The Equality and Human Rights Commission warned this week that service providers and public bodies must “follow the law” ahead of the publication of the commission’s final statutory guidance on it. We fear that public bodies are being pushed to implement something without clarity, or all the information required, and which is likely to breach human rights.

To “follow the law” organisations desperately need holistic guidance, which as far as we recognise, having seen the commission's draft Code of Practice (Code), has yet to be written.

The commission rushed out an “interim update” that lacked clarity, nuance, human rights considerations, nor the full range of what may be appropriate within the law. They opted for blanket exclusion of trans people – and rightly have faced considerable challenge.

We then saw their public consultation on their draft Code – this too told only half of the likely legal story. It detailed how services could exclude trans people but not how they might remain inclusive, as per their human rights duties. We do not believe that the Supreme Court’s ruling implies blanket exclusion; if it does, the law needs to be changed as soon as possible.

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The ruling said that “sex”, for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010, means “biological sex”. It did not then follow this statement with “and that means that trans women cannot access women's services.” It didn't even define biological sex, nor........

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