EHRC Code of Practice on Services, Public Functions and Associations has been laid - here is the Code itself

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

Written Statement made by: Secretary of State for Education and Minister for
Women and Equalities (Bridget Phillipson) on 21 May 2026:

https://commonsbusiness.parliament.uk/Document/105423/Pdf?subType=Standard

I have approved the draft Code submitted on 4 September 2025 and as updated by the EHRC in April 2026 following engagement with government and their consideration of consultation responses and further legal analysis.
The current Code was produced in 2011 and there have been significant developments since then, including the Supreme Court ruling in For Women Scotland, resulting in the EHRC wanting to update the Code.
Following last year’s Supreme Court ruling, the draft Code’s content on sex and gender reassignment has changed substantially from the 2011 version. The ruling made it clear that sex means biological sex for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 and that trans people are still protected by the Act under the protected characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’.

The Code of Practice on Services, Public Functions and Associations itself:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/equality-act-2010-draft-code-of-practice-for-services-public-functions-and-associations-2026

Don't worry, it's the Guardian. They've never been entirely linked to reality of life outside cities and the public sector. They can't represent a majority view because if they did they wouldn't have to keep asking for money.

Have you any statistics on this, please? I'd like to compare them to the number of disabled people who can't use a loo that isn't adapted in areas where they've been closed or who don't feel safe because they're being misused.

Nick Robinson. To be fair to him, he has been pretty impartial and asks questions designed to uncover the facts, of both sides.
In this case it enabled MAS to explain very clearly that women require dignity too, that the law is the law and that if people don’t like it, the way to change it is politically.

I'm sorry but I don't understand your point.

To reiterate, what I'm saying is that for somebody to be charged with harassment somebody else has to complain that they are being harassed.

If none of the women in the area when the man enters feels harassed by that (and some don't) then there is no possibility of bringing a harassment charge because nobody has been harassed.

However
this would mean every women needs to be asked if they feel harassed by a man's prescience in their space
There is no requirement to do this

I would say asking every women yhe question alone would make them feel vulnerable and done ashamed that yes they do feel harrassed
A lot of women won’t admit Therefore
To ensure all women are respected equally men need to use their own spaces provided
or
A gender neutral if they prefer

Imdunfer, is that the case, though? It sounds logical, however, I think it is the case that if Person A is "racially rude" (for lack of a better term, which I'll come to in a minute) to Person B (who doesn't feel, or chooses not to be, or refuses to acknowledge that they have been discriminated against, or "racially abused ") BUT I'm (Person C) standing next to Person B, and I'm offended, and feel that Person A is being racially discriminatory, I think a case can be brought against Person A for racial discrimination, even though Person B is not interested.

Would that analogy work here? I suppose it depends on at least one woman feeling that another was being harassed?

Any legal bods feel like commenting?

Yes, good points, I had forgotten. It's the space that we need to focus on. Once the space is determined for particular use, the potential for harassment attaches to the space. So it really doesn't matter if no one at the moment cares. The next woman might, and has a right to expect the space to be exactly what it was set up for.

Is that right?

edited..spelling..again.

And you pretty much give a perfect example of what you are saying is ridiculous and not true.

The Darlington and Peggie cases were possible because there were complainants.

Without complainants there can be no harassment charges.

Are you saying that you think the onus is on the women to complain, rather than the men to simply keep out of spaces they are not legally allowed to be in to prevent them harassing women and removing their right to privacy, dignity and safety?

If women lie down and do Nothing No one will be charged
That's not rocket science
The same goes for most offences

Definition of Harassment: Under Section 26 of the Equality Act, harassment occurs when someone engages in unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic (like sex) that has the purpose or effect of violating an individual's dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment. 1, 2, 3]
When Does it Become Harassment?

Unwanted Conduct: Because women have a reasonable expectation of privacy and a right to male-free spaces in sex designated areas, a biological male simply entering and remaining there is usually "unwanted conduct". 1, 2]

Hostile Environment: If the presence is intimidating it clearly crosses the line into unlawful sexual or sex-related harassment. 1]
Liability for Businesses and Employers
Workplace Rules: The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 strictly mandate that employers provide completely separate changing facilities for male and female employees. 1]
Employer Responsibility: Employment tribunals have ruled that forcing female staff to share a communal changing area with a biological male (regardless of their gender identity) can amount to both unlawful harassment and indirect sex discrimination against the female employees. 1, 2]
Summary
While simply being in the wrong room by accident may not lead to a formal harassment charge, a man intentionally using a women's changing room generally breaches the lawful single-sex exemptions relied on for women's privacy and dignity. If the presence causes fear, violates dignity, or is part of a company policy forcing women to share, it can be legally challenged as harassment or discrimination.’

( so shops like M&S can be challenged for a policy in violation )

It is unreasonable to expect all women to declare they would feel harassed
It is unreasonable to question women before they go into a changing facility if a man is in their
It is unreasonable to expect women to wait outside for the man to leave

It is
perfectly reasonable and
within the law
to provide men and women with their own spaces

As a pp has noted in previous cases it has been stated by judges the presence if a man in a women only space violates womens sex based rights.

No i didn't say that.

I responded to someone saying men should be charged with harassment for entering a female space. I pointed out that for charges to happen there has to be a complainant.

And that even if there were women in the space before the man went in, there wouldn't necessarily be a complainant because there are plenty of women, some who have written on this forum, (I am not one of them) who are happy to allow trans people in female spaces.

We should all rock up at the Men’s Clubs and enter
We aren’t harassing anyone unless they can prove it

And we are saying as have judges in previous cases that men in an all women environment such as changing rooms is in itself creating a hostile environment

All the women do not and should not be canvassed to make this assessment

If a person creates a hostile environment ( in accordance with the definition ) crosses the line into unlawful sexual or sex-related harassment

Sometimes we have to read between the lines and cross reference all the information from many sources. Legal jargon isn’t always straightforward

Harassment has to have a victim who will stand up and say "I'm a victim of harassment".

There is no law of creating a hostile environment without named victims, is there?

I think what women are along for is a new law making it illegal for a man to enter a female only space. I don't think that is a criminal act at present.

They prove it simply by saying that you are harassing them, that's kind of the point.

We'd br harassing them simply by being in their space if that space is deemed a single sex space.

No
Employers and providers are creating hostile environments should they allow certain spaces to be mixed sex
We can therefore prosecute them

We do not in doing so have to prove individual harassment. That has already been defined in law as
creating a hostile environment

I’ve made it clear in previous posts

Exactly
and of course
they aren’t changing
they'll be drinking at the bar 🤣🤣

Then we need to position ourselves there - take up position on all of the barstools and stand 3 deep at the bar. They'll not know what to do with themselves 😂

S different type of club but
This one will do it

I don't think we’ll be listened to though

bbc One giant boys' club?
Why Westminster can still feel like a man's world
Published14 February 2026

By
Laura Kuenssberg
Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

Is there a boys' club in politics? I ask a smart, tough, very experienced woman who has worked at the highest level of government.
"Yes," comes the answer - without a second's hesitation. "The end."
Yes, many more women than ever have taken up perches on the green benches - but that's not the same as having access to the inner sanctum where decisions are made.
Yes, there are many more women working at senior levels in Whitehall - and all the main parties have made big efforts to get more women into parliament. But that's not the same as being listened to.
And yes, as part of Sir Keir Starmer's efforts to prop up his administration, three senior men have used the exit – the boss of the civil service, his chief of staff, and his head of communications, to be replaced, at least in part, by women.
But this week, a serving member of the cabinet, Lisa Nandy, suggested Labour had been operating as a "boys' club" and went on to complain "some of the briefings have absolutely been dripping with misogyny".
Don't just casually ignore one of Labour's most senior politicians suggesting - quite openly - that a clique of men have had too much sway in government, and some of them have used woman-hating as a political tool.’

Which is why we need a law change to make it criminal.