08/04/2022
The government’s Equalities and Human Rights Commission, which is facing calls for it to be closed down for failing to protect the interests of LGBTQIA people, and particularly trans women, has issued guidance on refusing services to trans women. The LGBTQIA campaigning charity Stonewall said that the EHRC’s guidance was a capitulation to anti-trans extremists and went against the 2010 Equalities Act. Stonewall remarked “Far from clarifying how the single-sex exemptions in the Equality Act should be used, the EHRC’s latest non-statutory guidance is likely to create more confusion. It appears to go against the core presumption of the Act, which is that inclusion should be the starting point, and shifts the focus towards reasons trans people, and specifically trans women, can be excluded”. The EHRC guidance says that any exclusions of services to trans women must be proportionate and justified in achieving the aims of the service.
