Stephen Whittle was enjoying a birthday treat at the Chelsea Flower Show with his wife when the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) dropped its updated code of practice like a floral-themed anvil. The new guidance confirms that single-sex spaces - toilets, changing rooms, the whole en-suite deal - must be used based on biological sex, effectively barring transgender people from facilities matching their lived gender. Whittle, 70, a veteran campaigner who helped spearhead gender recognition reforms in the 1990s, didn’t miss a beat: “Of course I used the male facilities, as I have done for the last 50 years. Can you imagine what the guy on security would have said if I’d gone to the ladies?” His Friday agenda? “Trying to calm people down and say: ‘Stay cool; we’ll get through this’.”
For many in the trans and LGBTQ+ community - plus businesses and services caught in the crossfire - the April 2025 Supreme Court ruling on biological sex left everyone in a bureaucratic limbo, waiting for the equalities watchdog to provide a practical roadmap. Gender-critical groups, who’ve been campaigning for exactly this exclusion, welcomed the updated code as a consolidation of their court victory. For others, it was less a roadmap and more a minefield. “Just watching the evening news was kind of humiliating,” said Blake, a data analyst near Liverpool. “Having this frame of ‘where are people going to pee?’ It’s such a reduction of the problems we have in our lives, like access to healthcare, and also a real day-to-day struggle.”
Katie Russell, CEO of Support After Rape and Sexual Violence Leeds (SARSVL), spent Friday morning combing through the 340-page code and found it less than “super-clear” on how to remain trans-inclusive. Since the ruling, her service has taken bespoke legal advice and consulted users. “In practical terms, we understand we have lost the right to call ourselves women-only, and we’re gradually changing our language to make it clear we are still women-centred but for us that includes trans women.” SARSVL supported 1,700 clients last year, with trans women and non-binary clients making up a tiny fraction. “For us that’s absolutely a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim - because where else would they have to go?”
Lush, the cosmetics brand known for being consistently pro-inclusion, called the guidance “a significant setback for human rights in the UK.” Campaign lead Andrew Butler elaborated: “It puts frontline service providers, retail workers and many others in the position of policing people’s gender based on perception, with their organisations’ liability on the line for their judgment. The guidance is a mess because the legislation is a mess.” Kate Nicholls, chair of UKHospitality, struck a cautiously optimistic note: “The shift to make clear that gender-neutral toilets and facilities are acceptable is a particularly positive step.” But for Alice, an anaesthetist in England, the practical fallout is stark. She’s been coordinating with colleagues since last April to ensure gender-neutral facilities at “strategic intervals” in her old hospital building, but often faces a choice between leaving a patient for an extended period or dehydrating herself. Like many trans individuals interviewed by the Guardian, she’s making plans to leave the UK: “It’s been made abundantly clear that I’m not welcome. I love my job and my family have a happy life here, but I will not be a second-class citizen in my own country.”