Six London borough councils wrote jointly to Women and Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson on the day the EHRC's updated Equality Act Code of Practice came into force, warning it will feel like an attack on trans people. They are demanding the government clarify that the code cannot be used to exclude trans people from services, and have pledged to keep their own services inclusive for their combined 1.7 million residents.

What happened, and why it matters

The leaders of Lambeth, Hackney, Haringey, Lewisham, Southwark and Waltham Forest chose the day the new code came into force to make their position unmistakable. They gathered at the London LGBTQ+ Centre, signed a joint letter, and sent it directly to Bridget Phillipson. The letter does not hedge. "Trans women are women, trans men are men, and non-binary identities are fundamentally valid." That is the opening of the substantive argument, not a warm-up to something more cautious.

What strikes me about this is the timing. These councils are not responding to a consultation, or passing a motion for the next full council meeting. They moved on the day the code arrived, which tells you they had been watching it come and had already decided what they were going to do about it. That is not protest, it is preparation.

What these councils are actually asking for

The letter makes three specific demands. First, that the government confirms the EHRC Code of Practice cannot be used to exclude trans people from services and must be used to create inclusive services. Second, that legislation is introduced to protect the rights of trans and non-binary people so they can participate fully in public life and access services safely. Third, that an equalities framework is created that protects trans people's safety, dignity and humanity.

Those are not vague aspirations. They are a policy agenda, and they are addressed to the minister by name. The councils are also doing something immediately practical: all six are reviewing their internal practices to ensure that no trans person is excluded on the basis of anything they do. And they have said plainly that they will not put their staff in the impossible position of policing entry to public spaces.

That last point names a real and immediate harm the new code creates. When no third spaces exist, and a trans person cannot use the spaces that match who they are, the code offers no workable alternative. It simply leaves a gap, and asks council staff to stand in it. These leaders are refusing to do that to their people.

What councils can and cannot legally do

Lambeth had already gone further last month, with its full council backing a motion to refuse implementation of the amended code entirely, conditional on the council's legal team confirming that refusal would be lawful. That is a meaningful distinction. Councils cannot simply ignore statute, and they know it. But the code is not itself statute: it is statutory guidance, issued by the EHRC following the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Equality Act 2010. That interpretation is not the Act itself, and the councils' letter makes exactly that point. The government's own equalities impact assessment acknowledges that trans people could face exclusion if organisations misinterpret the ruling based on appearance alone.

There is real legal space here. Councils have discretion in how they design services, how they train staff, whether they create third-space provision, how they frame access policies, and how they handle complaints. None of that requires defying the law. It requires choosing, within the law, to be as inclusive as possible rather than as restrictive as possible. That choice is available to every local authority in the country, and right now, not every local authority is making the same one.

Which means where you live is starting to matter enormously if you are trans and rely on local services. The councils writing this letter know it, and they are trying to use collective pressure to push the government toward a national solution precisely because a postcode lottery is not a solution at all.

The government cannot keep ignoring this

One council passing a motion is easy to overlook. Six coordinating their response, meeting in person, and writing a joint letter to a named minister with three specific demands is a different proposition. These boroughs collectively serve some of the highest concentrations of trans and non-binary communities in the country. The government's argument that the code simply reflects the Supreme Court ruling, and that trans people remain protected under the characteristic of gender reassignment, is being tested in real time by the people who have to deliver services under it.

The letter does not attack the government's good faith. It says, carefully and on the record, that "this government claims it is standing up for equality" and that claim cannot hold while trans people's rights are treated as an afterthought. That is a political challenge more than a legal one, and it is landing on the desk of a minister whose party won an election on a promise to govern for everyone.

What I hope, and what trans people in these six boroughs have at least some reason to feel, is that the people running their local services have looked at what is coming and decided, as a group, that they will not let it land without a fight. For a community that has spent years watching institutions go quiet when the pressure came on, that is not nothing. For every trans person wondering whether anyone in government sees them, the answer from these councils is clear: we do, and we are not going to pretend we don't.

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Dr Helen Webberley is a Gender Specialist and founder of GenderGP. She writes about gender diversity, trans healthcare, and the lives at the centre of both.