Here is the letter the article refers to.
https://x.com/feministroar/status/1939272711546499146?s=46
To the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights and the Sub-Committee on Human Rights,
The undersigned are organisations which advocate for the human rights of trans people in the United Kingdom. We are writing to express our grave concerns about the developing situation regarding trans people's human rights in this country and to ask the Committee to take action.
Following a decision of the UK Supreme Court in April, the Equality and Human Rights Commission - the UK's National Human Rights Institution - has issued an interim update which encourages and in some cases mandates the exclusion of trans people from single-sex spaces and services, in violation of their human rights.' This has been followed by draft guidance which seeks to make such an approach statutory? The EHRC has made clear that it is not seeking input on its legal approach, only on how this approach is best communicated.?
The draft guidance, if it were to become law, would impose an obligation on employers and service providers to implement a bathroom ban on trans people using toilet and changing facilities in line with their acquired sex, instead requiring in practice that they use only gender neutral facilities. Such gender neutral facilities are frequently unavailable, and mandating their usage may require trans people to out themselves. The guidance would also prohibit associations for women and lesbians operating on a basis which would allow trans women to participate, even if the association desires to do so. This would also be true for men's organisations wanting to include trans men.
This draft guidance is being consulted on in the wider context following For Women Scotland, in which government ministers and public bodies have made comments about trans people's rights. The UK Minister for Women and Equalities has stated that trans people are required to use the toilets associated with their sex as recorded at birth, even where their change in sex is recognised by a Gender Recognition Certificate.' The National Police Chiefs' Council have announced that
male officers should now conduct intimate searches of trans women.'
In Christine Goodwin v UK, the European Court of Human Rights held that refusing to legally recognise the lived sex of trans people - and placing them into an 'intermediate zone' where they are not quite one sex or the other - was a violation of their right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the Convention. This protection was reaffirmed by the Court in the very recent decision of T.H. It is a core principle of the Convention that rights must be practical and effective, not theoretical and illusory.
We believe that in the UK, trans people are being returned to this intermediate zone, placing the State - once again - in violation of its positive obligations under the Convention. The legal recognition afforded by Gender Recognition Certificates is now illusory, and inapplicable to practical lived realities of trans people in this
country.
We ask that the Council of Europe take immediate action to protect the human rights of trans people in the UK. We ask that you conduct a report into the state of trans human rights in the UK. We note that the situation is urgent and without intervention, it seems likely to further deteriorate.
Kind regards,
Trans+ Solidarity Alliance
TransActual
Equality Network and Scottish Trans
Trans Safety Network
Feminist Gender Equality Network