Trans women to be banned from public female-only spaces

Telegraph

5 days ago

Public bodies will be told to ban transgender women from female-only spaces such as lavatories and changing rooms under new guidance to be published by the human rights watchdog, according to reports.
The new guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) will apply to any organisation that provides a service to the public, including schools, hospitals, prisons, gyms and shops.
They will also be allowed to check birth certificates to ensure the new rules are followed.
Private companies and charities will also be covered if they are providing a public service, such as caring for the elderly on behalf of a council.
The new rules will also allow bodies to prevent transgender women from taking part in women's sports, and state that women have a right to feel uncomfortable if a biological man undresses in front of them.
The watchdog promised to issue new guidance in light of the Supreme Court's ruling earlier this year the definition of women under the Equality Act lies in biological sex, not preferred gender identity.
Draft guidance published after the ruling stated that the words women and sex must mean biological sex for the purposes of the Equality Act.
'The law is the law'
Many public bodies, including the NHS and civil service, have so far refrained from banning transgender women from female-only spaces until the guidance is issued.
The EHRC will submit the new guidance to Bridget Phillipson, the women and equalities minister, before the end of the month, The Times reported. She will then approve it if it is in line with the law.
A source familiar with the consultation told The Times: 'The law is the law, and the law's not going to change.
'The EHRC does know what the law is and can't publish final guidance that is in complete contravention of the Supreme Court verdict, however much some might like them to.'
The guidance will not decree that organisations have to provide single-sex spaces, but will say that transgender women must be excluded if they do, The Times has reported. Ignoring the guidance will amount to discrimination.
The final wording of the EHRC's recommendations has not been agreed but sources told the newspaper it was unlikely to radically differ from the draft.
Pro-trans campaigners accused the EHRC of ignoring their views because it had used artificial intelligence to categorise responses to the consultation.
An EHRC spokesman said: 'The code of practice has not yet been finalised. We received an extremely high volume of responses to the consultation and are grateful to everyone who shared their feedback.
'To ensure we give these responses the consideration they merit, we are working at pace to analyse them and are amending the draft code of practice text where necessary to make it as clear and helpful as possible. But our code will remain consistent with the law as set out by the Supreme Court.
The human rights watchdog said it is using 'a combination of approaches' to analyse the responses to the consultation.
The EHRC added: 'With more than 50,000 responses received, we have commissioned an external supplier to support us in analysing them.
'Our approach will involve supervised use of AI alongside our expert legal assessment to ensure a balance of robustness, accuracy and speed, including promoting consistency and helping to avoid bias in managing this scale of responses.'