EHRC Guidance Rewrite Shows the Harm of Getting This Wrong

There is something quietly significant happening in the slow, bureaucratic machinery of equalities law in the UK right now, and I think it deserves far more attention than it is getting. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has been asked to revise its long-delayed code of practice on single-sex spaces, with the government seeking a tone that helps organisations be lawful and inclusive, rather than one that reads as a manual for excluding trans people. My response to this is simple: good, but the harm that has already been caused by the rush to restrict matters deeply, and we must not pretend otherwise.

What Has Actually Happened Here

To understand this moment, it helps to be precise about what the Supreme Court ruling in April 2025 actually said and, crucially, what it did not say. The ruling determined that the word "sex" in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex. That is a legal clarification about statutory interpretation. It did not define what a woman is in any broader sense, and it did not instruct service providers to exclude trans people wholesale from public life. Anyone presenting it as a sweeping cultural verdict has gone well beyond what the court actually decided.

The EHRC's original draft code of practice, submitted to ministers back in September, appears to have taken an approach that went further than the law requires. According to reporting in The Times, it included provisions that would allow organisations to question transgender people about whether they should be using single-sex services based on how they look or how they behave. That is not a safeguarding measure. That is a framework for institutionalised humiliation, and I am relieved that there are people in this process who have recognised that.

The Cost of Moving Too Quickly Towards Exclusion

What troubles me most is the acknowledgement, from a source with knowledge of the process, that the original draft felt as though it had been written with the aim of excluding trans people rather than finding inclusive ways of operating within the law. That framing tells us something important. When the instinct is to restrict first and ask questions later, real people pay the price. Trans people who rely on NHS services, use public toilets, access refuges, or simply want to go to a gym are the ones who face the daily consequence of guidance written in that spirit.

Helen's note that those responsible were too hasty and will now have to undo the exclusion, hurt, and pain reflects exactly what I hear from patients and from the wider trans community. The delays, the mixed messages, the atmosphere of suspicion, these are not abstract policy concerns. They translate into people avoiding healthcare, people feeling unsafe in public spaces, and people receiving the message that they are a problem to be managed rather than citizens to be served.

What Good Guidance Actually Looks Like

The good news is that the law does not require cruelty. The Equality Act is a sophisticated piece of legislation that recognises multiple protected characteristics simultaneously, including gender reassignment as well as sex. Guidance that is genuinely fit for purpose should help a hospital, a leisure centre, or a refuge understand how to honour all of those characteristics with dignity. It should give practical examples of how to create environments where everyone is treated with respect, not a checklist for policing how people look in changing rooms.

The revised code, which the government says will be laid before parliament next month, reportedly makes only minimal changes to the substance. What has shifted is the tone and the provision of more examples showing how organisations can be inclusive within the law. That matters. Tone is not a trivial thing when you are a trans person reading guidance that will govern how services treat you. Words carry weight, and the framing of guidance shapes the culture of the organisations that implement it.

Draft Guidance and Democratic Accountability

It is also worth noting that this code of practice has been a long time coming. The government committed to updated guidance in the wake of last year's Supreme Court ruling, and we are now well over a year on, with a draft that has been revised and resubmitted under political pressure. The process has been neither swift nor transparent, and the communities most affected, trans people, their families, and the organisations that serve them, have been left in an extended period of uncertainty.

The government says it will lay the code before parliament in May, after the current pre-election period for devolved administrations has passed. I will be watching closely to see whether what emerges genuinely supports inclusive practice, or whether it remains a document that treats trans inclusion as a reluctant afterthought rather than a legal and moral obligation.

Moving Forward With Care

What I would ask of everyone involved in finalising this guidance is that they keep real people in mind throughout. Not abstract categories or legal constructs, but the trans woman who needs a smear test, the trans man who relies on a community support service, the non-binary young person who just wants to use the swimming pool without being interrogated. The law can accommodate their dignity. The question is whether the guidance will help organisations understand that, or whether it will continue to give cover to those who would rather exclude.

We have an opportunity here to get this right. The course correction that is apparently underway is welcome. The test will be in the detail of what is finally published, and in whether the government has the courage to stand behind guidance that is both legally sound and genuinely humane.

Dr Helen Webberley, Gender Specialist and Medical Educator.
helenwebberley.com