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Following its handling of issuing guidance on single-sex spaces after this year’s UK Supreme Court ruling, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) are facing calls to be downgraded from a number of trans and civil rights groups. Earlier this year, the EHRC published interim guidance on single-sex spaces, which stated that trans women can be excluded from women’s facilities. The regulator also stated that in some cases, trans women may be prohibited from using men’s spaces and trans men may be prohibited from using women’s facilities. Last week, however, it replaced the interim guidance with a statement urging the UK Government to provide “accurate and up-to-date” statutory guidance on the Equality Act. The group also wrote to the Minister for Women and Equalities to request an “updated code in Parliament” which will replace their previous guidance. In response to the EHRC’s handling of the guidance, six organisations have launched formal proceedings calling for the EHRC to lose its A-status accreditation. TransActual, Amnesty International, Trans+ Solidarity Alliance, the Equality Network, Scottish Trans and the Trans Advocacy & Complaints Collective (TACC) made a series of submissions to the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI). In their submissions, the organisations said the EHRC was “not fit for purpose” and called for an investigation into the regulator. Amnesty International UK’s Gender Justice Programme Director Chiara Capraro said in a statement that the EHRC has, for several years, “unhelpfully pitted the rights of women and trans people against each other”. She said: “Its proposals for a code of practice would mandate services to violate trans people’s right to privacy and dignity. Cis people would be affected too, especially cis women who present as gender non-conforming. “This is clearly a state of emergency for trans people, but the EHRC’s dereliction of its duty could extend to other marginalised groups. At a time when forces hostile to human rights are on the rise in the UK and globally, we cannot afford to have a national human rights institution that is not fit for purpose.” Separately, the Good Law Project will challenge the EHRC’s guidance in the UK’s High Court on November 12.
