Hundreds of firms warn new guidance on single sex spaces is ‘unworkable’ and would cause ‘significant economic harm’

[IwantToRetire]

More than 650 organisations have urged Bridget Phillipson to ‘take immediate action to prevent these proposals from moving forward’

“We, the undersigned businesses and organisations, are writing to express our deep concern at proposals seeking to enforce blanket, mandatory exclusion of trans people from gendered spaces and services.

“The proposals made in the EHRC’s draft Code of Practice under the Equality Act would have serious and far-reaching consequences for UK businesses, our employees, and our customers.

“Many of us have spent years building inclusive environments where all customers and staff feel safe and welcome. These proposals would tell us to act in ways that directly contradict those commitments; undermining trust, damaging reputations, and risking the loss of valued staff and customers.”

They also express concern that the proposals would put them at “constant risk of complaints and litigation from multiple directions”, as well as forcing “business staff into the unacceptable role of ‘gender police’”.

“Such practices are not only deeply invasive, but likely impossible to implement without breaching Article 8 of The Human Rights Act, which protects rights to privacy, and risking discriminating against valued trans customers and colleagues”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/supreme-court-trans-single-sex-spaces-b2826924.html

So women's rights are less important than commercial compliance.

Do they admit it’s “unworkable” because they know that transwomen trans people will simple refuse to use the correct toilets? Usually no one says the quiet bit loud but that’s what they mean.

I can see businesses are a bit stuck. They can’t say “we’re being held hostage by vocal TRAs who will force us to police bathrooms and then complain we are policing bathrooms”… but they’re not brave enough to stand up to them so they’re stuck.

Oh look! Brand new poster who - and I know this will be a shock - is female oh and just fiiiine with sharing with men. Colour me fucking shocked!

abd on the off chance you are genuine maybe you should have fucking complained!

www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/03/25/in-spain-non-normative-trans-suspected-of-sabotaging-gender-transition-law_6650777_4.html

Is there a list of the companies? I’d like to avoid the twats

Literally my only reaction to this is to think that Spain is now a less attractive holiday destination.

Beyond that, I don't care what people do in Spain.

I didn't make that choice, my goverment made it, I'm perfectly fine with it and the public too. It hasn't been an issue in Spain so far. It's ok that as a British person you disagree with it. I believe there's a cultural element to
it, spaniards we are pretty relaxed in general.

“all customers and staff feel comfortable”

Oh really? ALL customers and staff? I think they’ll find the majority of women prefer (and are statistically safer in) single sex spaces actually so that’s not true is it.
They clearly haven’t thought about women at all

It calls on Ms Phillipson to “take immediate action to prevent these proposals from moving forward”

Could Bridget Phillipson stop the guidance, assuming she wanted to?

Any response to my post, @vegetarianlouise?

Are Spaniards relaxed about the stats I cited, or are these stats different in Spain?

They do tend to be fairly universal, of course, so the other possibility is: are they not being recorded or published/publicised in Spain?

I haven't heard any
complaints from friends and family nor any articles critizicing this. There may have been but i haven't heard anything.

That's very good to hear re. friends etc. - anecdata isn't irrelevant.

But I was actually asking about statistics that show that these kind of spaces massively increase women's and girls' risks of sexual assault and voyeurism.

ETA: You partially address this in not having seen articles about it - thanks - but this doesn't really get to the heart of the issue. These statistics are pretty universal (hence charities campaigning for females' right to single sex toilets in developing nations). Do you think this information is widely accessible in Spain? Or maybe that Spain is an outlier in its risk profile?

Sweden, Denmark and Scandinavia are also adopting the "unisex public bathrooms" policy so it's not only spain.

Yes. By getting an Act amending the Equality Act passed; and hand the next election to Reform.

We don't care what they do in those countries either.

Good for you,

Its great to have a public funded area where a man can follow a woman or child into a small lockable space.

Is Spain also progressively locking up women with men and forcing them to provide companionshio as part of their prison sentence?

I have no idea.

“Many of us have spent years building inclusive environments where all customers and staff feel safe and welcome...

Well you shouldn't have done, should you.

More fool you for listening to Stonewall instead of doing a modicum of legal due diligence and checking your actual legal obligations. It's a good lesson to tighten up your regulatory and legal compliance going forward.

And that's before we get to the fact you're holding your hands up to not giving a shit about the rights and safety of your female employees and customers.

A good list of firms to boycott, I think.

I couldn't give a fuck what countries I don't live in do

any Comment on the Spanish men claiming to be female and the complaint from the spainish lgbt org complaining those men were transphobic

Maybe you should be more clued up on what is happening then

feministpost.it/en/dal-mondo/spagna-detenuta-incinta-di-compagno-di-cella-trans/

I'm afraid I can't be relaxed about the fact that 98% of sexual offending is carried out by males, but you do you.

No one is being excluded. Those saying that are wrong. They may feel uncomfortable in using the space they used as a child which is different.

I also think that third spaces is the answer.

Going back to the OP, I think the businesses just don’t want to be in the front line explaining to ‘Julie’, the 6 footer with the deep voice and the pronounced Adam’s apple that ‘she’ can’t use the ladies. But is of course welcome to use the gents.

Is there a list?

Getting back to the centre of this thread, ie the UK, its laws and social norms.

Image shows graph of attitudes in the UK from August 2019 and August 2025. Seems that despite Stonewall and others we Brits have stuck to our established expectations of toilets.

See https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/trackers/support-for-separate-toilets-for-men-and-women-and-gender-neutral-toilets-in-public-spaces

Seriously, Louise, do please look into the issues posters are raising here. I do think so many women and girls supporting these policies lack awareness of the danger they represent to us. I suspect I could have been complacent about it myself in early adulthood. I don't know about the situation in Spain, but in the UK, I do think that schools' approach to teaching the history of feminism, or sex-based prejudice, is in part responsible for this. I find the disparity stark. Girls who have been taught to feel a visceral horror at the very thought of asking a second-generation immigrant "Where does your family come from?" or misgendering a peer, are meanwhile blissfully unaware of their own physical vulnerability - and that they have a right to mitigate against this.