following definitions: 

A woman is an adult human female.

Sex means being male or female. It relates to biology: the roles played by male and female bodies in sexual reproduction. It is recorded at birth. Sex is a protected characteristic in the Equality Act (section 10).

The words woman and female are used interchangeably. 

Trans or transgender is an umbrella term for people who do not identify with their sex, and may seek to live with a ‘gender identity’ that does not reflect their sex. It may (but does not necessarily) involve medical procedures to change the appearance of their body.

Gender reassignment is a protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010 (section 7) referring to “people who are proposing to undergo, are undergoing or have undergone gender reassignment”. Having this protected characteristic does not change a person’s legal or biological sex. 

3     Principles

• Research and surveys evidence, as well as discussions during events, show that there is a preference and need for female-only services for women in the outdoor space. Many of our community members have experienced sexual assault, domestic violence and/or harassment by men and they have joined the community in order to feel secure and safe outdoors and during events.
  • OAG seek to provide an environment that offers safety, empowerment and healing, and does not exacerbate trauma. The rules that secure a female-only environment are therefore non-negotiable.
  • We operate within the Equality Act 2010 and the Data Protection Act, as well as other relevant legislation. 
  • We respect everybody’s human rights and will seek to treat everybody with respect and dignity. 
  • We will not tolerate any harassment of any person.

4     Single-sex services and the Equality Act 2010

We provide single-sex services based the exceptions provided in the Equality Act 2010, specifically:

4.1 Women’s only Services (schedule 3 part 7 Sections 26-28).

The condition is that:

It is lawful to exclude biological males, including those who identify as transgender women, from single sex services for women.  This is exempt from discrimination on the grounds of both sex and gender reassignment.  Single sex services are lawful if the service is used by more than one person or may involve physical contact between people and a woman might reasonably object to the presence of a biological male.

4.2 Schedule 3 Part 7 Paragraph 26 of the Equality Act 2010 provision of services to women who have been subjected to sexual and domestic violence by women is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. Specifically, our service qualifies under: 

(4) The condition is that —

a joint service for persons of both sexes would be less effective, and

the extent to which the service is required by persons of each sex makes it not reasonably practicable to provide separate services.

and also:

(6) The condition is that —

the service is provided for, or is likely to be used by, two or more persons at the same time, and

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

4.3   Schedule 23, Part 3 of the Equality Act states that it is lawful to exclude biological males from communal accommodation which has either shared sleeping or sanitary facility arrangements.  This is exempt from discrimination on the grounds of both sex and gender reassignment.

•   Paragraph 28, Part 7, Schedule 3 of the Equality Act provides that there is no discrimination relating to gender reassignment discrimination, because of anything done in relation provision of a single-sex service, if the conduct in question is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. 

5       Our single-sex policy

• • We provide a female-only service. This is non-negotiable and does not require case-by-case assessment.
  • We do offer a signposting service to other outdoor groups for non-females wishing to access similar events.
  • We will not share information about our members with anyone without permission (please refer to our Privacy Policy). The only exception to this is if there are major concerns about safety. We will respect the reasonable privacy of transgender people who come into contact with Outdoor Adventure Girls, including those with a Gender Recognition Certificate, but note that, since we are a single-sex service, disclosure of a person’s sex is a necessary expectation of interacting with our service as a guest.

6  Roles and responsibilities

•    The CEO is responsible for the implementation of this policy. 

6.2   The Chief people officer is responsible for ensuring that employees – (substantive and freelance) are inducted into the policy, and that complaints within the services for which they are responsible are dealt with according to this policy.