Across the UK, women's organisations are standing alongside trans people to oppose the EHRC's draft statutory code of conduct and the Cass Review's implementation. These groups reject the framing that trans inclusion is a threat to women, arguing instead that the real threat comes from the erosion of equality protections for everyone.
Why is this solidarity happening now?
The moment that crystallised things for many was the Supreme Court's ruling in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers, which interpreted the Equality Act 2010 as meaning that the terms "woman" and "sex" refer to biological sex for the purposes of that Act. The Court was clear that it was not removing legal protections from trans people, who remain protected under the characteristic of gender reassignment. But the Equality and Human Rights Commission moved swiftly to issue draft guidance, and the implications of that guidance, if it becomes statutory, are far-reaching.
What the EHRC's draft code proposes, in practice, is that trans women could be lawfully excluded from single-sex spaces and services across a wide range of settings. Women's organisations have been watching this unfold, and a significant number of them are not staying quiet. They are saying, plainly, that this is not done in their name.
Which organisations are speaking out?
The cross-movement response has been broad. Feminist legal scholars, domestic abuse charities, sexual violence organisations, trade union women's committees, and women's health advocates have all raised concerns. The Women's Resource Centre, which represents hundreds of women's organisations across the UK, has been among the voices arguing that the exclusion of trans women does not serve women's interests and that the conflation of trans inclusion with risk to women is not supported by evidence.
Many rape crisis centres and domestic abuse services have also pushed back, rejecting the idea that they must exclude trans women to be safe spaces. These are organisations that exist to serve people in the most desperate circumstances, and their staff and trustees know their communities. When they say trans women belong in their services, that is not ideology, it is operational knowledge.
The response to the Cass Review has drawn a similar coalition. Trans-inclusive feminist groups have pointed out that the Review was not the independent, rigorous exercise it was presented as, and that its recommendations have led to real harm: the banning of puberty blockers on private prescription, the near-impossibility of NHS access, and a generation of young trans people left without care. Medical organisations internationally have distanced themselves from the Review's conclusions. Women's groups with a commitment to healthcare access and bodily autonomy have found it natural to stand alongside trans people in opposing what the Review has meant in practice.
Is this not a minority view among women's organisations?
The noise in this debate is not evenly distributed. A small number of gender-critical organisations have been extraordinarily effective at positioning themselves as the voice of all women on this question. They are not. The organisations that have built networks of solidarity across race, disability, class, and sexuality for decades are, many of them, arriving at the same conclusion: that a feminism which throws trans women under the bus is not a feminism worth having.
I have heard from women in domestic abuse work, in healthcare advocacy, in legal practice, in grassroots organising, who feel that their perspective has been almost entirely absent from the mainstream coverage of this debate. They are not confused about what is happening. They simply do not agree that excluding trans people is a feminist act, and they are tired of being told they are naive for thinking so.
What is the argument these organisations are making?
The argument has several strands, and they reinforce each other.
The first is historical. Feminist movements have fought, repeatedly and painfully, against the idea that some women are too risky, too different, or too disruptive to be included. Black women, disabled women, lesbians, sex workers: each group has faced a version of the argument that their inclusion would harm the movement or complicate the case for equality. The pattern of that argument is now familiar enough that many feminist organisations recognise it when it is applied to trans women.
The second is legal and structural. When equality protections are narrowed, the narrowing rarely stays contained. The women's organisations raising concerns about the EHRC's draft code are not only worried about trans women. They are worried about what it means for the integrity of the Equality Act 2010 when one protected characteristic is used to justify restricting another, and about what happens to the concept of protected characteristics when they can be traded against each other in this way.
The third is about evidence and harm. The suggestion that trans women pose a risk in women's spaces is not supported by evidence, and organisations working directly with survivors know this. Importing that framing into statutory guidance does not protect women. It does, however, cause real harm to trans women, who are themselves disproportionately subject to violence and in urgent need of the services from which they are being excluded.
What about the Cass Review specifically?
The Cass Review was commissioned by NHS England and published its final report in 2024. It was presented as a comprehensive, independent review of gender-affirming care for young people. Its findings have been used to justify banning puberty blockers on private prescription in the UK and restricting access to gender-affirming care more broadly, and other countries have cited it in similar moves.
The Review has been widely criticised. Gender medicine specialists internationally have published detailed rebuttals. Concerns have been raised about its methodology, its evidence standards, and its relationship to SEGM-linked research, which presents as evidence-based while functioning as a gatekeeping network. The care of young trans people is a feminist issue. Young trans girls are girls. Young trans boys are boys. Their access to care, and the harm caused by denying it, sits within the same framework of healthcare justice that women's organisations have always defended.
Many of the women's organisations speaking out about the EHRC code are making the same connection: that the Cass Review's implementation, like the EHRC guidance, involves a set of institutions making decisions about the bodies and lives of a vulnerable group on the basis of contested findings, with consequences felt most acutely by those least able to withstand them.
What does cross-movement solidarity actually look like here?
It looks like domestic abuse charities signing open letters alongside trans rights organisations. It looks like trade union women's committees passing motions in support of trans colleagues. It looks like feminist legal scholars submitting joint responses to the EHRC consultation. It looks like healthcare advocates naming the harm done to trans young people in the same breath as the harm done to women when abortion access is restricted or maternity care is underfunded. None of these connections are forced. They arise from the same underlying commitment: that people deserve access to care, to safety, and to recognition of who they are.
I think this solidarity is one of the genuinely hopeful things in an otherwise very difficult moment. It is not a political strategy. It is what happens when people whose work is rooted in the lives of those who are most harmed look at what is being done and decide they cannot stay silent.
What can you do?
If you are part of a women's organisation, a feminist network, a trade union, or a workplace equality group, the EHRC's draft code is open for scrutiny and challenge. The consultation period matters. The voices that reach the Commission, and eventually Parliament, are shaped by who speaks up. You do not have to speak only for yourself: you can speak as part of a movement that has always known that solidarity is not a risk, it is the point.
If you are a trans person watching this unfold, the response from women's organisations does not undo the harm or remove the anxiety. But it is real, and it matters. The people who do this work, who advocate in courts, who knock on doors, who run the helplines, many of them are with you.
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