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

What is correctly going by the update?

What’s proportionate ie point one below?

Well yes but eventually then we will get politicians who better represent the overwhelming view of the public. So the by-election could be extremely interesting.

I can't remember where on here I saw it but someone said it's about basic competence as much as women's rights and child safeguarding and I agree. Also about trust, if you claim that human biological sex is 'complicated' you're not to be trusted. It's about as basic as it gets to recognise sex matters for safety in some circumstances.

Honestly I'm hoping Pete Robert the plumber wins and I hope he makes it clear that he knows what a woman is. Most plumbers I've met do.

Maybe we'd have a better country if we just sacked all current politicians and randomly chose plumbers and people from other working class reality based jobs via lottery.

The EHRC were a major part of how we’ve got to this point. It’s always quite funny to see TRAs raging against them and saying they have no authority when they were quite happy to brandish previous guidance which favoured them to “prove” that women had no rights. Baroness Falkner, who at great personal cost turned the ship around, was an inspired appointment and we all owe her a debt of gratitude.

I see the EHRC is keeping a low profile:

Latest update

On 21 May 2026, the Minister for Women and Equalities laid our updated code of practice for services, public functions and associations in Parliament.

Parliament has 40 days from the laying date to review the code. If Parliament does not disapprove the code, the UK government will set a date for it to come into force and we will publish it on our website.

You should check this page for any updates.

Once the code is in force, it will have legal status as a statutory code of practice on how service providers, public functions and associations can meet the duties set out in the Equality Act 2010.

Read the draft code on the GOV.UK website

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/equality/equality-act-2010/codes-practice/code-practice-services-public-functions-and-0

(Sorry bit of a side track from OP purpose.)

I wonder, where does that leave somebody like the NHS staff who told a woman who was raped on a ward by a transwoman that it couldn't have happened because "there were no men on the ward". Are they going to be able to hide behind saying that sex is "sensitive information" and can't be shared?

Reform say they will repeal the Equality Act on the first day of a Reform government (Suella Braverman speech on the 17th Feb). This means that the EHRC, and all its guidance, will also be abolished.

Not necessarily. The Equality Act 2010 is the one that gets all the attention. But the EHRC is a creature of the Equality Act 2006 - a totally different statute.

Of course they may repeal both. But that's not the immediate meaning of "repeal the Equality Act".

Jesus

That's the 2010 Equality Act which is the main legal protection women have against discrimination?

Another example of how Reform forming a government would be an absolute shitshow

And it (correctly) points out that there are no documents that any one can produce to prove their sex. That being so is not a defect of the guidance; it's a fault of the government, and it's not wrong to point that out.

Well it depends what, if anything, they replace it with. The EA2010 hasn't really worked out that well for all the victims of men in women's spaces has it? Katie Dolatowski's victims for a start and the list is long....

Goodness only knows the number of women sexually assaulted in the NHS because of their mixed sex by stealth policies. They cover it up so we don't even know.

Ah, interesting - I had assumed that the 2006 Act had been subsumed into the 2010 Act and repealed in the same way that the Sex Discrimination Act and Race Relations Act were.

Very.good.point.

Saying “sex” is sensitive under GDPR will be an absolute pain for millions of organisations. Think how many membership forms ask name & sex (or gender) and now they will have to have detailed data protection policies on everything. Crazy.

Yes, that leapt out at me too!

Thousands of words of 'guidance' and they still don't know the difference between sex and gender

The EA covers a lot more than that - it replaced the equal pay act, the race relations act, the disability discrimination act and much other legislation. Without it, it is perfectly legal for an employer to fire a woman simply for being pregnant, or to refuse to hire black or Jewish people.

I don't know what Reform would replace it with either - and neither I suspect do they. But assuming they really mean to repeal it on day one, there would be a long window before new legislation can be brought in during which British citizens have virtually no protection against discrimination on grounds of sex, age, religion, disability, race, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, or gender reassignment.

Yep.

That’s the Equality Act 2010 which rolled up the Race Relations Act, the Equal Pay Act, the Sex Discrimination Act & much else… leaving us with no protection against discrimination on grounds of age, belief, disability, maternity & pregnancy, sex & sexual orientation etc.

That’s the Equality Act which allowed Maya Forstater, Sandie Peggie, the Darlington Nurses, the woman currently suing Manchester City Council & others to bring and win their cases.

The Greens want to remove the protection of sex, Reform wants to remove the lot.

Be careful what you wish for.

But, was sex a sensitive characteristic under GDPR before today's guidance? The guidance can't change the law, so if sex wasn't sensitive before today, it shouldn't be now, just because of the guidance.

And is GDPR governed by the EA anyway? Where does it say in the EA that sex is a sensitive characteristic?

Sorry if I have misunderstood completely.

The one that made me laugh was about a hypothetical trans woman rejected because they want a man for the job. Aside from the implied lack of GOR for a man, a trans woman IS a man FFS.

I believe it is not, & that this may be an error.

(not my insight: Trina Budge on x)

Would that not fall down on protections for beliefs though. It would exclude women of certain religions from using facilities which may be attended by men.

Schedule 27 of the 2010 Act lists the repeals, which include only limited parts of the 2006 Act:

Equality Act 2006
Section 25.
Section 26.
Section 33.
Section 43.

Part 2.
Section 81
Part 4.
In Section 94(3) “and 41 to 56” and “and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995(c.50)”.
In Schedule 3, paragraphs 6 to 35 and paragraphs 40 to 56.

The EHRC is created and described in ss1-35, most of which stays.

This is a bit of a mess. How can it possibly be lawful to exclude trans men from men’s services and from women’s services? Why on earth has that been included?

Because men are also entitled to privacy and dignity, and women may be alarmed by someone who appears male in a single sex space.

Special category data (from the ico website)

The UK GDPR defines special category data as:

personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin;
personal data revealing political opinions;
personal data revealing religious or philosophical beliefs;
personal data revealing trade union membership;
genetic data;
biometric data (where used for identification purposes);
data concerning health;
data concerning a person’s sex life; and
data concerning a person’s sexual orientation.

Iwanttoretire kindly posted a link (at 18:25) to the Sex Matters response - their response says that the idea that sex is likely to constitute special category data for the purposes of the DPA is ‘wrong in law’
which is interesting!