Civil service bans men from women’s spaces? Leaked guidance

Indeed. And other threats too. I can’t understand how they are allowed to get away with saying things like this (photo incoming):

Your post was completely clear. I was commenting on the comment you quoted.

Tbh I think escalating incidents to managers is probably good advice. Does the guidance say anything about what the next step should be if the manager ignores the complaint or if the person is the manager.

I've read a couple of the articles about the CS who was apparently holding 5 jobs simultaneously. It seems very, very difficult to do anything about bad staff in the CS.

Assuming this is the same guidance as in OP the Telegraph has a rather different attitude.

Don’t challenge trans women in lavatories, Civil Service tells staff
Confronting someone who might be in wrong facilities for their gender could be ‘unlawful harassment’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/10/16/dont-challenge-trans-women-in-lavatories-civil-service-tell/

also at https://archive.is/zU5pj

As a woman, you dont speak for me. Anyone who identifies as female is welcome in the bathroom with me.

Equally, you don’t speak for me. You are welcome to pee with men if you want. You are welcome to go ‘in the bathroom’ with ‘anyone who identifies as female’, but you’ll have to go in their bathroom, ie the Mens’ or the Unisex one, not the Ladies’.

If they are unwilling to follow policy then ok, their decision. Plenty of people looking for work.

It is going to need to be written into contracts, the following of policy.

My GOD the effort in 2026 to get women permitted their actual, existing rights.

Sigh.

The passionate and desperate to be with men will be fine in the gender neutrals, won't they? They can pee with men to their heart's content. They merely cannot destroy other women's needed provision to demonstrate their political purity. I get that not getting to wreck the rights and access of women to some people is utterly heart breaking, thoughts and prayers etc.

I would be wary about some well meant campaign however to don t shirts and lanyards declaring I Am The Right Sort Of Woman Who Will Pee In Mixed Sex Spaces To Comfort Men as it's unfortunately going out the male users. Better to just use them quietly and stop faffing.

The vast legions of women who keep their mouths shut and their heads down because they have families to support and bills to pay, but in Reddit land they’re free as a bird to flounce off onto benefits. It’s very speaking about who carries the responsibilities in society, and who is all hot air and ego.

Lots of "threats" to quit work.
I don't suppose they'll be missed much judging from their entitled attitudes on that thread.

The change in toilet designs in schools was the impetus for me starting my campaign to keep toilets safe. There’s been so many problems that should serve as a warning.

What everyone seems to be promoting is adding completely private mixed sex toilets to cater for a very few people. If anyone had done a risk assessment on adding completely private, resistant to sound spaces to public areas, especially retrospectively in unsuitable areas, they would understand the cost often outweighs the benefit. I hope this is properly thought out. Adding a poorly designed enclosed space is discriminatory because it affects certain groups more than others.

Yes - it's also a labour govt who placed gender questioning children firmly under safeguarding guidance. Which suggests that there must be hidden data from the NHS, the police, education etc that highlights the appalling impact that both social transitioning plus dodgy use of PBs etc on developing minds and bodies.

They've been so captured by the trans lobby they would never have done it unless they knew what was coming down the line.

Once again that isn't the PCS union but this time it's PCS Proud which is another ginger group of PCS members.

A ginger group is a formal or informal group within an organisation seeking to influence its direction and activity. The term comes from the phrase ginger up, meaning to enliven or stimulate.

In political terms you could describe Momentum or the Monday Club as ginger groups for Labour & Tories respectively.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger_group

The TRAs must be so pissed that after years of Conservative rule it is Labour in power as all these wrongs get righted.

Yes but PCS isn't neutral either.

www.pcs-proud.org.uk/emergency-pcs-proud-members-meeting/

@MrPrettyDamnCosmic a "ginger group"?

The new KCSIE (Keeping Children Safe in Education) guidelines is very clear. No mixed sex changing, toilets, sleeping. Schools must record biological sex and in any cases where there are any elements of social transitioning (and there are suggested limits and conditions for this) the school must explain that:

"supporting any degree of social transition will not include allowing access to toilets, changing rooms or boarding or residential accommodation designated for the opposite sex, and will not include allowing children to join PE classes designated for the opposite sex where there are safety reasons..."

The SC judgment suggested that failing to provide ss facilities could discriminate against girls / women. We'll no doubt need more bloody court cases, but finally stopping schools dabbling in socially transitioning children outside their professional expertise (that's pointed out in the guidance) will hopefully stop many children from getting caught up in all this.

See paras 254 onwards in KCSIE guidelines link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6ac3c09c11ed58342ad8e4ac/Keeping_children_safe_in_education_2026.pdf

That's not from the PCS union but the PCS Independent Left who are a ginger group of PCS members. This is how they describe themselves.

We are the PCS Independent Left (IL), a democratic organisation of socialists within the PCS union.

Good (albeit belated) news for the NHS and civil service but we also need a return to proper single sex spaces at schools and local authority facilities. As in a recognition that solely providing mixed sex spaces is unacceptable and discriminatory. I have been looking at secondary schools with mine and almost all of them have full-length locked doors - male and female right alongside each other - just opening out into a corridor. I remember being a teenage girl when periods went wrong or sometimes fainting. To lock a girl away behind a full-length door and expect them to emerge on to a busy corridor at that time of their life is cruel.

Does using sex-accurate pronouns ’deny’ the trans IDed person’s beliefs, or express the speaker’s beliefs? Why is denying someone’s beliefs a bad thing? If a Jewish person says, “Jesus was not the Messiah”, or a Christian person says, “The NT supersedes the OT so it’s fine to eat pork” they deny the other person’s beliefs by expressing their own. Whats wrong with that?

If I see, hear, smell a man, why should I be denied the right to express my experience and my belief?

Yes, I did this at work with a trans student, just used the chosen name when talking about them. Clunky, but safe.

Re the wrong sex pronouns. The above draft says people can choose wrong sex pronouns for themselves but also recognises others may not believe in GI beliefs/ nonsense.

The draft does not require non believers to believe in GI- as that would be illegal- so it needs to clarify the employer will accept other polite ways of speech eg that they don't require lying about someone's sex.

eg using someone's chosen name repeatedly not a wrong sex pronoun. It's just awkward, but the best way to respect both people.