Green councillors in Oxfordshire are urging local councils to reaffirm their commitment to trans and non-binary inclusion after EHRC guidance on single-sex spaces created what they describe as a legal minefield. Motions to South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils make clear that councils can still choose, within the law, to protect trans residents, staff, and visitors.

What is actually being proposed

Two Green councillors, Katherine Foxhall in Vale of White Horse and Sam Casey-Rerhaye in South Oxfordshire, have each put forward motions asking their councils to reaffirm support for trans and non-binary people in the wake of EHRC guidance that followed the Supreme Court ruling on the Equality Act. The motions were scheduled to go before the councils on 15 and 16 July respectively.

Neither motion asks councils to break the law. The noise around this topic often implies that supporting trans people requires some kind of legal gymnastics, but it does not. Councillor Casey-Rerhaye was explicit: the motion acknowledges the council's obligation to comply with the law, and commits to doing everything possible within it to keep trans and non-binary residents, staff, and visitors safe. That is a completely reasonable position, and a courageous one to state plainly in the current climate.

Why Councillor Foxhall's words matter

I was struck by how directly Councillor Foxhall named what this guidance actually does. She called it "cruel and unnecessary." She said it "cements exclusion, segregation and hostility." She said it "will cause real harm." That is not hyperbole. That is an elected official with a conscience telling the truth about the effect of national guidance on the people in her community.

She also put her finger on something that often gets lost in the abstract legal debate: the guidance does not just affect trans people directly. It leaves every organisation, business, and community group that wants to remain inclusive facing legal uncertainty and significant cost. Inclusion is being made expensive and complicated on purpose. That is worth saying out loud.

What the EHRC guidance actually changed

The EHRC guidance followed the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Equality Act 2010, which held that the terms "woman" and "man" in that Act refer to biological sex. The Court did not remove trans people's protections: transgender people remain protected under the characteristic of gender reassignment, and the judgment was explicitly about statutory interpretation, not a general statement about who trans people are or where they belong in society. But the guidance that followed has created real uncertainty about how service providers should respond, and that uncertainty lands hardest on trans people who need to use those services.

The guidance is draft. The EHRC guidance that followed the Supreme Court ruling has not been finalised. That matters, because draft guidance does not carry the same legal weight as statute, and organisations are not required to treat it as if it does. Councils like these two in Oxfordshire are entirely within their rights to look at what the law actually requires, take their own legal advice, and make considered decisions about how to protect everyone in their communities.

Why local government matters right now

When national guidance points one way and trans people's lived safety points the other, local government becomes one of the few places where protection can still be found. A council motion is not symbolic window-dressing. It shapes how staff are trained, how leisure centres are run, how complaints are handled, and whether a trans person feels they can walk through the door at all.

Many trans people have shared with me how much it means to receive any signal, from any institution, that they are welcome. Not merely tolerated. Welcome. When a council takes the trouble to put a motion on the agenda and debate it openly, that is a signal. It tells trans residents, staff, and visitors that somebody in their local authority sees them and thinks their safety is worth fighting for.

The Green councillors in Oxfordshire are not solving the national problem. Nobody at district council level can do that. But they are making it harder for hostility to go uncontested, and they are making it a little clearer to trans and non-binary people in their area that they are not being quietly abandoned. In a period when so much of the political noise has moved in the opposite direction, that takes something.

I hope other councils are watching.

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Dr Helen Webberley is a gender specialist, medical educator, and advocate, and the founder of GenderGP. She writes about gender diversity, trans healthcare, and the lives at the centre of both.