⁴Transgender women will be barred from accessing female-only public spaces such as toilets, changing rooms, and women’s sports under new guidance being prepared by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), according to reports.
The guidance, expected to be finalised and submitted to Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson later this month, will apply to all public service providers, including schools, hospitals, prisons, gyms, and retail spaces. It will also extend to private companies and charities delivering services on behalf of public bodies, such as care homes.
Under the proposed rules, service providers will be permitted to check individuals’ birth certificates to enforce compliance. While the guidance will not require organisations to offer single-sex spaces, it will state that if such spaces are provided, transgender women defined as individuals who were born male must be excluded from complying with the law.
The EHRC is issuing the guidance in response to a landmark Supreme Court ruling earlier this year, which clarified that legal references to sex in the Equality Act 2010 pertain to biological sex, not gender identity. This decision underpins the updated interpretation of women-only protections in the law.
The draft guidance, published shortly after the ruling, said that organisations have the right to exclude biological males from female-only spaces to uphold women’s privacy, dignity, and safety.
“The law is the law, and it’s not going to change. The EHRC cannot publish anything that contradicts the Supreme Court ruling, even if there’s pressure to do so.”
Campaigners for women’s rights, such as Helen Joyce and Maya Forstater, welcomed the ruling and the forthcoming guidance as a victory for biological sex-based protections.
However, pro-trans campaigners criticised the EHRC, accusing it of failing to consider opposing views in its consultation process. They raised concerns over the commission’s use of artificial intelligence to help process the more than 50,000 responses it received.
An EHRC spokesperson confirmed that the final version of the guidance is still being developed:
“We are working at pace to analyse consultation responses and update the draft code where needed. Our final guidance will be consistent with the law as interpreted by the Supreme Court.”
To manage the volume of responses, the commission has hired an external partner and is using supervised AI tools to support analysis, aiming for efficiency and fairness while maintaining legal accuracy.
