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

Seems incredibly sensible guidance, I really hope this is official.

Just imagine what a much better place we'd all be in if this has been the approach right from the start, if these men had just been straightforwardly told NO to going into women's spaces and then everyone could have just got on with their lives.

An Employment Tribunal coming soon:

Why did you modify the "model" policy such that the version applied in your department discriminated against female employees?

Unfortunately, especially for the CS, I foresee many, many tribunals still to come. The perpetually stupid and irredeemably narcissistic won't accept any of this return to reality until they have sat in a chair for three days as respondents. Perhaps not even then.

However, hopefully, the rest of us will have moved on by then.

Is there a specific policy you've seen that doesn't follow the model one and is worse for women? Or are you just doubtful that all depts will have fallen into line? (Understandable if so, but I think there will have been a lot of scrutiny on this, so HOPE they have all been forced to be reasonably well aligned!).

The pronouns stuff someone mentioned above is disappointing, though... Are women STILL to be forced to pretend?!

This does read like a model policy.

I expect Departments will be given very strong advice not to change it other than rebrand and to get Government Legal Department advice if they do have a business need to change it.

The other side on this is as usual, a eye opening read https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1x78cob/leaked_civil_service_guidance/

Indeed. What about “Samantha” Tempest and his court case?

I suspect the shock troops will be the handmaidens. Progress lanyards, pronouns, 'you can pee with me', all the performative bullshit. Obviously they can strip off in the mixed sex changing rooms and shower with the other...girls if they wanted to validate they/them. Let the nonconsenting bigots women have the single sex facilities.

The problems lie when the handmaiden is quite senior. It may still be difficult for women to speak up if their line manager, in their own little fiefdom, just (at best) plays lip service and the fragrant Brenda is given a nod and a wink. GC women have been winning their cases but it's a minority who've had the strength, funds and stamina for the fight. Their wins have come a tremendous personal and actual cost. There seem to have been no repercussions for the colleagues and managers that made their actions necessary.

This guidance, if it's real, is a big step in the right direction. There needs to be actual consequences for ignoring it.

I wonder what the reactions of the unions will be? I'm desperate for someone to take on a union like Unison who are explicitly twaw like Sandie Peggie did with the nursing Union.

I wonder what the reactions of the unions will be?

To quote "Blaiddboy" on Trans Reddit

Unfortunately they won't step in - PCS union is extremely transphobic and literally banned trans people from gender appropriate facilities in their 2025 conference. Prospect aren't much better. There are good people in both unions fighting the good fight but the bureaucracy of both unions is anti-trans.

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1x78cob/leakedcivilserviceguidance/

'Blaiddboy', is probably no more a boy than a wolf. Although, 'blaidd' (sorry Wales) gives me Princess Bride vibes. Iirc Miracle Max said it meant 'to bluff'.

Be interesting to see what they actually say.

To me many of those men sound as though they are genuinely non-plussed.

They've been force fed the lie that men are allowed to enter women's spaces for so long, they simply can't comprehend that it's not true.

It does, of course, indicate their massive sense of bloody entitlement that they buy that kind of lie in the first place.

I wonder if the penny will ever drop that they have been misinformed, deliberately and comprehensively, And that no, women aren't your bloody resource.

https://pcsindependentleft.com/2026/10/14/the-urgent-fight-to-defend-trans-and-non-binary-workers/

There is also as PCS petition should be searchable on usual sites "transphobic"

Ahhh but. There is so much sunk cost now for them. They have made decisions with extreme outcomes based on a group of people telling them what they wanted to hear.

They're not in danger. They don't need 'defending'. The law has been made clear.

They will have accessible spaces, no one is going to make them use sex based facilities they are not comfortable in.

They merely have to respect women's rights and see them as equal to their own.

Women have rights and needs too, guys. Soz you hate that, but you'll live.

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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

@MrPrettyDamnCosmic a "ginger group"?

Yes but PCS isn't neutral either.

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

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

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

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