Trans Safety Network have written to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), who announced that a new consultation would be launched on changes to their statutory Code of Practice for services, public functions and associations tomorrow (Monday, 19th May 2025). In light of the transphobic and harmful interim update issued by the EHRC in the wake of the recent Supreme Court judgment on the definition of sex under the Equality Act 2010, TSN have significant concerns about the direction of and intent behind this consultation.
The letter, reproduced below, was copied to relevant Parliamentary committees and the Department for Health and Social Care. Trans people, organisations and allies who share our concerns may also wish to write regarding this to:
- The EHRC ([email protected])
- The Women and Equalities Committee ([email protected])
- The Joint Committee on Human Rights ([email protected])
- The Department for Health and Social Care ([email protected])
- Their own MP. If you are not sure who your MP is or how to contact them, you can search by postcode on the Parliament.uk website.
Dear Equalities and Human Rights Commission,
We are writing to you as Trans Safety Network, a trans led organisation that monitors organised and institutional harms to the trans community. We understand that on Monday 19th May, you will be opening your public consultation on updates made to the statutory Code of Practice for services, public functions and associations, following the Supreme Court’s judgment in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers.
Whilst we are pleased that this consultation has been extended to six weeks, rather than the inadequate two weeks initially proposed, we wish to ensure that the correct stakeholders are enabled to feed into the consultation.
Given the exclusion of trans led stakeholder groups and organisations for the Supreme Court ruling, and before the release of your interim guidance, it is crucial that this consultation is not undertaken without us.
There are other marginalised groups that are be affected by this Supreme Court ruling. Therefore in addition to engaging with trans and non-binary people, and trans led organisations it will be essential to consult with trans inclusive feminist and queer organisations, racial justice centred organisations, migrant rights groups, prisoners rights organisations, disabled peoples organisations and psychiatric survivor and service user led organisations and well as trade unions. Whilst each of these will bring a wide range of perspectives to enrich the consultation, the following examples illustrate some of the range;
- Disabled people's organisations, as in those genuinely run and led by disabled people rather than charities. The EHRC no longer has a disability committee for consultation, and presumably has not previously consulted with disabled people's organisations for the interim guidance either. Your position appears to be that trans people should be forced into accessible toilets, no matter whether any are available or if they have sufficient capacity. Trans people do have a right to use accessible toilets and should be permitted to do so. However, proposing this as a solution justifies trans people’s exclusion from gendered facilities as well as from the large number of spaces that disabled people already are. This position is both disablist and transphobic.
- Under your proposals, people who are, or are perceived to be gender non-conforming, whether trans or not are now at increased risk of being challenged or harassed when using single-sex facilities. Attempts to scrutinise gender very frequently fall into racist and disablist assumptions of how particular people are expected to look.
You have stated that you will also hold Q&A sessions with stakeholders representing affected protected characteristic groups. We wish to ensure that this happens sufficiently, and that stakeholders are not chosen directly by yourselves or any other organisation, but are allowed to engage based on their community expertise. This should not be undertaken on the basis of a tickbox exercise that neatly covers protected characteristics, as many stakeholders have significant overlaps and intersections in practice and so should be free to identify themselves as relevant stakeholders.
We also urge you not to treat “gender critical” groups as stakeholders because these groups exist primarily to undermine the human rights of trans people, and have already been overrepresented thus far, whilst trans led organisations were excluded.
Furthermore, we ask for clarification on whether you will be seeking submissions from legal perspectives regarding areas of potential conflict with broader human rights legislation.
Please can you therefore confirm that, for your Q&A sessions and for the consultation itself, you will actively seek to engage relevant stakeholders from a wide range of impacted community led organisations and that all future consultations will not be about us without us.
Thank you in advance.
Yours sincerely
Trans Safety Network