Lambeth Council has signalled it will resist new guidance on access to single-sex spaces, over fears that it risked “leaving trans people open to discrimination”.
Councillors backed a call for the council to refuse to implement the “Draft Code of Practice on Services, public functions and associations”, if the council’s legal team confirms the move would be lawful.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published the updated code following a Supreme Court judgment last year, ruling that “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refers to sex assigned at birth.
The draft clarifies that service providers may legally restrict single-sex spaces, including changing rooms, to biological sex.
But a motion to a Full Council meeting condemned the draft code as “incoherent and self-contradictory, discriminatory, and impossible to implement in a reasonable and proportionate manner”. It called on the council to “protect LGBTQIA+ workers and service users” by refusing to implement the guidelines.
continues at https://love.lambeth.gov.uk/lambeth-to-challenge-new-discriminatory-guidelines-on-single-sex-spaces/