Shortly after the ruling Lloyds Banking Group’s Chief Corporate Affairs Director, Andrew Walton, rushed to the staff intranet to reassure members of the company’s Rainbow Network: “Please know that we cherish and celebrate you and we remain committed to inclusivity.” Similar sentiments echoed in other sectors, with professional bodies such as the junior doctors’ branch of the British Medical Association, and even high-street retailers such as Lush, promising to search for ways around the newly clarified law. 

But such visible attempts to placate outraged activists are not the whole story. Senior-leadership teams are waking up to the fact that the buck stops with them, and that unless they rewrite policies to comply with the law as clarified by the Supreme Court, they risk court cases or regulatory action. 

One of the most telling reversals has been by the Football Association (FA). From 1st June 2025, trans-identifying men will no longer be eligible to compete in the women’s game. This marks a sharp departure from the FA’s previous approach, which was amended last year to allow male players to compete in the women’s game “as long as they kept their testosterone levels below 5nmol/L for at least 12 months”. After taking legal advice, the FA has now followed in the boots of the Scottish Football association and excluded all men. 

This climbdown followed a string of controversies. Last year, 17-year-old Cerys Vaughan was suspended for six matches after asking a trans-identifying male opponent, “Are you a man?” during a grassroots match. The FA ruled that this was misconduct, triggering protests outside Wembley Stadium where demonstrators accused the body of prioritising ideology over fairness and safeguarding. It has since been revealed that the FA was one of many organisations to have paid for training from transactivist lobby group Gendered Intelligence on “trans inclusion”. 

Last week Vaughan, revealing her name for the first time, said she wants an apology from the FA for the unjust way she was treated. One doesn’t seem to be forthcoming. “We can confirm that this disciplinary case has now been closed, as the complainant has chosen to withdraw from the process due to personal reasons,” the FA said in a statement. “All relevant parties have been informed of this outcome and no further action will be taken.”

It should not have taken the Supreme Court judgment to force the FA to act. Its previous policy had nothing to do with gender-recognition certificates – it was, in effect, gender self-ID, which was never the law. But as the dust settles, it’s becoming clear that the institutions now belatedly rewriting their policies are denying any responsibility for getting things wrong in the first place. 

None have apologised to those they punished or persecuted during the past 15 years, during which gender self-ID became the norm. Academics disciplined for defending women’s rights; clinicians hounded out for raising safeguarding alarms; volunteers expelled from charities for objecting to male bodies in female spaces: it’s as if none of it ever happened.

These scandals were caused in large part by organisations across the public and private sector accepting trans lobby groups such as Stonewall, Gendered Intelligence and Mermaids as reliable guides to the law and, at their behest, empowering a cadre of workplace activists to enforce trans ideology through internal networks. It became taboo to acknowledge that biological sex is real and matters, in particular for women’s rights. The very idea that women need single-sex spaces became unsayable. 

Since the judgment, these lobby groups have given up even trying to present themselves as trustworthy guides to the law. Instead they are retreating into activist mode, denouncing the law itself. The result is an explosion of theatrical outrage, in which upholding women’s rights is presented as cruelty rather than an ethical and legal imperative. 

This puts employers in a bind – one of their own making, but no easier to handle for all that. Even as senior leaders are waking up to the need to rewrite policies and remove unlawful material from their websites and staff handbooks, they are afraid of provoking the wrath of the trans lobby and the internal activist networks to which they handed so much power. And so many are doing the right thing, but as stealthily as possible. 

That means no apologies, no accountability and no reckoning with the culture of workplace bullying they permitted, even encouraged. This cowardly response reveals a deeper institutional malaise: a refusal to reckon with the consequences of years spent ignoring the importance of biological sex in policy and practice.

The post Why “sorry” is the hardest word appeared first on Sex Matters.

The government’s position has moved during the debate. Ministers now recognise there are issues here, and say that data accuracy is important.

But this letter from the Secretary of State is contradictory: it acknowledges that passport data cannot be used to prove a person’s “biological sex” but also states that the digital verification system will not “change the evidence that individuals rely on to prove things about themselves”; in other words that people will be able to prove their “passport sex” digitally. This doesn’t add up: passports can’t be used to prove sex but the DVS will use passports to prove sex? 

The government has welcomed the clarity of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers case, yet seems to be clinging onto the idea that “sex” and “biological sex” are two different things.

This is wrong in law, as well as completely impractical. If the government gives a trustmark to a system which verifies a person’s sex as male or female, that should have the normal meaning that ordinary people understand.

From a data protection and privacy point of view, if an organisation has a reason to collect data on people’s sex, then it is their sex that that it needs to know!

We have written back to Peter Kyle asking him to think again, and to provide concrete reassurance that the government will take action to solve the issue.

There is a straightforward answer here: digital identity should draw sex data directly from the birth register and avoid unreliable data sources. 

If the Data Bill passes without any specific safeguards for sex data the government will need to address the issue with secondary legislation or by publishing a “supplementary code”. It cannot kick this can down the road indefinitely. 

If the digital verification system does not accurately verify sex, it will breach data protection laws and the Equality Act. 

The bill is being debated again in the Lords this afternoon (19th May), and we hope that the government will take this opportunity to provide more answers.

The post Secretary of State writes to Sex Matters supporters about the data bill appeared first on Sex Matters.

We are winning in sport. The most popular sports for female participation in the UK – swimming, athletics, tennis, football, golf, netball, cricket and rugby – have all restored a protected female category for competition, along with many others. But the job is not done. 

It’s time for action

Every women’s category in sport must be restricted to those who are female.

We’ve seen the brave women in English pool win their fight. But other sports and games are holding out. Some have been engaged in seemingly interminable reviews, which must surely now come to an end. We can all encourage them to do this.

Others adopted post-puberty policies, even though it is proven that male advantage is present throughout childhood. Such policies are more common at international level, where they create a perverse incentive to block a boy’s puberty in order to create the chance of international sporting stardom and riches.

Rules must be enforced

Every sport must make the rules clear, simple and enforceable.

UK Athletics declared its protection of the female category in March 2023 when World Athletics did so, but has yet to publish clear rules for event organisers. Male runners continue to register as female for races, including prestigious events like the London Marathon. When these rule-breakers are reported, event organisers and national federations are sometimes unwilling to intervene, as if it is unkind to enforce the rules. This has to stop. Sport relies on rules that everyone understands and follows. Rule-breakers cannot be indulged.

Recreational sport billed as women-only must be what it claims

Women-only swimming, exercise classes, guided bike rides and so on must be only for women and girls, not for those who “identify as female”. Otherwise they are largely pointless, other than as a validation of adopted identities. 

Facilities matter too

Changing rooms and toilets in leisure centres, gyms and swimming pools must be single-sex. 

There are two problems here. Too many service-providers have allowed men with trans identities to use the women’s facilities, or have been unwilling to confirm to women that they will not do so. The FWS judgment should give them the confidence, and everyone else the leverage, to insist that a “women” sign on the door means no men.

The other problem has been the move to replace single-sex facilities with so-called “gender-neutral changing villages”. It is becoming increasingly clear that these are a voyeur’s paradise, especially in the smartphone age. Resisting more of these is easier than getting the existing ones changed back.

Why is this still a problem?

Some sports are still dragging their heels, claiming it is complex, or that they cannot police people’s sex. This is nonsense. Throughout the twentieth century, men’s and women’s sport categories worked fine. Everyone knows their own sex, whether they like it or not. 

Most sports operate online membership and event entry systems. People must be told to register honestly. Just as with age categories, proof may sometimes be called for. If someone appears to be in the wrong sex (or age) category, the onus is on them to prove their eligibility, not on event organisers to prove the opposite. 

Other sports have decided it only matters at some levels. The Lawn Tennis Association adopted female-at-birth rules for interclub competition but not for matches within clubs, even though this is the vast majority of play. Golf has adopted a similar approach, making it difficult for women to have male-free events by claiming that the handicap system will take care of trans-identifying men’s advantage so they can play in women’s handicap events.

Mass participation running events also trivialise women’s ambition and achievements by adopting two-tier rules. London Marathon Events follows England Athletics rules for its top categories in the London Marathon, covering about 3,000 women, but allows sex self-identification for its mass race, covering about 20,000 women. There is nothing in science or law to support this. London Marathon Events runs other large races too, with a similar approach.

The weekly 5K runs organised by Parkrun offer four categories at registration: male, female, “another gender identity” and “prefer not to say”. But it encourages and celebrates men registered as women, allowing them to claim first female finisher, top age grades, and course records (which it has now concealed in a vain attempt to hide the problem). This validation of cross-sex identities is totally unnecessary at Parkrun, since anyone can just turn up and run. Men and women line up together, no one declares anything about themselves, and there are no bib or race numbers to reveal name or sex. The disincentive to women who are bumped down in the results in any race where a man can register as a woman is totally discounted. His need for validation is seemingly all that matters. 

What are we doing?

The Sex Matters executive team is maintaining its behind-the-scenes engagement with governing bodies for sport, across the UK, to encourage and assist them in replacing bad policies with lawful, fair ones. We’ve talked to around seventy different organisations, often several times. The Supreme Court ruling is a catalyst for a few more to wake up and see that this needs to be fixed. We’re on it.

Separately, our trustee Dr Emma Hilton has been consulted by some twenty international federations. Advisory group members including Cathy Devine, Tracy Edwards, Professor Jon Pike and Mara Yamauchi are also involved in shaping sports policies. 

What can you do?

Help us to keep the pressure on. Check out our new campaign page Protect sport for women and girls; tell sport governing bodies what you think, and if male inclusion in female sport has affected you, let us know. 

The post What next for sport? appeared first on Sex Matters.

Following the For Women Scotland judgment there has been a flurry of interest by lawyers in providing complicated, confusing legal advice and opinions about what kinds of facilities employers need to provide; who is allowed into which workplace toilets and changing rooms; and how transgender people should be accommodated. 

The relevant law is the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. Specific provisions are set out in the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 and it is very clear. 

The Health and Safety Executive, which is the regulator, explains that employers have to provide facilities suitable for any worker, which includes separate facilities for men and women, (except where each toilet is in a fully-enclosed room lockable from the inside):

Following the Supreme Court judgment which confirmed that the meaning of man and woman in the Equality Act is the ordinary biological meaning, the EHRC issued an update explaining the practical implications of this in relation to single-and separate-sex facilities:

In short: employees must not let staff use opposite-sex facilities. They should consider the needs of transgender employees who may be more comfortable using a unisex option than the separate-sex toilets provided for their own sex. In general transgender employees should not be excluded or treated less favourably in toilets for their own sex: this would be gender reassignment discrimination, but it may be permitted for an individual to be excluded from these facilities where it is a proportionate means to a legitimate aim. 

This is also in line with the guidance in the EHRC’s Statutory Code for Employment, which is not being updated. 

It is very clear and there is nothing to wait for.

The only problem is that it requires saying “no” to trans-identifying employees who wish to use opposite-sex facilities, and “no” to Stonewall and other lobby groups that have misled employers about the law. Employers that have taken on and championed the unlawful approach must now take steps to undo the impact of years of training where they have misled, harassed and discriminated against employees who simply expected their legal rights to suitable and adequate workplace facilities to be met. 

Stonewall (and others) have encouraged employers to adopt an unlawful policy, and are still encouraging them to stall rather than take immediate action to bring their policy in line with the law. We have complained to the Charity Commission. 

Is it lawful to operate based on gender self-ID?

On Thursday 8th May Jason Coppel KC, Zoe Gannon and Ruth Kennedy from 11KBW held a webinar on the implications of the FWS judgment to which hundreds of lawyers tuned in online. 

They suggested there was ambiguity about the law, and said that it is likely that an employer could continue to operate a “self ID”, “trans-inclusive” policy of allowing anyone to use separate-sex facilities as long as the facilities which are labelled as separate-sex are fully-enclosed rooms. 

This is nonsense. 

The workplace regulations are clear that employers must provide separate-sex facilities or unisex fully-enclosed rooms. They do this by means of providing facilities with clear signage. If there is a sign on the door indicating it is for one sex only, then it is intended for one sex only, regardless of the nature of the facilities behind that door.

Employers are required to explain health and safety rules to employees. And employees are expected to follow the rules. 

The signs which indicate single-sex and separate-sex facilities are health and safety signs. 

What the signs explain is whether a facility is intended for use by members of one sex, or both sexes. They do not tell you the layout of the specific facilities behind the door. It may be a single toilet in a closed room, or a series of separate toilets. The doors to these may reach the floor and ceiling, or they might not. There may be a shower or a changing area. It may be communal or it may have curtains or cubicles. Whatever the physical facilities are they will be suitable for the intended users. 

It is not acceptable for a male staff member to peek behind any door with the “female” sign on it to check if there are floor-to-ceiling cubicles, or if it is a single room, and then decide that it is acceptable for him to reclassify these particular female facilities as unisex. Nor is it acceptable for his employer to tell him it is OK to do this, or to allow him to harass those that explain the rules or complain about him breaching them. He should, like all employees, follow all policies and signs put in place for health and safety. 

If the room is fully enclosed and the employer’s policy is that it is for everyone, then the sign on the door should be the unisex one.

Under the The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, employers are required to provide information to employees about health and safety, and to give them adequate training. And employees have responsibility (under rule 14) to use the equipment and devices provided by their employer safely, for their intended purpose. 

“In accordance both with any training in the use of the equipment concerned which has been received by him and the instructions respecting that use which have been provided to him by the said employer in compliance with the requirements and prohibitions imposed upon that employer by or under the relevant statutory provisions.”

Furthermore, employees have a responsibility to inform their employer: 

“of any work situation which a person with the first-mentioned employee’s training and instruction would reasonably consider represented a serious and immediate danger to health and safety; and

“of any matter which a person with the first-mentioned employee’s training and instruction would reasonably consider represented a shortcoming in the employer’s protection arrangements for health and safety.”

It is simply not lawful to tell a particular male employee, or any group of male employees, that they can ignore health and safety signs in a particular location, or where they happen to know that a women’s toilet is a lockable room, or where their immediate colleagues in that location have encouraged them, or where they think they “pass” as the opposite sex, or where no one says anything. 

This is not “inclusive”. It is unlawful. 

Health and safety rules and policies apply to everyone, everywhere throughout the organisation.

Employers are required to continuously assess the risks to the health and safety of employees (as well as the risks to the health and safety of others arising out of or in connection with the business). 

If they have employees who wrongly think that individuals can use opposite-sex facilities, this is a risk that they should address right now in order to comply with the relevant statutory provisions.

Where they have themselves created this risk, by messaging from the top, and through training (such as this training video made used in the civil service) suggesting that it is acceptable and “inclusive” to breach health and safety rules in this way, they should ensure that they broadcast the messages correcting this misinformation from the same level, and with similar reach and urgency. 

Read our guidance on what to do if your employer is not following Health and Safety law, including complaining to the regulator:

The post Why are lawyers encouraging confusion about the law? appeared first on Sex Matters.

Yesterday afternoon the House of Lords debated safeguards to ensure accurate sex data in digital identity services. These rely on public bodies providing “authoritative” sources of information. 

The Science Minister, Sir Patrick Vallance, admitted that passports do not contain accurate, reliable information about whether someone is male or female, and should not be used as proof of sex for any purposes where that data is needed.

Asked how this could be in line with data-protection principles he said the data had been accurate, but was now muddled. 

During the debate Vallance put down some important markers. He said that: 

1. Accurate data is essential. 
2. Sex data should be accurate when processed by public authorities.
3. Data must be accurate for its purpose and must not be misleading.
4. It should be clear to digital verification service (DVS) providers what information shared with them by public authorities means. 
5. When information is shared from public authorities to digital verification services it will be clear what that information represents, including in relation to sex.

But he argued against amendments to establish a clear definition of sex for digital-identity service providers and a process of quality control for public authorities providing information, saying that these basic measures were “inappropriate and disproportionate”.

Instead he tried to pass responsibility to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and to existing data-protection laws. But his colleagues were not adequately reassured by this, and they voted for the amendments.

The bill will quickly go back to the Commons, where the government is likely to argue to remove the amendments. 

But the ball is now in the court of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s ministerial team to propose an appropriate and proportionate way to ensure that people are able to use digital identities to prove their sex, and are not able to use them to mislead. 

Making sure the DVS system only verifies sex accurately is not a difficult technical question (you just link it to the birth register and ignore unreliable data sources like passports and driving-licence data). Nor does it go anywhere near interfering with their privacy rights as protected by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, since the data is only ever shared with consent. 

The problem is that the government has made two incompatible pledges. It says that it will make sure that digital identities provide accurate facts but also that they will replicate what people can prove about themselves with documents. 

Now it has admitted the problem with this in relation to “passport sex”. But there are similar problems with “DVLA sex”, “NHS sex” and “HMRC sex”, and most other public data sources, as evidenced in the Sullivan Review. 

We have written to Sir Patrick Vallance, following last night’s debate, setting out the problems with the excuses and conflicting pledges the government is making.

The government has a simple question to address on digital identities: will the DVS system continue to enable people to “prove” that they are the opposite sex or will it enable people to prove their sex accurately?

It cannot do both.

The post Government admits that passports are not reliable appeared first on Sex Matters.

The Data Bill is back in the House of Lords this afternoon for the ‘ping pong’ stage of counter-amendments between the Lords and the Commons. 

The bill provides the legislative framework for digital verification services (DVS), which will allow people to prove their identity and facts about themselves by using apps and online services, backed by a government “trustmark”. 

The government says it supports the principle of data accuracy, but it is still going ahead with an approach based on the historic mess which has allowed “sex or gender identity” to substitute for sex in official records. This will allow people to have officially endorsed digital identities that allow them to “prove” that they are the opposite sex. 

Following the recent Supreme Court judgment which confirmed the importance of sex (meaning biological sex) as a characteristic in life and in law, it is critical that the government’s new digital identity system enables everyone to verify their sex data accurately, and does not “verify” false information or the mixed category “sex or gender” (which cannot be verified). 

The issue of unreliable data based on gender self-identity has already been discussed in the House of Lords. Safeguards were added to the Data Bill through amendments introduced by Lord Arbuthnot and Lord Lucas in January. These amendments were then removed in March in the Commons as the Government did not support them. They are now going to be proposed again by the Conservative front bench in the Lords. 

Since then the Supreme Court has pronounced clearly that the Scottish Government was wrong about the meaning of sex in the Equality Act. The Scottish Government’s position was also that of the UK Government, and of every regulator. 

The idea that “everything is okay” and nothing needs to be done with this bill to solve the problem of inaccurate and confused sex data is preposterous. 

The government appears to be suggesting that the DVS system will be able to “verify” gender as well as sex – despite the fact that the Supreme Court has made clear that gender is not a legal category that is recognised in UK law. It is planning to replicate the confusion that the Supreme Court has just cut through. 

Sex Matters has produced a briefing for peers on the amendments:

This includes the findings of a YouGov poll which asked people what sex data should be based on for digital verification services. The majority of people (54%) say biological sex at birth. 

The problem with current sex data collected by public authorities

Public authorities such as the DVLA, Passport Office and NHS allow people to change their recorded sex on request. This has been done by these agencies without any legislation, parliamentary oversight or robust record-keeping. It is estimated (based on the census) that up to 100,000 people may have different sexes recorded by different public bodies. 

If this problem is not solved before the government feeds this data through its new “information gateway” it will now be putting a false and unreliable “proof” of sex in everyone’s pocket. 

Not only does this allow people to have an app on their phone that “proves” they are the opposite sex – which data users will be required to treat this as authoritative information with government endorsement – but because different apps can get data from different government sources, they could switch apps and so switch sex at the press of a button. 

This will destroy the ability to reliably share and use data about sex, which is crucial for safeguarding, healthcare, single-sex services, sports and collecting demographic data, and for compliance with the Equality Act. 

In the debate in the House of Commons on 8th May 2025, Chris Bryant MP, the Minister of State for Data Protection and Telecoms, said that the government accepts the Supreme Court ruling and agrees that data accuracy is important. Nonetheless, he rejected an amendment by Dr Ben Spencer (which would have done something similar to these Lords amendments) and made a series of excuses for refusing to take adequate action. (Read these in more detail in our report of the debate.)

Excuse 1: don’t worry, we are already fixing bad sex data

IN FACT: While the government says it recognises the need for accurate sex data, it has given no indication that it has an effective plan to fix the historic failure illustrated by the Sullivan review. Meanwhile, it is steaming ahead with the Data Bill, establishing a new information gateway which will allow these inaccurate datasets to be used as the foundation for the new digital verification system. This is a problem that urgently needs solving. 

Excuse 2: digital identities don’t change anything

THIS IS FALSE: digital identities create new capabilities. Currently, people can use their passport to show a false sex, but when doing so they also reveal their name and date of birth. And any data user who is aware that “passport sex” is unreliable can reject a passport as proof of sex and use some other source instead, including the evidence of their own eyes. Once digital identities are rolled out, people will be able to “prove” their false sex without revealing any other personal information by using a general-purpose government-endorsed app. One obvious use will be online sexual fraud (“catfishing”). Nothing will stop an individual from having two trustmarked apps on their phone and being able to “prove” they are whichever sex suits them at any given moment. 

Excuse 3: even though digital identities claim to “prove” sex, nobody will use them to prove their sex

THIS IS IRRESPONSIBLE. The aim of the DVS system is to enable people to prove facts about themselves. As the Supreme Court judgment confirmed, single-sex provision is required by law to be on the basis of biological sex. We know that some transgender people are disappointed by the Supreme Court’s ruling and some are already declaring publicly that they intend to flout the Supreme Court judgment and continue to try to use spaces, services and sports intended for the opposite sex. The government should not be providing such people with a way to digitally “prove” a falsehood about their sex that will make it hard or impossible in practice for a service provider to restrict entry to a single-sex space or service to people who are entitled to be there.

Excuse 4: the new clause goes significantly further than the findings of the Supreme Court

THIS IS WRONG. The Supreme Court made clear that a person’s sex is a fact about them that is needed for many everyday interactions including use of single-sex and separate-sex services, as well as for health and social care, the public-sector equality duty and positive-action measures. Having accurate data does not mean that a trans person will be “outed” when proving their age to buy a bottle of wine or proving their identity to hire a car. These interactions do not require sex data at all.

Excuse 5: “trans rights” mean bad sex data can’t be fixed 

THE LAW REQUIRES DATA ACCURACY. Data-protection laws already require that when personal data is recorded by data collectors, it is accurate. The only reason this is not already happening is that, when it comes to sex, this law is widely flouted. Many public authorities have long recorded “gender identity” instead for some people. Recording people’s sex accurately for a lawful purpose does not interfere with their Article 8 rights. The DVS system will only share people’s information with their consent. 

Excuse 6: fixing bad sex data is incompatible with the Gender Recognition Act

THIS IS CONFUSED. The government has expressed concern that: “the amendment does not take account of the fact that the Gender Recognition Act 2004 gives those with gender-recognition certificates a level of privacy and control over who has access to information about their gender history”. The amendment does not seek the recording of people’s “gender history”. It seeks to ensure that biological sex is recorded accurately and can be shared or kept private for any particular interaction, with user consent. This does not breach the Gender Recognition Act. 

This is simply not good enough. Unless Parliament addresses this problem we will end up back in court demanding that sex-based rights be upheld. 

The post House of Lords to debate digital identity amendments again appeared first on Sex Matters.

On 7th May the House of Commons debated new clause 21, a proposed amendment to the Data Bill. It is carefully constructed, and aims to secure accuracy on sex data in digital verification services (digital identities) and by public authorities. Shadow Minister for Science, Innovation & Technology Dr Ben Spencer said: 

“The accuracy of data must be at the heart of this Bill, and nowhere has this been more high-profile or important than in the debate over the collection and use of sex and gender data. I thank the charity Sex Matters and the noble Lords Arbuthnot and Lucas for the work they have done to highlight the need for accurate data and its relevance for the digital verification system proposed in the Bill.

“Our new clause’s focus and scope are simple. The Supreme Court ruling made it clear that public bodies must collect data on biological sex to comply with their duties under the Equality Act. The new clause ensures that this data is recorded and used correctly in accordance with the law. This is about data accuracy, not ideology.”

Labour MPs Tonia Antoniazzi, Marsha De Cordova and Chi Onwurah spoke in favour of recording sex accurately.

But many other MPs made irrelevant, ignorant and ill-conceived points. Towards the end of the debate Dr Ben Spencer reflected that new clause 21 had been widely misrepresented. He said:

“The laws in this area are clear: the Equality Act puts in place obligations in relation to protected characteristics. The Supreme Court says that ‘sex’ means biological sex, and that public authorities must collect data on protected characteristics to meet their duties under the Equality Act. The new clause would put that clear legal obligation into effect, and build in data minimisation principles to preserve privacy. There would be no outing of trans people through the new clause, but where public authorities collect and use sex data, it would need to be biological sex data.”

The new clause was voted down. This post looks at the bad arguments and flimsy excuses that were made in the debate.

The bad arguments

Bad argument 1: The role of official government documents and records on sex is to ensure trans people feel “seen” in their gender identity.

Samantha Niblett, Labour MP for South Derbyshire, said:

“The recent decision by the Supreme Court that ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex at birth, regardless of whether someone holds a gender recognition certificate [GRC] or identifies as of a different gender, has already left many trans people feeling hurt and unseen. Does the shadow minister agree with me that any ID and digital verification service must consider trans people, not risk making them more likely to feel that their country is forgetting who they are?”

As the government-commissioned review of data on sex and gender by Professor Alice Sullivan made clear, it is impossible for a single data field to both accurately record biological sex and record non-sex-based gender identities. Any data field that is to be treated as reliable must be accurate for everyone.

Making some people feel “seen” about their gender identity and recording everyone’s sex accurately are two different goals. They cannot be achieved by the same instrument.

Niblett is right that trans people do need to be considered. Like everyone else, they need a passport that enables them to cross borders and a driving licence that proves they have passed their driving test. Trans people should not be excluded from using these documents and records for their intended purpose.

The practice of changing recorded sex on passports goes back to the 1960s. It was not about making people feel “seen”. In those days, a transsexual would have found it difficult to move around the world with a passport stating their correct sex.

Nowadays, greater acceptance of gender non-conformity and biometric identity-checking mean that a man who has adopted what he feels is a female appearance and changed his name will have no problem getting through the passport gates with the correct sex on his passport (and vice versa for a woman who seeks to present herself as a man). As Gatwick Airport security information explains: 

“All passengers must provide proof of identity during check-in. This is usually your passport. The date of birth, gender and name of the passenger on the reservation must match that on your passport or government-issued photographic ID…. It does not matter if your current gender presentation matches that given on your documentation or that of your photograph.” 

Bad argument 2: A trans person’s sex isn’t public knowledge, and heroic efforts must be made to keep it private.

Christine Jardine, Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West, intervened, saying:

“Data can be susceptible and its breach is a breach of privacy… one danger in new clause 21, about the data on individuals’ sex at birth, is that it risks breaching someone’s privacy if they have kept that fact private and that data becomes public knowledge.”

The assumption that someone can keep their sex private and entirely out of public knowledge is wishful thinking. As the Supreme Court noted, sex is generally readily perceptible: 

“Neither possession of a GRC nor the protected characteristic of gender reassignment require any physiological change or even any change in outward appearance… in either case [those of a trans person with a GRC and without one] the individual’s biological sex may continue to be readily perceivable.”

Furthermore, this data is often recorded for routine administrative reasons. Being a parent makes it impossible to keep your sex secret, and many trans people are parents. As the case of Freddy McConnell confirmed, the legal status of being a child’s mother or father tracks sex, not gender identity. 

A mother’s identity is recorded on her child’s birth certificate (even if the mother has adopted a man’s name and wishes to be called “he”, and even if she has a “male” GRC). A mother’s or father’s identity in relationship to their child is recorded in myriad everyday administrative interactions over the next 18 years: with the child’s doctor, dentist, schools and any other statutory authorities the family interacts with. The child cannot be sworn to secrecy about the sex or identity of their parents, and professionals with safeguarding responsibilities towards the child should not pretend they are unable to tell the difference between men and women. 

Another example of a common administrative interaction that puts a person’s name into the public record is becoming a company director. If a person later changes their name to appear to be the opposite sex, their previous name remains on public record. 

We can all choose to keep personal data such as our name, date of birth and address private in some interactions. And organisations recording our personal data (including our sex) must comply with data-protection laws. But it is impossible to keep this information absolutely secret.

Bad argument 3: recording a person’s sex accurately creates a slippery slope towards requiring proof of characteristics that, unlike sex, are subjective and unprovable. 

Dr Allison Gardner, Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent South, said:

“I approached new clause 21 with an open mind, because it is vital that we collect biological sex data to protect women and trans people, but as I read it I had a developing sense of unease — because how does the determination of accuracy of data impact on the individual, and if we start looking at those two protected characteristics, what about the others? I feel it is a little bit of a slippery slope; I wonder if I would have to go around with my baptism certificate to prove my religion, and how would I prove my sexuality? I am afraid I developed a growing unease about that new clause, but I support the idea of accurate data collection for both gender identity and biological sex, which is very important.”

Different kinds of information have different characteristics. Your date of birth is a fact that cannot be changed, and which can be verified by reference to the birth record. 

Sex is similarly fixed and recorded at birth. It can also be verified by reference to the birth record, or by a simple cheek swab of the sort long used to verify eligibility for female sporting competitions. 

A person’s religion, by contrast, may change, and people can declare it for themselves for many purposes. But a religious school may set objective criteria for proving adherence. 

Sexual orientation has both subjective and objective elements: it is a combination of feelings and actions. But for administrative purposes it is self-declared. 

Love is self-declared, but marriage is certificated.

A person may declare they can speak French (and may be able to demonstrate that this is true), but if they need to prove they have a French GCSE they can do so by showing a certificate. 

Anyone thinking more than superficially about personal information will readily see that there are many different types. Dealing with each type appropriately is part of the design for the digital verification framework. That we sometimes have to prove objectively verified facts about ourselves (such as our address, date of birth and qualifications) doesn’t create a slippery slope that ends with us having to prove totally different, subjective sorts of personal attributes. 

Spencer’s amendment seeks to ensure that sex is dealt with correctly and lawfully by public authorities and by the digital identity framework. This means treating it as a personal characteristic that cannot change – like date of birth – not one that can change – like marital status. 

Gardner says she supports accurate data collection for both gender identity and biological sex. But these are quite different kinds of data. “Gender identity” is a subjective idea that a minority of people hold about themselves. The Violent and Sex Offender Register held by the National Police Chiefs Council offers 51 options for gender identity. The only way to determine which, if any, is “accurate” about any individual at any given moment is to ask that individual. These identities are entirely subjective and unverifiable. 

A person’s sex, by contrast, is an objective fact about them with only two possibilities: male or female. Recording sex accurately does not create a slippery slope to recording subjective personal information.

In fact, data-protection law protects against such slippery slopes. Collecting, storing and sharing each individual piece of a person’s data requires a lawful purpose. The lawful purpose for collecting sex and collecting “gender identity” will be different. To comply with data-protection laws and principles, data collectors should explain what data they are collecting, and why. At the moment, many are often ambiguous about whether they are collecting data on sex or on gender identity, and mix the two attributes together.

Bad argument 4: sex should not be recorded accurately because trans people may be distressed.

Vicki Slade, Liberal Democrat MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole, said:

“I really must speak strongly against new clause 21. I have been overwhelmed by the scale of distress brought about by this awful proposal. It is cruel and it completely undermines the privacy of people who are transgender at a time when they are already feeling victimised.

“Those who have transitioned socially, medically or surgically are protected in law, and we were told that the Supreme Court decision last month does not change that. But new clause 21 does. If it were passed, sex at birth would be recorded on a driving licence or passport, outing every trans person whenever they buy an age-restricted product, change their job, travel abroad, or even come to Parliament to visit their MP. Not only is this a fundamental breach of privacy, but it is potentially dangerous. They would be prevented from travelling to countries with poor records on rights, and they would be at higher risk of suicide and self-harm than they already are.”

This is an immature, catastrophising argument that is common on social media and which was comprehensively demolished by the Supreme Court judgment. It does not engage with the purpose of the proposed legislation on digital verification services.

These apps are privacy-preserving. For example, they allow people to buy age-restricted products while revealing no personal information except that they meet the age requirement (that is, that they are over 18). People can prove their right to work by showing a “share code” which attests that they are a British or Irish citizen or have a relevant immigration status. There is no need to reveal a person’s sex data or their gender identity for these uses.

Visitors to the Parliamentary estate are not required to show photo ID at all.

The Supreme Court confirmed that those who have transitioned “socially, medically or surgically” (or who propose to) are protected in law from discrimination and harassment under the Equality Act protected characteristic of gender reassignment. But their sex has not changed and other people are not required to ignore it, pretend not to be able to observe it or replace it with their stated “gender identity”.

Recording a person’s sex is not a “fundamental breach of privacy”. It is an everyday action that is often necessary, and which is covered by data-protection law. 

It certainly can be dangerous to travel to countries with poor human-rights records. But that danger cannot be mitigated by giving people passports with false information. An individual who travels to, say, Saudi Arabia and flouts its strict rules concerning the behaviour of men and women by pretending to be the opposite sex is taking a serious risk, whatever their documents say. The UK government does not respond to other human-rights abuses in such countries by issuing false documents: unmarried women who get pregnant in Saudi Arabia risk prison, but the UK government does not issue fake marriage certificates to protect them. 

Bad argument 5: “transgender, non-binary and intersex” people don’t need their sex recorded accurately.

James Naish, Labour MP for Rushcliffe, said: 

“New clause 21 proposes mandatory recording of sex at birth across all public authorities. The new clause would require all public authorities, whether the NHS, which I could potentially understand, or the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, which I certainly could not, to record and retain people’s sex at birth even when someone has a gender-recognition certificate. The new clause would seemingly require that regardless of context, purpose or relevance. That feels neither proportionate nor respectful of existing legal frameworks or the trans community at this difficult time.

“It is important that we acknowledge that transgender, non-binary and intersex people already face considerable barriers in public life, and many of my constituents have shared with me in recent weeks just how much fear and uncertainty they are experiencing. Rushed amendments and changes, without dialogue with those impacted, are not in any way welcomed and could have very negative consequences.”

New clause 21 didn’t propose mandatory recording of sex in any circumstance where it is not already recorded. It proposed that where sex is recorded for a lawful purpose it is recorded accurately. This is already a requirement of data-protection law, but it is widely breached. 

If a public authority cannot determine a lawful reason to collect sex data, then it shouldn’t collect it at all. If it has a lawful reason to collect sex data, then it should collect it accurately. 

Data-protection laws apply equally to transgender and non-binary people and to those Mr Naish referred to as “intersex” (people with disorders of sexual development). The government has defended itself against claims for non-binary recognition brought by Christie Elan Cane and Ryan Castellucci. In both cases, it successfully argued that not recognising “non-binary” identities in place of sex does not breach human rights.

Bad argument 6: the government and public authorities do not have the right to define sex.

Alex Sobel, Labour/Co-op MP for Leeds Central and Headingley, said:

“I would like to make note of my steadfast opposition to new clause 21, which does not simply change data collection. It proposes to mark and track individuals based on ‘sex at birth’, regardless of their lived reality, legal recognition or consent. No one — not a Government, not a public authority, not a politician — has the right to define who another person is; only the individual can do that. This is a fundamental principle of dignity and respect that transcends political views and legal debates. We must reject new clause 21.”

Clear definitions are at the heart of law-making. Laws create obligations and give protections and entitlements to individuals and classes of people based on clearly defined characteristics. These can include age, nationality and sex. They also establish principles that govern certain sorts of interactions, such as the duties of care and candour, risk assessment, data privacy and accuracy. Sex often matters in situations where such statutory duties apply. It is simply wrong to say that it is not the business of Parliament to set clear definitions and expect public authorities to abide by them. 

Several human rights, such as the right to privacy, freedom of expression, freedom to manifest beliefs and freedom of association, are qualified by clauses that state they may be subject to “conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society”. Reasons for such restrictions include national security, crime prevention, the protection of health or morals, the protection of the reputation or rights of others and maintaining data privacy. The government and private actors will breach human rights if they do not have clear definitions that enable people to understand and carry out their duties and responsibilities in these respects. Article 6 guarantees people a fair trial when it comes to criminal or civil matters. This depends on commonly held definitions for the words used in law. The Supreme Court has just ruled that in relation to the Equality Act 2010 (which covers employment, education, service provision, charities and associations) the words “man” and “woman” relate to the biological characteristics not people’s self-definition. 

Bad argument 7: trans groups say their rights and privacy are being attacked.

Nadia Whittome, Labour MP for Nottingham East, said:

“Trans people and trans-led groups have been very concerned by new clause 21 tabled by the Opposition. They have rightly described it as an attack on trans people’s rights and their privacy.”

Trans groups have been misled about this, as they have been about the Equality Act. Politicians, sadly, have contributed to this fearmongering. It is not an attack on anyone’s rights or privacy to record sex accurately for everyone, in a manner that complies with data-protection laws. It is simply ensuring that everyone’s right to data accuracy, and everyone’s (limited) right to privacy, are respected and that there is administrative coherence. This is necessary to protect trans people and everyone else.

The 8,000 or so trans people with a GRC are covered by Section 22 of the Gender Recognition Act, which makes it a criminal offence for a person who has acquired protected information related to this in an official capacity to disclose the information to any other person. This means that for most purposes a public authority should not record information about a person’s “acquired gender” recorded on a GRC, since they cannot safely use this information, and will not have identified a lawful purpose for recording it.

The flimsy excuses

Chris Bryant MP, the Minister of State for data protection and telecoms, said that the government accepts the Supreme Court ruling and agrees that data accuracy is important. Nonetheless, he rejected the amendment and made a series of excuses for refusing to take action. 

Excuse 1: don’t worry, we are already fixing bad sex data

Bryant said the government is already engaged in “an appropriate and balanced range of work on data standards and data accuracy”, including on monitoring diversity information and collecting and reporting data and statistics about sex and gender identity. “All Government Departments are now considering how best to address the recommendations of the Sullivan review,” he said.

The Sullivan Review highlighted widespread lack of compliance with data protection by public authorities recording “mixed data” combining sex with gender identity. Bryant gave no indication that there is an effective plan to fix this historic failure. Meanwhile, his department is planning to use these unlawful and inaccurate datasets as the foundation for the new digital verification system. 

Excuse 2: digital identities don’t change anything

Bryant said that the “new clause is misplaced because the Bill does not alter the evidence which can be relied upon to prove sex or gender. Indeed, it does not seek to change the content of data used by digital verification services.”

In other words Bryant, whose ministerial brief includes data protection, is planning to wave unlawful practices through into the new system without ensuring compliance with data-protection laws.

Excuse 2(a): the bill merely enables people to do digitally what they can already do with paper documents

This is false: digital identities create new capabilities. Currently, people can use their passport to show a false sex, but when doing so they automatically also reveal their name and date of birth. The Passport Office doesn’t claim that passports prove a person’s sex, and any data user who is aware that “passport sex” is unreliable can reject a passport as proof of sex and use some other source instead, including the evidence of their own eyes. Once digital identities are rolled out, people will be able to “prove” their false sex without revealing any other personal information by using a general-purpose, trustmarked, government-endorsed app. One obvious use will be online sexual fraud (catfishing). 

Excuse 2(b): it is for each organisation to decide what information they need to verify in their particular circumstances

This betrays a total misunderstanding of the way digital identities are being designed. If an organisation seeks information on a person’s sex, the information it receives from any app that holds the government trustmark will be that the person is “male” or “female”, or that the app does not hold that data. This response will not indicate whether that information came from a passport, driving licence, birth record, NHS record or some other source. This information will be expressly presented as a trustworthy record of sex for all purposes, even though it’s not. 

Excuse 2(c): any inconsistency between what can be done digitally and physically will “sow division”

It is true that already there are inconsistencies between the sex some people have recorded on the birth register, driving licence, passport, NHS record and marriage certificate. It is estimated that this could affect as many as 100,000 people. But embedding these inconsistencies in apps will weaponise them. 

Nothing will stop an individual from having two trustmarked apps on their phone, linking them to different authoritative data sources (for instance the birth register for one and the passport office for another) and therefore being able to “prove” they are whichever sex suits them at any given moment. A data user will not be able to tell that this is happening, and if it has been certified as part of the government’s digital verification system, it will have undertaken to treat the information presented to it by a trustmarked app as authoritative. 

The ability to “prove” that you are male or female at will may be used for identity fraud and money laundering, or conversely lead to trans people being flagged as money-laundering risks and locked out of transactions. 

Excuse 3: even though digital identities claim to “prove” sex, nobody will use them to prove their sex

Bryant said: “The new clause is unnecessary, because it is very unlikely that digital verification services would be used for applications such as single-sex wards, health screening or to enter other female-only spaces.”

This is irresponsible. The government is planning to give men who claim to be women a government-endorsed “proof” that they are female in an app on their phone that the government is describing as valid for all purposes, and which data users are required to treat as authoritative. Simultaneously, the government is saying that it is “very unlikely” that such men will try to use this government-endorsed “proof” that they are female to access female-only spaces, services or sports. This is despite some such men already declaring publicly that they intend to flout the Supreme Court judgment and to continue to use such spaces, services and sports by brandishing a handmade card declaring that this is their human right. 

The question of “outing” trans people needs to be tackled. No one is seeking to “out” a trans person when they are buying a bottle of wine or hiring a car. But it is inappropriate for a person of one sex to lie about their sex in order to gain entry to a space or service that is for the other sex. It is reasonable to expect people to tell the truth, and when accessing the service involves registration (such as when joining a gym, registering with a social-care agency or healthcare provider, seeking help from a rape crisis centre, or applying for a job), it is routine to verify identity and personal data. Recording accurate sex data where it is needed for a lawful purpose is not illegitimately “outing” someone (and in some cases there may be a “prefer not to say” option). 

As the Supreme Court judgment confirmed, all single-sex provision is required by law to be on the basis of biological sex. People shouldn’t try to gain access to single-sex provision if they are not of the right sex, and shouldn’t be surprised to be challenged if they do seek entry. If they don’t want to be asked to give truthful information on their sex, they shouldn’t try to enter. The government should not be providing such people with a way to digitally “prove” a falsehood about their sex that will help them trick, force, confuse or bully their way in. Nor should it be making it hard or impossible in practice for a service-provider to restrict entry to a single-sex space or service to people who are entitled to be there.

Excuse 4: the new clause goes significantly further than the findings of the Supreme Court

What the Supreme Court made clear is that it is not the purpose of the Equality Act, or of other acts where biological sex matters, to cast a veil of privacy or misrepresentation over information about sex for people who do not want to acknowledge or share that information. This includes its provisions on single-sex and separate-sex services, the public-sector equality duty and positive-action measures (such as the Scottish Government’s provision to increase the number of women on public boards). Often single-sex services are intended for the purpose of providing bodily privacy for other people. Whatever the lawful reason for which they are provided, they are provided on the basis of biological sex. 

In its arguments against this to the Supreme Court, Amnesty International drew on case law in the European Court of Human Rights that stressed that Article 8 protects personal autonomy and private life. The Supreme Court recognised this, but held that a transgender person’s autonomy (to dress how they please, call themselves what they like and so on) does not override other other people’s right to dignity, privacy, autonomy and protection from discrimination. These are the rights the Equality Act seeks to protect in relation to workplaces, education, service provision and associations. 

The Supreme Court’s ruling makes clear that it is lawful to record and share information on a person’s sex for ordinary purposes where sex matters, and that this applies to people who identify as a different gender, including those who have a GRC. 

Excuse 5: “trans rights” mean bad sex data can’t be fixed 

Bryant said: “Finally, the proposals have the potential to interfere with the right to respect for private and family life under the Human Rights Act by requiring public authorities to record sex as biological sex in all cases regardless of whether it is justified or proportionate in that given circumstance.” 

Data-protection laws already require that when personal data is recorded by data collectors, it is accurate. The only reason this is not already happening is that, when it comes to sex, this law is widely flouted. Many public authorities have long recorded “gender identity” instead for some people. Recording people’s sex accurately for a lawful purpose does not interfere with their Article 8 rights. 

Note that Excuse 1 (don’t worry, we are already acting on the Sullivan Review and fixing bad sex data) and Excuse 5 (we can’t fix bad data because doing so would interfere with trans rights) are contradictory.

Excuse 6: fixing bad sex data is incompatible with the Gender Recognition Act

Bryant said: “In addition, the amendment does not take account of the fact that the Gender Recognition Act 2004 gives those with gender-recognition certificates a level of privacy and control over who has access to information about their gender history.”

The amendment does not seek the recording of people’s “gender history”. It seeks to ensure that biological sex is recorded accurately. Doing so when that information is needed (with consent or for a lawful purpose) does not engage the Gender Recognition Act at all, since that concerns recording of “acquired gender” and the knowledge that someone has a GRC. The information that someone has a GRC can and should be kept private. It may be deeply meaningful to them, but is not needed by others (except the registrar if the individual is getting married or has died).

The Scottish Government lost in the Supreme Court against For Women Scotland. Also on the losing side were the Equality and Human Rights Commission – which intervened in support of the Scottish Government – and the UK government, which did not intervene but held the same incorrect position about the meaning of “sex” in the Equality Act until the Supreme Court judgment made clear not only what the law actually is, but what it has been ever since it was passed in 2010. 

This happened because a succession of ministers in both Holyrood and Westminster accepted bad arguments and flimsy excuses from civil servants, regulators and government lawyers who had lost sight of the law. Peter Kyle and Chris Bryant seem set on going along the same path.

It is worth noting that John Edwards, the Information Commissioner (that is, the regulator with the responsibility for securing compliance with the data-protection laws), is personally committed to the transactivist position that transgender people should be allowed to self-identify as the opposite sex. He has publicly declared that his daughter is a boy. He quotes his child as saying that the accurate recording of sex data “makes me feel afraid and invalidated”, and has cited this as a reason sex shouldn’t be recorded accurately.

The Data Bill is now returning to the House of Lords. It is to be hoped that the Lords will consider the issues with more seriousness than the Commons did.

The post Inaccurate sex data: excuses and bad arguments appeared first on Sex Matters.

The Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers was crystal clear that any space designated single-sex is solely for the use of people of that sex. This is because in order for a space (or service) to be lawfully provided for one sex only, it must satisfy one of several criteria called the “single-sex exceptions” in the Equality Act. Roughly speaking, these criteria are various situations in which including people of the other sex would be inappropriate. If an employer designates a space as “single sex” and then states in its policies that certain people of the other sex can enter, then the space automatically fails to meet these criteria. 

The Supreme Court judgment therefore means that all employers need to make clear in their policies that whenever a space is marked as being for one sex or the other, it is not for use by members of the opposite sex, regardless of claimed identity, certification or lifestyle. 

The widely promoted idea that people may choose the facilities that suit their gender identity, or that they feel comfortable with, is legally wrong. Facilities are either for one sex only or for both sexes, with no exceptions. There can be no excuse for an employer to let people use the facilities marked for the other sex. This deprives everyone else of the single-sex provision they are entitled to under workplace regulations. 

The signs on the doors of workplace toilets and other facilities are health and safety signs. They should no more be ignored than signs that say not to block the fire exit or warnings about hazardous materials. 

Whose job is it to enforce this?

Your employer

Your employer is responsible for complying with the law. No individual employee should have to request that it do so, nor should anyone have to challenge someone using the wrong facilities. 

It is not enough for employers to provide men’s and women’s toilets. They must also ensure that the rules for use are clear and complied with by everyone.

The Health and Safety Executive is the regulator that oversees the 1992 Workplace Regulations. In response to a letter from Sex Matters, the chief executive of the HSE wrote:

“For legislation that requires an employer to provide an item or facility for their workers, HSE would consider not just whether it is actually present, but also whether an employer takes steps to ensure that it is used as they intend. For provision of men’s and women’s toilet facilities for workers, we would consider the availability of separate facilities and whether or not the employer is following a clear policy and decision-making process as to their use.”

This is unambiguous: employers have a responsibility to communicate and enforce their policies and ensure that men are not using the women’s facilities (and vice versa).

If there are men using the women’s toilets or if the policy is that anyone can use whichever facilities they prefer, or if traditional cubicled communal spaces are relabelled “unisex”, you should complain.

You could report the problem to your supervisor or your immediate manager. Employers are required to display a health and safety at work poster in the workplace that includes details of the health and safety representative. Explain the issue and suggest a solution (there should be a clear policy that male and female facilities are provided on the basis of biological sex). 

If your concern is not taken seriously, you can escalate to either your head of health and safety or human resources. Explain the same concerns that you previously expressed and why you believe your concerns have not been acted upon.

You are protected by law from suffering a detriment if you raise health and safety concerns with your employer or the enforcing authority. In fact, under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, employees in Britain have a responsibility to report any matter which a person with their training and instruction would “reasonably consider represented a shortcoming in the employer’s protection arrangements for health and safety”.

Use our template email below and attach our workplace toilets factsheet to make this point to your employer. 

Your union

If you are in a trade union and you are concerned that your employer does not take the issue seriously, you can report the issue to your trade union safety representative. 

Their role is to check and follow up on management’s actions or lack of action on health, safety and environmental issues in the workplace. This includes the regulations on toilets, changing and washing facilities. Trade-union safety representatives can also report the issue to the HSE.

The regulator

If your employer does not respond by adopting or confirming that it has a clear sex-based policy, and that it will enforce that policy, you can make a report to the regulator. 

Health and Safety Executive

For health and safety in workplaces, including schools and colleges, hospitals and nursing homes, central and local government premises, factories, farms, building sites, mines and offshore installations, the regulator is the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).  

• In Great Britain, you can report employers in these sectors that do not comply with the 1992 Workplace Regulations to the HSE via its website.
• In Northern Ireland, the regulator is the HSE NI. 

Workplaces not covered by the HSE are covered by a local authority. 

Your local authority

If you work in an office, hospitality, retail, wholesale or distribution, or leisure, the relevant regulator is your local authority – your district council or local unitary authority. 

Search online with the name of your council and “health and safety at work” to find a number or online form for reporting the problem. 

The Equality and Human Rights Commission 

The Equality and Human Rights Commission issued interim guidance to back up the Supreme Court judgment. This states that in workplaces and services that are open to the public:

• “trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men (biological women) should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities, as this will mean that they are no longer single-sex facilities and must be open to all users of the opposite sex
• in some circumstances the law also allows trans women (biological men) not to be permitted to use the men’s facilities, and trans men (biological women) not to be permitted to use the women’s facilities
• however where facilities are available to both men and women, trans people should not be put in a position where there are no facilities for them to use
• where possible, mixed-sex toilet, washing or changing facilities in addition to sufficient single-sex facilities should be provided
• where toilet, washing or changing facilities are in lockable rooms (not cubicles) which are intended for the use of one person at a time, they can be used by either women or men.”

Organisations that fail to comply with the Equality Act 2010 can be reported to the EHRC. 

If you report your workplace to the HSE or your local authority and it refuses to act, report both your workplace and the regulator to the EHRC.

What should you do?

Many organisations are reviewing their policies in the light of the Supreme Court judgment. You may want to start by asking what your employer is doing and on what timescale. You can remind them that this is the law. There is no need to wait for guidance: in fact there could be legal risk for those whose policies do not comply right now.

Don’t be tempted to go to the press or talk about your employer on social media. Your aim should be to keep your job and to follow your employer’s established processes for raising issues like this.

Keep a paper trail of your engagement with your employer and with the regulators.

Template email to raise concerns about workplace toilet policies

This template email is designed to help you clearly and confidently raise concerns about workplace toilet policies, whether they are about: 

• the removal of single-sex facilities
• the introduction of “gender-neutral” or unisex toilets
• unclear guidance on who is permitted to use which amenities. 

The sample text can be used to start an informal conversation, adapted to submit a formal grievance, or amended to escalate a previous complaint.

How to use it

• Copy and paste into an email, with the optional sections to suit your own situation.
• Replace placeholders like [manager’s name] and [insert specific issue].
• Attach our Workplace toilets factsheet.
• Send it as an informal query or adapt it to form part of a formal grievance if needed.

Sample text

Attach factsheet

Use this if policies allow self-ID toilet use

Use this if toilets are being refurbished or changed

Use this for disinformation clarification

Use this if you want an informal resolution

Use this if you are raising a formal grievance

Sign-off

Feedback

Let us know if you succeed, or if you hit a brick wall: email TellUs@sex-matters.org.

The post Workplace toilets: know your rights appeared first on Sex Matters.

Nearly one in three people in Britain who identify as LGBTQ+ say they’ve been exorcised, assaulted, prayed over, or excluded from social events – according to research commissioned by Stonewall. The poll, carried out by Opinium, apparently uncovered widespread experiences of “conversion practices”, with findings released as the government prepares to unveil new draft legislation on a conversion therapy ban.

The survey of 2,000 “members of the LGBTQ+ community” found that 31% claimed to have experienced efforts to change or suppress their sexual orientation or gender identity. Another 10% said they had undergone an exorcism – a figure faithfully reported by the BBC’s LGBT & Identity reporter, Josh Parry.

Some of the most striking figures relate to trans-identifying people. Among this group, 31% said they had been told to ingest purifying substances, 30% claimed to have experienced an exorcism, and 38% reported exclusion from family or community as a form of conversion practice.

The generational skew is also striking. Among 18–34-year-olds, 23% claimed they had been physically assaulted in an attempt to change their sexual orientation or gender identity, compared to 8% of people aged over 65. Nearly one in five (18%) of the youngest groups say they’ve suffered “‘corrective rape’ or sexual assault”. Yet no-one in the oldest category reported such experiences.

The sheer scale of the claims also raises questions. Are we really to believe that nearly a third of trans-identifying people in the UK – a country where official policy and public messaging have leaned heavily towards affirmation – have been exorcised in the last five years? Either society has become drastically more violent and bigoted in a single generation, or something else is going on.

A closer look at the methodology gives us a clue. While the survey breaks down responses by “trans man”, “trans woman”, and “non-binary”, it does not record respondents’ actual sex. That’s not a trivial omission. For example, the data suggest that 3% of gay men and 5% of bisexual men were subjected to sexual assault in the past year. If taken at face value, this would suggest a hidden epidemic of women preying on men to make them straight – something that defies both statistics and common sense.

Much of this hinges on the amorphous category LGBTQ+.This framing is not only potentially alienating to those who are same-sex attracted but reject gender ideology, leading to self-exclusion, but is also so broad as to be meaningless. For example, people who identify as “asexual” are included. Stonewall currently has a campaign to raise awareness of what it calls “acephobia”, defining “ace” as “an umbrella term used specifically to describe a lack of, varying, or occasional experiences of sexual attraction.” Stonewall cited the experience of an ace-identifying woman whose husband “raised the lack of intimacy” in their marriage. After seeking advice from her pastor and attending therapy, she gave up, concluding: “Being ace is not a medical problem”. Examples like this likely fall into the alarming-sounding 12% who have attended “pseudo-scientific counselling sessions“ and the 17% who claim to have been “prayed over” in an attempt to change their gender identity or sexual orientation.

Whether one views not wanting sex as an identity, a preference, or potentially a symptom of a medical or psychiatric issue, is not the point. What such examples demonstrate is that the data are muddled and unreliable – the product of vague questions, opaque definitions, and a heavy dose of activist framing. “Conversion practices” is a capacious term that lumps together very different things: physical assault (already illegal), sexual violence (also illegal), prayer, and even feelings of social exclusion.

This isn’t robust social science; it’s a push poll designed to produce headlines and political momentum. Stonewall has used the findings to renew its call for a “fully inclusive” ban on conversion practices – one that covers gender identity and includes children.

Simon Blake, Stonewall’s CEO, described the findings as evidence of “untold suffering” and warned that “each day conversion practices remain legal, they continue to cause harm”. But the picture painted by the data is less of real-world violence than of narrative capture – a redefinition of “harm” so expansive it could cover anything from being prayed for to not being invited to brunch.

What’s more, the data seem to invert historical reality. Older generations – people who actually lived through Section 28, persecution from the police and “queer-bashing”– report far fewer instances of abuse than the generation raised on pronouns and Pride flags. Either we’re meant to believe that we are living in times of unprecedented bigotry, or we need to start asking serious questions about how these experiences are being defined, reported and weaponised.

None of this is to deny that coercive or abusive practices have existed, or that they should be addressed. But when we are talking about new laws that will affect therapists, teachers, doctors, and parents – laws that could make it criminal not to affirm a child’s belief that they are trans – we need evidence, not ideology.

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The Supreme Court has confirmed that “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 means, and has always meant, “biological sex”. The law is clear: single-sex services should operate on the basis of sex, not gender identity. 

But many organisations are now digging in and resisting complying with the law. Even those that want to do the right thing are confused and frightened. How can they be confident in treating people based on their actual sex when there is no way of accurately verifying that information? 

For decades public bodies have corrupted their own data, recording men as women (and vice versa) in healthcare records and identity documents. This has nothing to do with the Gender Recognition Act: it has simply been a matter of gender self-ID. While around 8,000 people have a gender-recognition certificate, an estimated 100,000 people have the wrong sex recorded by at least one public authority such as the NHS or Passport Office. 

The Sullivan Review included a legal opinion which said that such practices breach data-protection laws. Instead of tackling the issue, the government seems set on pushing ahead with new legislation that will build this historic mess into a brand new system of government-endorsed digital data verification. People will then be able to use online apps that carry a government trustmark to “prove” they are the opposite sex in order to access services and apply for jobs. 

The Data (Use and Access) Bill is being debated on Wednesday 7th May. Will you write to your MP TODAY?

What’s the problem?

The Data Bill will establish a new “information gateway” between public authorities and online apps which enable people to prove who they are and facts about themselves. If you want to see how this will work, try the Post Office’s Easy ID on your phone. 

It relies on data from sources such as the Passport Office and driving-licence authority as “proof” of sex. But these public authorities have not kept their data accurate. They allow men to be marked as “F” and women to be marked as “M”. 

Unless the Data Bill is amended to block inaccurate data sources from being used to “prove” sex, it will bake in these practices. Gender identity is not recognised in law, but the new law will allow it to erase sex in practice, and make it impossible to implement the Equality Act and protect single-sex spaces. This is gender self-ID by the back door.

The amendment to solve the problem

An amendment that would solve the problem (NC21 Directions to public authorities on recording of sex data) has been proposed by Dr Ben Spencer MP.

It is based on the principle that public authorities should not be allowed to provide digital “proof” of sex data unless they are able to do so reliably. Currently, just one source is accurate: the record of births held by the General Register Office/ National Records of Scotland (since this original source cannot be changed, even with a gender-recognition certificate). This is what should be used whenever accurate data about a person’s sex is needed.

You can read more about the amendment in our briefing.

Write to your MP!

The Data Bill and the amendment are being debated in the House of Commons on Wednesday 7th May. Please write to your MP today. 

Find your MP’s name and email address.

Put URGENT – for Data Bill debate on 7th May in the title.

Introduce yourself and mention if you’ve been in touch before.

Use our text as the body of the email:

I am writing to you as a concerned constituent to strongly urge you to support the proposed amendment (NC21) to the Data (Use and Access) Bill that seeks to ensure that digital verification services enable people to accurately verify their sex (such as for healthcare and single-sex services).

This is in line with the recent judgment of the Supreme Court in the For Women Scotland (FWS) case, which found that biological sex matters. It said that clear data is needed so that “the interests of biological women (or men) can be rationally considered and addressed” and so too can “the interests of trans people (who are vulnerable and often disadvantaged for different reasons)”. 

This amendment would support everyone’s rights, including transgender people. 

• Everyone needs to have their biological sex recorded accurately where it is needed (such as for their own healthcare).
• Providers of single-sex services and sports need to be able to accurately verify people’s biological sex to keep them safe and to avoid conflicts.
• Providers of health and social care need to be able to accurately record people’s biological sex to keep them safe. 

There is no need to ask people invasive questions about their anatomy or to humiliate or discriminate against them to record their sex. The birth register is already an accurate source of information on sex. It is being digitised and could be used to verify sex for most people in the UK, with their consent. 

Please read this briefing from Sex Matters, a human-rights charity that intervened in the FWS case and was commended by the Supreme Court for its cogent argument, which provided focus to the meaning of sex in law: https://sex-matters.org/posts/publications/data-bill-amendment-nc21-briefing-for-parliamentarians

The Supreme Court judgment showed how important parliamentary clarity about legislation is in this important area. I urge you to study the issue you will be voting on.

Accurate data should not be compromised. This amendment would ensure that: 

• people CAN prove their sex (as registered at birth) using digital verification services
• people CANNOT falsify their sex using digital verification services. 

Other people may write to you making the opposite case, urging you not to support this amendment, saying that data on sex and gender identity should be muddled up together. If this happens it will lead to more conflict, more harm to both women and transgender people, more risk, more cost to the public purse and more court cases. 

Digital identity verification is privacy-protecting. Ensuring that the data is accurate will not force trans people to “out” themselves when their sex data is not needed (such as when proving their age or renting a car). It will simply enable everyone (whether they are trans or not) to share accurate, trustworthy information on their sex when that information is actually needed, including for their own safety and the safety of other people. 

I would appreciate a response setting out your stance on this issue.

It’s particularly powerful if you can say why this matters to you, so add your own words.

Put your full name and address, with postcode – your MP needs to know that you are in their constituency.

Send the email and then see if you can get others to do the same.

URGENT ACTION: I've emailed my MP today about the Data Bill – can you?
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