Briefing for lobbyists.
This situation cannot continue, we need our politicians to protect trans equality.
On the day, we will have leaflets with key points to help you with your meetings and experts on hand to chat to - but here is a longer version of our briefing to give some areas to think about ahead of time.
You don’t need to read it all, the key points below are enough, but you may find more detail helpful. The most important thing is that you do not need to be or speak like a policy expert, just speak from the heart and tell real stories - making it clear that you want your MP to take action to fix the harm that has been done by the Code of Practice.
This briefing won’t cover every point, but it may be helpful policy context. It’s important to keep messages simple and clear, so we are focussed here on equality protections - but there are certainly other areas you may wish to bring up and there is more on these below.
Things to consider ahead of the day.
Think about the ways that the Code of Practice and the Supreme Court decision is impacting your life, and the lives of people you care about. These are the stories that parliamentarians will be most influenced by. Exclusion from services, fears about safety, difficulties for service providers or associations who want to be inclusive - all of these are worth exploring.
If you’d like to talk through your ideas or questions on the day, we have experienced policy volunteers who can give you advice about what works best in persuading and influencing politicians. Just ask the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance team and we will direct you to the right people.
You might want to check whether your MP signed EDM 240 (against implementation of the Code of Practice) by looking it up here and whether they have previously expressed a view on trans rights. Not all MPs can sign EDMs, such as ministers and parliamentary private secretaries. While the process in the Equality Act for the EHRC Code of Practice left no other Parliamentary procedure to formally object other than the EDM, it’s also worth knowing some MPs also have a blanket rule not to sign these types of motions as they are rarely effective and may choose to write letters or issue statements instead.
The focus of this lobby is on the state of the overall legal protections for trans equality, but there are other areas you may wish to talk about such as access to healthcare and policies for young people. At the bottom of this page there is more information about these other areas.
Key Points.
The new Code of Practice to the Equality Act is now in force. It is deeply unjust and urges organisations of all kinds, from hospitals to pubs, to exclude trans people from services and facilities that reflect their gender. In some circumstances trans people may also be excluded from services and facilities that reflect their gender assigned at birth.
For our communities, this code is unsafe. This is a system of segregation based on what people look and act like, meaning that everyone is exposed to the risk of humiliating and dangerous gender policing.
Trans people are being pushed out of services and spaces we need and our ability to participate in public life is being severely limited. The Code of Practice fatally undermines our protection from discrimination under the Equality Act 2010, and the purpose of the Gender Recognition Act.
For organisations, this code is unworkable. This situation exposes businesses, public services and voluntary and community groups to a high risk of complaints and litigation, whatever they choose to do. The law here is clearly broken, and we want it fixed.
This is the government’s mess. They need to fix it, not hide behind the courts.
We want MPs to take the following actions NOW:
-
Write to Ministers and the Prime Minister to say they are profoundly concerned by the rolling back of trans rights under this government, and that they believe that it is time for Parliament to legislate to protect equality for trans people.
-
Ask parliamentary questions focused on protecting trans people’s rights and defending trans people’s abilities to live safe and dignified lives.
-
Speak up both inside and outside Parliament in defence of trans people’s rights.
-
Meet regularly with trans constituents to understand our lived realities.
Q&A
The next section looks at some questions you may be asked or statements posed to you and examples of how to answer them.
The EHRC is ‘just’ implementing the Supreme Court judgement
Judges don’t make law, parliament does, and we are now an international outlier when it comes to protecting the rights of trans people.
The EHRC chose the most restrictive possible interpretation of the law, and the government chose to implement it, triggering changes that are already having a devastating impact on trans people’s ability to live their lives in a safe and dignified way and proving unworkable for organisations. For example, where is the NHS supposed to admit trans patients safely now?
The guidance is, however, not the end of the problem - the Supreme Court judgment opened up a huge gap in trans people’s legal protections that is now on politicians to solve. In doing so, the Supreme Court has turned Parliament’s original intent entirely on its head.
The current situation is harmful and unsustainable.
We need action to protect trans equality.
What about women’s right to ‘single sex spaces’?
There is nothing unsafe or undignified about cis and trans women sharing spaces and services. Some cis women would prefer not to share spaces and services with trans women, others are happy to share spaces and services with trans women, and there are many ways to manage this reality without a blanket ban on trans people accessing vital services. Other liberal democracies manage just fine.
Before the Supreme Court judgment, gendered services could and did operate on a trans exclusionary basis where it was a ‘proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim’. Many didn’t feel they had any reason to, but are now being told that they must when they were happily inclusive. We should not be excluding anyone in circumstances that are disproportionate or illegitimate.
The government’s own impact assessment has warned of the negative impact of ‘gender policing’ on all women, and nevertheless it has implemented these harmful changes.
The fight against trans people’s rights is part of the broader anti-rights movement that is going after abortion rights and embedding gender norms, it is not about protecting women.
Can’t trans people just use unisex services / facilities
In many cases unisex services and facilities simply do not exist. For example, in hospital settings many trans people will face delays and issues trying to access a small number of ‘side rooms’ if excluded from gendered wards for the care they need. Everyday venues like local pubs and restaurants often do not have any non-gendered facilities. Where facilities do exist they are typically much-needed accessible facilities for disabled people.
Segregating minority groups in this way is wrong. Forcing trans people into ‘third’ spaces risks outing us and exposing us to risk of abuse and harassment. It also potentially impacts on access to facilities designated for disabled people.
The government estimates the costs of implementing its Code of Practice will be £0.6BN and could be higher. It is not picking up that bill for small businesses.
How can I take a position when it’s all so complicated?
Fundamentally, this was a settled area of law policy for many years until the Supreme Court ruling. Inclusion was the default, and trans exclusion was lawful where ‘legitimate’ and ‘proportionate’.
Right now, we are letting a minority group be driven out of public life by a well-funded hostile campaign and this cannot stand. History will look back and judge what our politicians do in this moment.
More detail.
You do not need to read past here, but if you would like to prepare more please read on.
The Code of Practice.
The new Code of Practice for Services, Public Functions and Associations came into force on 5th August 2026.
166 Members of Parliament signed a motion to ‘disapprove’ the guidance prior to its implementation, a form of ‘prayer’ motion, in an attempt to stop it and register formal opposition.
This was a large backbench rebellion in the last days of the Starmer government, and if this government wants to ‘reset’ under Burnham - they need to change tack and fix this mess.
The Code of Practice sets out a wide ranging system of segregation, with trans people excluded from services and spaces that reflect their gender, and in some cases also excluded from services and spaces that reflect their gender assigned at birth.
There are only two ways to restore our legal rights: litigation or legislation. With litigation, the FWS precedent will continue to bounce around the court system for years with unpredictable results which may then be overturned on various levels of appeal until this ends up at Strasbourg. In the firing line of these cases will be public bodies, businesses, and individual trans people.
We shouldn’t need the European Court of Human Rights to tell us we’re getting this wrong, we need our politicians to act and stop the years of harm that will follow if they don’t. The ECtHR, if it found against the UK as it has before on trans rights, would be telling the UK to legislate to remedy the breach - not directly overturning a domestic judgment. We need to legislate now.
Daily impacts on trans people.
The Code of Practice is causing significant harm to trans people across the UK. It:
-
Tells providers to refuse access to gendered services in the same way regardless of proportionality, excluding trans people from spaces and services they have used for decades.
-
Leaves some trans people in a position where they are excluded from all gendered spaces - something the government’s Equality Impact Assessment describes as ‘double exclusion’.
-
Forces trans people into spaces aligned with their sex assigned at birth, something that is both unwanted and unsafe. Again, the EIA recognises this, saying that trans women in particular “could face a disproportionate risk of violence and sexual assault”.
-
Causes trans people to preemptively exclude themselves from spaces and services, in an attempt to avoid indignity, outing and potential abuse and harassment.
-
Creates a hostile environment for anyone who doesn’t conform to gender norms, enabling harassment and abuse. Again, this is recognised by the EIA which states this “could lead to increased harassment for trans people and cisgender people who do not conform to traditional gender stereotypes”
-
Outs trans people en masse, making it impossible for them to live their lives with the privacy protections envisaged in UK law.
Undermining human-rights
The Code of Practice undermines trans people’s human rights under domestic and international law. It:
-
Seriously undermines trans people’s protection from discrimination under the Equality Act 2010.
-
Seriously undermines the UK’s Gender Recognition Act 2004, which was passed on the basis that somebody’s trans status is kept private and that a gender recognition certificate changes a person’s legal sex ‘for all purposes’.
-
Leaves trans people in an ‘intermediate zone’ (ruled unlawful in ECtHR cases Goodwin v UK & I v UK) - unable to access meaningful legal gender recognition.
-
Is in conflict with the European Convention on Human Rights, particularly Article 8 which protects private and family life and Article 14 which protects against discrimination (also protected under Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights)
-
Undermines all of our rights to freedom of association (Article 11 ECHR) by limiting the ability of cis and trans people to freely associate (except in those circumstances that meet the technical legal definition of an ‘association’, where the Code suggests they can operate if they serve more than one protected characteristic group, for example, ‘women and all trans people’, which may not be in line with their preference and historical structure.)
This Code of Practice is likely to lead to further significant human rights breaches, particularly in areas like healthcare, where segregation of trans patients may lead to adverse health outcomes. Trans patients may wait longer before being admitted to hospital, and many be segregated in side rooms away from the specialist care they need.
The impact on organisations.
This Code of Practice is unworkable for organisations of all kinds. It is now very difficult for services to operate with confidence in line with their values, including trans people as they always have.
Compliance will be expensive, with the government estimating £0.6BN of investment needed. There is no funding allocated for this, and small businesses in particular will be left in an impossible position - struggling to fund either compliance or more inclusive approaches.
Whatever they do, organisations will be at high risk of litigation - for discriminating against trans people, for not discriminating against trans people, and for any negative consequences that flow from their decisions.
Inclusive organisations?
The Code of Practice leaves inclusive organisations in a position where they will feel pressured to act against their values and exclude trans people (as we have already seen happen in high profile cases). The EHRC says that a number of responses to their consultation were asking how to include trans people in gendered services, but the Code of Practice does not give this clarity.
This guidance
-
Does not give organisations any legally clear guidance on how they can remain trans inclusive where they provide services or facilities separately or only for men or women
-
Places organisations in the impossible position of being responsible for policing the gender of their customers and service users, causing significant problems for employees, customers and service users alike
-
Leaves organisations at risk of litigation from all sides: for discriminating against trans people and for not discriminating against trans people, racking up legal bills and ensuring the issue remains in the headlines for years to come
Wider erosion of trans people’s rights.
This mess of trans people’s legal protections, codified in the EHRC guidance, sits in a wider context of other policy changes that have an adverse effect on trans people in the UK:
Access to healthcare
The UK has banned access to puberty blockers via the NHS and UK regulated private providers, and is currently deciding on whether it should place a similar ban on the prescription of hormones to 16 and 17 year olds. Trans young people in the UK now have extremely limited access to gender affirming healthcare in line with international standards of best practice.
Trans adults remain able to access gender-affirming healthcare through the NHS in theory - but waiting lists for that care are many years long and care centralised to clunky, gatekeeping focussed systems. This has significant impacts on trans people’s wellbeing and mental health, and is unnecessary when better models exist.
Recently trans people in Wales have faced a shocking pause on access to gender-affirming surgery via the Welsh Gender Service. In some cases, trans people were already admitted to hospital having undergone extensive assessment and rearranged their lives around a surgical date that has now been cancelled. This is a devolved Welsh government responsibility, but has had a huge impact without clear rationale about why such a drastic step was taken, or a clear timescale. It needs to be fixed, and creates a chilling effect for trans healthcare across the UK.
Trans Children and Young People
The government has implemented new safeguarding guidance for schools and colleges in England (Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026). It requires strict segregation of trans children and young people, barring trans students from toilets, changing rooms and residential accommodation that reflects their gender. It promotes further restrictions on trans children and young people’s access to PE, and seeks to significantly restrict the ability for trans children to socially transition and be accepted at school. This is cruel and harmful to trans children and young people.
At the same time, the government has also implemented revised guidance on relationships and sex education that will make it more difficult for teachers to speak about trans lives and identities with confidence.
What we want.
Trans people need to be able to live our lives as ourselves with safety, dignity and access to healthcare. Under this government, our lives are becoming harder and less safe. We need the government to act, legislating to protect trans equality for all ages, fixing our broken healthcare system and standing up for us against the growing anti-rights movement.
The current interpretation of the Gender Recognition Act and Equality Act put forward by the Supreme Court does not reflect Parliament’s intent and must be undone through legislation.
We are now an outlier in liberal democracies, and this cannot stand