Equalities watchdog chairwoman urges ‘common sense’ policy on single-sex spaces

The head of Britain’s rights watchdog has called for a “common sense approach” to toilet provision as newly-published guidance confirmed single-sex services must be on the basis of biological sex.

The updated guidance has been published more than a year after a landmark Supreme Court ruling in April 2025 which said the words “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.

The new code covers a range of scenarios from sport, where it states trans people should compete alongside others of their birth sex rather than gender identity, to hospital wards, which it says can lawfully exclude trans patients if single-sex.

An NHS spokesperson has said they will review the updated code “with the aim of publishing draft guidance for the health service shortly”.

For Women Scotland, who were behind the Supreme Court ruling last year, hailed the publication of the long-awaited guidance as a “significant milestone in ensuring women’s rights are upheld and protected”.

But the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance argued the new code has an “exclusionary core” and could risk “pushing trans people yet further out of public life”.

The guidance, which was published on Thursday evening on the last day before Parliament broke off for recess, reads: “In separate or single-sex services, a trans man will be excluded from the men-only service because his sex is female, and a trans woman will be excluded from the women-only service because her sex is male.”

The guidance, compiled by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), also suggests it can be deemed legitimate, in limited circumstances, to ask someone to confirm what their sex is but that this must be done “as sensitively as possible, and must respect their privacy”.

On toilets, which the commission says are “necessary for everybody”, the code states that it would be “very unlikely to be proportionate to put a trans person in a position where there is no service that they are allowed to use”.

It says it is “unlikely to be either practical or appropriate to approach any particular individual to make enquiries about their sex in relation to facilities, such as toilets, which are incidental to the primary service”.

While the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance appeared to suggest the guidance was “worryingly similar to a US bathroom ban”, commission chairwoman Mary-Ann Stephenson rejected any notion of the policing of toilets and called for common sense to be used.

Published: 21/05/2026 by Radio NewsHub