How new single-sex house EHRC steering will change each day life for trans neighborhood
New EHRC rules mean single-sex spaces like sports and hospital wards must be based on biological sex. Activists warn the sweeping changes will heavily impact the trans community.
The updated code has been published more than a year following a landmark Supreme Court ruling in April 2025
Newly-released guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has confirmed that single-sex services must be based on biological sex.
The updated code has been published more than a year following a landmark Supreme Court ruling in April 2025, which determined the words “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.
The new code addresses a variety 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An NHS spokesperson has said they will review the updated code “with the aim of publishing draft guidance for the health service shortly”.
Campaigners on both sides of the debate have responded to the new guidance written by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and published on Thursday.
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Gender-critical campaigners have welcomed new Government guidance on single-sex spaces as a “significant milestone” while trans rights activists have labelled the law “a mess” and likened the policies to “Trump’s America”.
Labour MP and chair of Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee, Sarah Owen said she fears that a “hellish limbo” will continue for trans people with expected legal challenges to newly published guidance on single-sex spaces.
Owen extended “support and understanding to trans people who have spent far too long in uncertainty, waiting for confirmation on how they will be able to live out their daily lives in public.”
Here’s how the updated guidance could impact the transgender community.
‘Significant limitations’ on trans participation in sport
New guidance states that it may be “justified” to exclude trans people from competing with members of their own biological sex on the grounds of “fair competition”.
The new regulations “may impose significant limitations” on the ability of trans people to participate in sporting activities at all. It also encouraged organisers to consider alternative arrangements such as having “mixed-sex categories” in addition to single-sex.
The guidance states that a woman could bring a claim for “indirect sex discrimination” if an organiser chose to include trans women in her category, and men could also bring a claim on the basis that they were being excluded from the event.
Hospitals can have single-sex wards that exclude trans patients
The code states that hospitals can choose to provide a single-sex ward “for women patients to protect their safety, privacy and dignity”.
If they do, it has to be on the basis of the sex that patients were assigned at birth. In this scenario, trans patients would be placed on a ward based on the sex they were born as rather than the gender they identify as.
Under current NHS guidance, trans patients can be accommodated on single-sex wards based on the gender they identify as.
Elsewhere, the guidance states that it would not be proportionate to exclude a trans man – someone assigned female at birth who identifies as a man – from obstetrics and gynaecology outpatient services based on the objections of female patients.
However, as that service does not offer any treatment suitable for men or trans women, the code said the hospital “can refuse to treat them” and also “refuse to adjust the way in which it provides the service”.
An NHS spokesperson said: “Now that the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s statutory guidance has been laid in Parliament, we are reviewing it with the aim of publishing draft guidance for the health service shortly.”
‘Legitimate’ to ask someone to confirm their sex
The guidance also suggests it can be deemed legitimate, in limited circumstances, to ask someone to confirm what their sex is if “there is clear evidence of an issue with members of the opposite sex accessing or seeking to access the single or separate-sex service or association”.
The code states: “Evidence of such concern might include the individual’s physique or physical appearance, behaviour or concerns raised by other service users.
“However, service providers, those performing public functions and associations must keep in mind that it is not always possible to be sure of a person’s sex from their appearance.”
If someone is asked to confirm their sex, it should be done “as sensitively as possible, and must respect their privacy”, the code states.
In doing so, a provider must consider factors including whether concerns have been raised by other service users and the “the nature of the service or facility in question”.
It is said to be “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”.
Government must explain how it will support trans community
Labour MP Sarah Owen urged the Government to explain how it will support the trans community, stating that “all of us deserve to be able to live with dignity and be treated with respect.”
She said: “The burden lies with Government to explain how it will support our trans community who are vulnerable to hatred and humiliation at work, in education, in leisure activities and public events.
“Organisations which also want to remain trans inclusive need to receive support on how to do so within the law. In a similar way, those that wish to exclude trans men and women from their spaces also need to know how to do so without breaching individual rights to privacy.”
