EHRC have suubmitted updated Code of Practice to Phillipson

[Forresty]

Stuff seems to be happening:

On 4 September 2025 the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) submitted a draft update of its Code of Practice for services, public functions and associations to the Minister for Women and Equalities.

The EHRC recently received feedback on the updated Code from the UK government.

Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said:

“Progress is being made towards accurate and up-to-date guidance on the Equality Act 2010 being available to service providers, associations and those exercising public functions.

“The UK government recently provided us with a narrow set of comments on the draft Code of Practice we submitted in September. Having considered this feedback alongside consultation responses and further legal analysis, we have made adjustments where they help the Code provide legally accurate, practical guidance that is useful to duty bearers.

“These aim to strengthen duty bearers’ understanding of the law and how it applies across a range of the scenarios they encounter day-to-day. So that all service users are treated with dignity and respect, in line with the Equality Act.

“Our amended draft services Code of Practice has now been sent for the Secretary of State to approve in advance of it being laid in Parliament.”

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/media-centre/news/update-code-practice-services-public-functions-and-associations

The Guardian has put it's usual particular spin on things

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/14/ehrc-supreme-court-ruling-gender-transgender

Reading that, it gives the impression that major changes have been made.

As Sex Matters rightly say in their comment:

The EHRC has admitted that it amended the guidance after the government provided it with “a narrow set of comments” on its previous draft.

Neither the minister nor the independent regulator is mandated to engage in this sort of delay and negotiation whereby the independent regulator edits its guidance to meet the preferences of the government.

Section 14(7) of the Equality Act 2006 says that before issuing a code the EHRC shall submit a draft to the Secretary of State, who shall either approve the draft and lay a copy before Parliament or give the EHRC written reasons why she does not approve it. The legal framework does not envisage this as a back-and-forth process of backroom negotiations between the government and the EHRC.

sex-matters.org/posts/updates/updated-ehrc-code-to-be-published-in-may/

The Graun's "This is what we're up against" with every link always raises a smile.

Sonia Sodha has commented on the changes in tone requested:

https://nitter.net/soniasodha/status/2044036351880753389?s=20

'More worryingly, they may have represented it as "tone" but ministers may have been lobbying the EHRC for something substantively different, that Phillipson instructed her lawyers to argue for in High Court: that female-only services should be able to admit men who identify as female without losing their single-sex status'

This sounds encouraging, from the tines article linked above:

... while the guidance itself will not change, the regulator has been asked to include more examples of how organisations can be inclusive within the law.

Given that the guidance has to actually follow the law, the scope for substantive change is minimal-to-zero, and I'm hoping that the changes will just have been insisted on for the purposes of government self-branding.

It is honestly absurd that a legalistic document of this sort is being required to be performative of values, like a self-congratulatory equality and diversity policy.

I used to work in a role where I had to look a lot at the statutory guidance provided in relation to health and safety regs, and similar. It is the driest and most nuts-and-bolts technical stuff imaginable. It is never required to include touchy feely stuff indicating how much we value the fact that no one falls off ladders.

An excuse not to tell the public sector to pull its finger out and comply. The next stage will be 'we need time to consider the implications.' And all the while, men will be able to 'enjoy' their freedoms to use women as unwilling and unwitting sexual objects and we shouldn't even mention that they're doing it because we should be kind.

Meanwhile, trans Reddit thinks that the Code of Practice can somehow change the law 🙄

Correct me if I'm wrong but is today's news just that they still hate us and intend to "implement" the SC ruling

Yes, we plant to "implement" THE ACTUAL LAW!!

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1sl5iq3/correct_me_if_im_wrong_but_is_todays_news_just/

Good Law Project, of course, are identifying claiming it as a win:

https://goodlawproject.org/ehrc-forced-to-change-trans-guidance-after-good-law-project-challenge/

I'm out. I genuinely can't understand this at all. I'd rather spend a weekend reconfiguring a comms room with no schmatic and all the cables the same colour than continue to fail to grasp this.

Chiselled in stone and brought down from a mountain. 😂

No. That's the law.

And all any subsequent "guidance" has achieved is to explain how it's wrong for some reason or other.

Maybe not the best example ?

That was a lawyer acting on her behalf. She didn’t write any of it and I’ve not met anyone who could make head nor tail of it tbh!

It was also likely a stress test. Testing the batshit theories of the GLP who were prepared to take it further.

Apparently:

It helps organisations comply
before enforcement

Government enforcement isn’t just about punishing breaches; it’s about preventing them.

EHRC guidance:

• tells employers, schools, councils, etc. what they should do
• reduces accidental law-breaking
• creates a shared standard across the country

So fewer cases need enforcement in the first place.

Wanton chat gtp search but it makes sense to me tbh

Sex Matters has just opted that the 2006 Equalities Act makes no provision for ministers to amend the guidance. The act states that guidance is drafted by the EHRC, laid before Parliament and published. Potentially, therefore, Bridget Phillipson is acting illegally. I hope Sex Matters finds the funding to bring a case against her.

As I understand it, the purpose of the Code of Practice is to give guidance and real life examples of putting the law into everyday practice. This is particularly important for small businesses and organisations who perhaps cannot afford individual legal advice.

It also should help the general public understand what they can expect from businesses and organisations, as it should be written in terms a layperson can easily understand.

The only thing I can think of is that the SC ruling did stress that trans individuals had rights yada yada. They may have had to make sure it really was water tight there to avoid further court action.

I think it's a sort of posh FAQ page.

So where is the FAQs for all our other laws ?

Yes, it did, but men with GRC's are still not covered under the protections afforded to the female Sex. This has already been done to death; now the government needs to grow a pair and issue clear guidance, including to the NHS and other state institutions, who continue to flout the ruling.

Oh, well I guess the bible must be the guidance, thank god the EHRC guidance is a lot shorter, shame it's still taken Phillipson a year to read it. 😂

The 1992 Health and Safety Regulations are one example.

https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/l24.htm

Here are some business regulations

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/business-regulation-guidance-and-tools

financial

https://handbook.fca.org.uk/home

This government has always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex.

Trump-worthy Bollocks Bridget. Your nose is so long at this point that they're spotting it off the coast of France.

How do you make single sex spaces 'more inclusive' without adding men into them? Because the only 'inclusion' you give a flying fuck about is men with exciting identities, not in those spaces being inclusive for all women.

How do you have a single sex space for women without saying no to men and questioning/investigating when men who like to present as the opposite sex try to break that protection for women? Because they do, and they will, and the whole issue was protecting women and their rights and access from them.

And yes, of course the bloody document was focused on excluding men from women's single sex spaces, that was the entire fucking point.

It appears from that lot of bodged up waffle from govt that the mission was to get away from 'single sex spaces' actually meaning 'single sex'.

I despair of this loopy and useless lot, I really do. Come back Boris and the twit who needed Spec Savers, at this point you look fantastically honest and competent.

So until the guidance is published, the courts can't enforce the law ?

I’m puzzled as to why SM are writing/ campaigning about things the code doesn’t cover?

They say:

• workplaces, where employees are not being provided with adequate facilities and face disciplinary action for raising concerns
• healthcare, where the NHS is continuing to operate based on gender self-ID
• local services, including leisure centres, refuges, and social care, which are not respecting the law
• sport, where a two-tier system in some sports protects elite athletes but leaves most women competing against trans–identifying men
• charities that are still wedded to the idea that “inclusion” means ignoring women’s rights
• criminal justice and safeguarding systems, where accurate data and risk assessment depend on clarity about sex.

https://x.com/sexmattersorg/status/2042714570091856029?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

And yet:

“The code of practice, applies to services and associations. It doesn’t apply to the workplace regulations. So that really is a matter for the NHS… and how they intend to uphold their responsibilities as an employer”

https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/phillipson-updated-ehrc-code-does-not-apply-to-workplaces/

They can and have enforced the law.