‘Kind of humiliating’: trans community responds to EHRC’s new code of practice
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/22/kind-of-humiliating-trans-community-responds-to-ehrcs-new-code-of-practice
Posted by denyer-no1-fan
‘Kind of humiliating’: trans community responds to EHRC’s new code of practice
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/22/kind-of-humiliating-trans-community-responds-to-ehrcs-new-code-of-practice
Posted by denyer-no1-fan
24 Comments
> It confirmed, among myriad updates, that single-sex spaces such as toilets and changing rooms must be used on the basis of biological sex, and that transgender people may not access those that accord with their lived gender.
Im past seeing a solution here
The polls show the majority of men and women agree with the above
But we can’t ignore 2 huge factors
Trans people exist and it’s stuff like this is making their life unbearable
How is this ever to be enforced? On the spot genital checks? Do we want people asking to check what’s down your pants
The saddest thing to me is regardless of what the law is, this is just an attack on how passable you are.
Trans men with a beard aren’t going to get questioned. Trans women that are lucky enough to be quite passing aren’t going to get questioned. This is looks based discrimination.
You could be an effeminate male and get questioned. You could be a butch woman with short hair and be humiliated in a public toilet by someone that thinks you don’t look feminine enough.
What the fuck are we doing
“kind of” is understatement of the century. this is the first of its kind; a sweeping, wide-ranging, national bathroom ban, enforced by pure vibes, using language directly from the recommendations of a hate group. congrats to labour for, in one fell swoop, bringing back the urinary leash, as well as the uk’s first ever explicit segregation legislation.
see you in Strasbourg.
I didn’t know Jim Crow Laws were still a thing are they?
This is 2026 not 1976.
What a regressive country we are.
I’m disappointed.
Ah, the classic understatement of a minority group being singled out, targeted and punished by the Government.
The new guidance says that people can use single-sex services of the other Equality-Act sex in exceptional circumstances, if it works (despite this being pretty clearly illegal according to the Supreme Court). *Except* if they are trans. Anyone else, fine if people are ok with it. Not with trans people.
It’s like the puberty-blocker ban. Anyone can get prescribed puberty blockers, for anything they might want them for and can get a doctor to sign off on it, *except* if they are trans.
There are areas where the guidance says the law is “not settled” – by which they mean “we are legally wrong here, but we want people to punish trans people, so we’re going to pretend it isn’t settled to cover us.”
There is a lovely bit where it tells competitive sports organisations that they need to have policies on how to treat sex- or gender-based segregation, and that these need to be based on evidence, research and so on, except no matter what the evidence says they must exclude trans people.
Or the bit where they point out if someone follows the guidance they could justify excluding all trans people from services, spaces or categories of both Equality-Act sex, and how that would be perfectly fine.
The guidance is very clear; trans people bad. Must be punished.
Bigotry results in a “code of practice” that’s discriminatory, stupid and entirely unworkable. And that would almost certainly make life significantly worse for both trans people and cis people that don’t fit conventional gender norms.
And the cherry on the shit sandwich is that this particular kind of stupidity is encouragement for the bigots and haters that have created this angry mess in the first place. JK is probably snorting black mould and chuckling to herself as we speak.
We should be better than this by now. We’re supposed to be evolving as a species and as a society. This is the kind of backward step that isn’t helping anyone.
I’ve got a few Trans friends from both sides MtF/FtM and they’re just going to ignore it. 99.9% no one cares where you go to take a leak and with that 0.01% time what’s anyone even going to do? Like it’s not even illegal at most you’ll just end up having an arguement in the store and both walk out.
How long until the facists demand they start wearing pink triangles?
What supporters of these laws never want to grasp is that they make it easier for cisgender men to access women’s toilets.
Up until now, MTFs have used women’s loos and FTMs have used men’s loos.
But almost all FTMs (female to male) pass so seamlessly after a relatively short period on testosterone that you really wouldn’t be able to tell – even with a trained eye. They seem to go from butch lesbian to clearly male practically overnight.
Now, these “biological females” who look very clearly male – like the person in the picture – will be forced to use the women’s toilets.
Under the new rules, all a cisgender (not trans) male with bad intentions has to do to gain access to the women’s loos is to claim he’s actually a female to male transgender person, and is therefore legally compelled to use the women’s loos.
There’s not really any way to argue back on that one – remember, ID including birth certificates and passports can be changed.
Genital inspections it is – detailed ones, because bottom surgery is a thing. I vote for Helen Joyce and JKR to go first.
The law of unintended consequences applies, as it always does.
The guidance is stupid because how would it even be enforced?
Are they going to have bouncers outside every toilet? Are they going to request your ID? Are they going to have medical sex checking facilities available on demand because IDs can be changed?
Or are they just going to call the police on everyone that doesn’t fit the strict binary of hyper feminine women and masculine men?
Absolutely stupid stuff, complete waste of time.
It’s not enforceable, I will use public women’s toilets without regard for the law.
I also work for myself from home. In no way will I allow this new guidance to affect my life.
I’ll live like nothing has changed legally.
What breaks my heart is that 100% there will be an uptick in trans suicides…
I wish those trans people would realise that this is simply like the fight for gay rights… we fight, lose some, win some…
In decades things will be way easier, there’s nobility in fighting for this.
Sadly many trans people would rather die than wait decades to be affirmed and vindicated.
The whole thing makes no sense, is basically unenforceable, won’t protect anyone, and will simply result in the harassment of women who don’t conform to the standards of a given onlooker.
So it’s a victory for bullies, I guess?
I really wish these transphobes would leave innocent minorities alone.
The EHRCs come the wrong direction with this.
The supreme courts ruling on the matter meant that trans people don’t inherently have the right to use the bathrooms of their identified gender.
With that ruling it left it up to individual establishments to decide for themselves whether to allow it or not.
The EHRC have decided to take that and turn it into a actual ban. Why? What’s the point in that?
They’ve made gender neutral toilets the legally safe option for business. Wild guidance and this is after the government asked them to tone it down. Oh well, sorry to all the non-traditionally feminine women who are going to fall foul of this.
The best solution, which is already compatible under the current Building Regulations and is being recommended in this guidance, is to make every single public facility gender neutral; just like Accessible WC’s have been for decades. Just like all facilities on public transport. Just like the very facilities we use in our own homes.
Make them lockable, with a means to wash and dry hands in a self contained cubicle and boom – zero issues. The TERFS cannot moan and everyone has their own privacy and safety as they are by their very definition Gender Neutral **and** Single Sex.
It is mad that this guidance is actively encouraging the Genital Inspectors to enact inspections to determine whether people are the correct sex to use a facility. Insane even.
I really need people to stop saying it’s unenforceable so don’t worry.
The point of this is to make trans people scared to use the bathroom matching their gender. We’ve seen what happens to trans people when the anti trans brigade turn their focus on one of us. I mean Beth Upton literally fled to the other side of the world to get away.
And now they have a nice little document to beat us over the head with. Thanks Labour!
The government could end all of this nonsense. They could stand up for trans people. But they won’t because the papers might say something mean about them.
So I guess I just get used to my life being curtailed to appease a minuscule amount of bigots. What a fucking joke this country is.
You’d think PM as lawyer would be smart enough to see the legal nightmare this is. But guess he’s only interested in winning votes from worst people
Surely this is going to end up before the European Court of Human Rights? Seems a blatant violation of Article 8 at the bare minimum to my untrained eye
I’m exhausted by this. Leave trans people alone. Why do things seem more intolerant now than 10 years ago
Check who the new EHRC chair in Scotland is if you want to have a laugh. Putting a wolf to manage farm security.
Unenforceable load of nonsense that’s just gonna get organisations trying to enforce it in legal trouble.
Whenever I see stuff about this it always reminds me of a clip from a comedian (forgot his name) I’ve seen where he mentions how ridiculous it is to think a rapist would go through years of gender replacing hormones in order to pass as the opposite sex in order to be allowed to enter the toilets to rape someone…the last thing a rapist is looking for is permission and a toilet door isn’t a magical forcefield to stop them.
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