Bridget Phillipson is blocking the publication of new trans guidance that explains the legal requirement for businesses and public bodies to protect women-only spaces.
The Women and Equalities Secretary has given a statement to the High Court describing the proposed rules as “trans-exclusive” and has failed to sign them off more than three months after receiving them.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) guidance was drawn up following a landmark Supreme Court ruling that only biological women are women under equality law.
In her High Court submission, Ms Phillipson says that banning transgender women – biological males – from women’s lavatories would also mean women could not take their “infant sons” into changing rooms at swimming pools.
She argues that the EHRC guidelines are discriminatory; that the Supreme Court ruling on biological sex mainly concerned maternity rights, and that there are already “many entirely plausible exceptions” to a single-sex rule.