The UK government's own Equality Impact Assessment acknowledges that forcing trans women to use men's services creates a disproportionate risk of violence and sexual assault, and that anyone who does not conform to gender stereotypes faces increased harassment. That is not a campaigner's claim. That is the government's own evidence, sitting inside the policy documents that accompany the EHRC's draft guidance. The question that follows from it is obvious: why is the government pushing ahead anyway?
What the government's own evidence actually says
Equality Impact Assessments exist precisely to catch this kind of harm before it becomes policy. When a government's own assessment warns that a proposed measure will put a specific group at disproportionate risk of violence and sexual assault, the normal response is to pause, reconsider, and ask whether the measure is proportionate. That has not happened here.
The EHRC's draft guidance, which followed the Supreme Court's ruling in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers (2025), would require trans women to use male facilities in a wide range of single-sex services. The Court interpreted the Equality Act 2010 as meaning that the terms "woman" and "sex" refer to biological sex for the purposes of that Act, and concluded that a Gender Recognition Certificate does not change that interpretation within the Act's framework. The Court did not change the law; it offered one reading of it. The Court also confirmed, clearly, that trans people remain protected under the characteristic of gender reassignment, and that trans women continue to be protected from discrimination.
What the Equality Impact Assessment then confirmed is that acting on the most extreme version of that reading, by directing trans women into male spaces, carries a real and documented safety cost. That cost falls on trans women and on anyone read as gender non-conforming, two groups who already face elevated rates of harassment and assault.
Nadia's question deserves a direct answer
"Why not instead withdraw the guidance and legislate to clarify that the Equality Act was always intended to be trans inclusive?"
That question, put to me by Nadia, is the right one. The Equality Act 2010 was passed by a Labour government that had already legislated, six years earlier, for trans legal recognition through the Gender Recognition Act 2004. The idea that Parliament intended, in 2010, to strip that recognition away within equality law is not a reading supported by the legislative history. The two Acts were designed to work together, not to contradict each other.
The Supreme Court did not say the law should harm trans people. It offered an interpretation of how two Acts interact. Parliament can respond to that interpretation. That is exactly how the constitutional relationship between statute and the courts is supposed to work: when a court's interpretation produces an outcome Parliament did not intend, Parliament can say so and clarify the law. This is not radical. It is routine.
How the EHRC can get this right
The EHRC is a public body with a mandate to protect equality and human rights for everyone. Its guidance is currently in draft, which matters: draft guidance does not carry the force of law, and it can be withdrawn or substantially revised. Here is what getting it right would look like.
Withdraw or fundamentally revise the draft guidance
The draft as it stands does not adequately account for the government's own evidence about the safety risks it creates. A body whose purpose is to promote equality cannot responsibly finalise guidance that its accompanying impact assessment suggests will expose a minority group to violence. The guidance should be withdrawn and redrafted with trans safety as a central, not incidental, consideration.
Read the Supreme Court ruling narrowly and accurately
The ruling was about how the Equality Act's definition of sex operates within that Act's own framework. It was not a general statement about trans people's place in society, in healthcare, or in public life. It did not remove trans protections; it confirmed they remain. The EHRC has discretion in how it translates a court ruling into operational guidance, and that discretion should be exercised in a way that reflects what the Court actually said, not what some commentators wish it had said.
Recognise that single-sex spaces are already contextual
The law has always allowed providers of single-sex services to make proportionate, case-by-case decisions. A blanket rule directing all trans women into male spaces is not required by the ruling, not required by the Act, and is not proportionate given the documented safety risks. Good guidance would preserve service providers' ability to make thoughtful, contextual decisions rather than removing it.
Centre the people most at risk
Any equality guidance that increases the documented risk of violence and sexual assault against one group has failed at its first task. The EHRC should engage directly and meaningfully with trans people, trans organisations, and the evidence about trans people's safety, before finalising anything.
What Parliament can do
The longer-term answer is legislative. Nadia is right that Parliament could clarify, through primary legislation, that the Equality Act was always intended to be read alongside the Gender Recognition Act in a way that protects trans people's legal recognition. That would not overturn the Supreme Court; it would do what Parliament always can do after a ruling it disagrees with, which is to pass clearer law.
A government that accepts its own evidence of harm, and then legislates to prevent that harm, is doing its job. A government that accepts evidence of harm and proceeds anyway is making a political choice at the expense of a minority group's safety.
The Trump parallel: coercion versus capitulation
It is worth naming something happening in parallel on the other side of the Atlantic, because it illuminates what is happening here. In the United States, the Trump administration has moved to apply legal and financial pressure to hospitals and healthcare institutions over gender-affirming care, threatening federal funding and pursuing legal action. Some institutions have capitulated. Others have held. The distinction matters: capitulation under government coercion is different from a genuine change in evidence or policy, and it is important not to mistake one for the other.
In the UK, the EHRC is not acting under the same kind of direct coercion, but it is operating in a political climate that has been hostile to trans rights for several years. The risk of institutional drift, of slowly adjusting guidance to match the political weather rather than the evidence, is real whether or not anyone is making explicit threats. What the American cases make visible is how quickly institutions can abandon people when the pressure builds, and how important it is that the people those institutions are supposed to protect push back clearly and keep pushing.
The test for the EHRC, for the government, and for Parliament is the same one it has always been: does your policy protect the people most at risk, or does it expose them to harm in order to satisfy a political constituency? The government's own Equality Impact Assessment has already answered the factual question. The policy question is whether anyone in power is willing to act on the answer.
If there is a topic that you would like me to cover, just let Sammy know.
Dr Helen Webberley is a gender specialist, medical educator, and advocate for trans healthcare and equality.
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