Labour’s trans guidance ‘poses danger to women’

[IwantToRetire]

New transgender guidance approved by Labour risks putting women in danger, say campaigners.

The updated code of practice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) states that information about sex is “sensitive” and should be treated as “special category data”.

Women’s rights campaigners have warned that the guidelines misinterpret data protection laws and put women at risk of “unlawful harassment”. Special category data refer to personal information that needs more protection because it is sensitive.

Maya Forstater, the chief executive of Sex Matters, said in the letter that she was “surprised and dismayed” to see the guidance on special category data, claiming it went significantly beyond the EHRC’s mandate.

She wrote: “These statements are wrong in both fact and law. For the vast majority of people, information about their sex is not sensitive, and it is very rarely possible for anyone to keep their sex private over sustained periods.

“Sex is not special category data. It is ordinary personal data which can be used routinely, just like other personal information such as name or age that must also be used fairly, lawfully and transparently with appropriate scrutiny.”

On Monday night, the Government opened the door to rewriting the guidance within days of its publication, saying it was “looking into” the concerns raised by campaigners.

Full article https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/05/25/campaigners-claim-labour-trans-guidance-risks-harassment/

Also at https://archive.is/J6Ttm

I think this was included on several of the many threads since "Guidelines" Published.

So posted as a new thread more for the last paragraph which seems to idicate Sex Maters has more than a little bit of influence!

Criticism post on 22 May, and response from Goverment on 25 May - a bank holiday!

I'm not talking about the success or failure of a lawsuit, I'm talking about the negative publicity, cost and stress you would incur as a service provider should you mistakingly turn away a woman who then wants to pursue the issue.

Pandering to trans people by making fitting rooms mixed sex earned Primark such bad publicity that the chain changed its policy.

Not a business but an institution, Sunderland Minster, has just found out about bad publicity when its dreadful policy on supposedly women's toilets became known
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5534815-sunderland-minster-refusing-to-comply-with-supreme-court-ruling?page=1

And so on and so on

They'll get sued by female users if they let men in. Lowest risk approach is to exclude all apparent males unless they can produce an original female birth certificate or FtM GRC, in which case, they're in. Job done. The question is whether they know that, or are still stuck on 😱what about the poor menz in dresses?

A moot point how? If providers insist on proof, this is the proof they can insist on.

They can insist on it but they can't rely on it being accurate. At the moment there is no way for them to reliably verify someone's sex through ID.

They'll get sued by female users if they let men in.

I think they can't be sued if they have done their due diligence in trying to keep out men. Obviously you can check IDs and ask, but some may still get in even with your best efforts.

original female birth certificate

The guidance didn't tell service providers they need to request an original birth certificate (who carries their birth certificate into a loo?). It would be great for them to do this but i can't imagine this is realistic.

It's going to be equally negative to have women customers bring lawsuits. These men and activists have made life hell for everyone, it seems a bit of a pattern really.

But let's be honest about this, it's not the borderline cases that are going to be the issue, they never have been. They are merely cited as the human shield for the men wanting into these spaces, where no one will have the slightest doubt for a second.

The SC made it clear that certificated sex was not biological sex, and if a 'Trans' IDing male was barred from entering the female toilets they couldn't bring a case for discrimination. They could of course instigate a pile-on by the Alphabetty Mafia which might generate bad feelings in the 'Trans' community, but if they're going to make that much trouble, who would want them as customers anyway.

An original birth certificate, issued before eighteen years old (typically within weeks of birth) is an accurate record of sex. What makes you think it isn’t?

I agree the guidance is poor. Service providers can exclude solely based on appearance if they want to. Provided they are careful about excluding transmen.

Fortunately transmen mostly don't pass, still have their original birth certificate, don't have a GRC, don't want to access women's services, don't look anything like transwomen, and aren't dickheads.

What makes you think it isn’t?

I never said it isn't accurate. It is 100% accurate.

The guidance however does not require service providers to ask to see someone's original birth certificate. Their duty of care, according to the law, does not require them to verify someone's original birth certificate in order to let someone use the toilet.

They have to exercise caution but they are not expected to go to extremes to find out someone's true sex (checking original birth certificates, genital checks, ringing the registry office).

Fake ID is relatively simple to produce when there's no photo involved like, for instance, with a birth certificate.

How are premises going to check if it's genuine; phone the local registry office at 10pm on a Saturday evening?

Interesting point - the pile on and associated boycott would likely mean that more trans-identifying customers would stop using facilities intended for the other biological sex.

ETA. If I was a service provider, the people protesting outside my business would also be prime candidates for my ban list

They can insist on it but they can't rely on it being accurate. At the moment there is no way for them to reliably verify someone's sex through ID.

Sounds like you don't think an original birth certificate is 100% accurate.

And no, providers don't have to transvestigate. They can just eject anyone who looks male, putting the onus on the user to prove otherwise.

I suppose a cunning transwoman could dress as a man, bring a fake original birth certificate, and claim to be a transman relying on the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. Or he could abseil in through a skylight, Mission Impossible style.

transmen mostly don't pass

I think quite a few transmen pass (definitely a lot more than transwomen).

The guidance is not bad it is just that people on here have unrealistic expectations. They expect service providers to run full backgrounds checks, calling local registry offices, asking to see medical records, asking to see original birth certificates, asking for baby photos, asking to conduct medical exams. So ridiculous

Service providers are not there to police the toilet. They are there to respond to claims that someone has seen a possible transwoman enter the woman's bathroom. They are expected to look into the issue and make a judgement based on the information in front of them, that is all.

Until the government says that service providers must ask to see an original birth certificate, then they are not expected to do so.

Sounds like you don't think an original birth certificate is 100% accurate.

Sounds like you didnt read what i wrote.

Or he could abseil in through a skylight, Mission Impossible style.

Or perhaps make his presence known with a jet-pack entrance

Sounds like you don't think an original birth certificate is 100% accurate.
Sounds like you didnt read what i wrote.

What you wrote was they can't rely on it being accurate. Does this have some meaning other than what it says, fairly unambiguously?

The guidance is not bad it is just that people on here have unrealistic expectations. They expect service providers to run full backgrounds checks, calling local registry offices, asking to see medical records, asking to see original birth certificates, asking for baby photos, asking to conduct medical exams. So ridiculous

At this point there is no requirement for any form of evidence - if there has been a complaint and the member of staff thinks it is warranted then the person gets asked to use the gender neutral facilities and if they don't they get asked to leave.

If the person thinks that they have been excluded incorrectly then they can sue the service provider.

If they are not asked to leave then the complainant has the option to sue the service provider.

No evidence is required at the 'point of complaint'

No evidence is required at the 'point of complaint'

I know but that is not the service providers fault. The mistake was made in 2004 when it became legal for people to change the sex on their ID. Until that is fixed, all services providers can reasonably do is go off their best judgement.

What you wrote was they can't rely on it being accurate. Does this have some meaning other than what it says, fairly unambiguously?

Most forms of ID are not reliable. Original birth certificates are but the guidance doesn't say that service providers have to request to see that (it tells them to simply ask). Realistically, no one is walking around with an original birth certificate, 99% if someone is asked to show ID it will be something like a drivers license (which is not reliable).

I think that a bigger issue than GRC holders being able to change their birth certificate is that the sex marker can be falsified on driving licences and passports without a GRC.

It is not only the service provider's best judgment, the process is started by a complaint or complaints from facility users.

For example - "this person has been toweling off his 'gentleman sausage' in the facilities meant for women, please would you ask him to leave"
If the response is - "..but I am woman and clearly not a robot, therefore I am a biological woman and allowed to use these facilities" - then the member of staff has to weigh up who they feel the company most wants to be sued by.

There is no requirement to show ID, so the accuracy of those documents is not relevant. (also no need to show medical records, birth certificates, genitals, DNA et al)

Which is reasonable.

It goes like this.

Signs say as per SC and therefore UK law, this [thing] is women-only / men-only by biological sex.

Everyone knows their own sex even if they pretend they don't understand what such a word could even mean because clownfish.

Most people obey even if they disagree.

Some entitled people won't. Some will be challenged and back down. Some will be challenged and double down. Some will sneak past unchallenged.

Of those, some will get away with it.

But that's how most laws and rules work.

They set the expectation and allow for enforcement and prosecution. They don't require 100% enforceability to be considered reasonable.

The illegality of rape, for example, is ultimately only enforceable after the event, boils down to he said/she said snd has a terrible reporting rate let alone conviction rate. Yet we all understand it's vitally important to women that rape is illegal because it makes the clear statement that this society thinks women's consent matters.

So yes, a few sneaky males will sneak in and be very pleased with themselves. A few daft allies will form one of those Dr Upton defense circles round their trans "woman" mate to huddle into the ladies and feel very smug they got one past the TERFs (as if a bunch of girls orientating themselves around a man is progressive!)

But that's no reason to throw our hands up and say nothing can be done.

The simple fact a woman can openly complain when a man appropriate our resources or enters our spaces without being told it's her attitude that is the problem is still a huge improvement.

Most people obey even if they disagree.
Some entitled people won't. Some will be challenged and back down. Some will be challenged and double down. Some will sneak past unchallenged.
Of those, some will get away with it.

Is speeding a good analogy here?

There's a lot of back-and-forth based on 'Supposing some arrogant male so-and-so insists on entering a women-only space, although the law is clear that he has no right to be there..'

How very far from 'The good men stay out, so the bad men stand out'.

Justice Swift in the GLP decision said
40 The notion that an employer or anyone else is required to “police” the use of a lavatory, person by person and day by day, reveals the application of a “logic” so strict that it is divorced from reality and from any sensible model of human behaviour.

Toilets could be very clearly labelled a THIS TOILET IS FOR THE USE OF BIOLOGICAL WOMEN ONLY./THIS TOILET IS FOR THE USE OF BIOLOGICAL MEN ONLY or a snappier version would be BIO WOMEN/BIO MEN.
indicating that toilets are segregated by biological sex, not gender.

You'll still get men who are hell-bent on using the women's toilet, like it's some kind of challenge or mission, but at least we can make it more obvious that they are transgressing - or as Sex Matters put it, deviating - by doing so.

Maybe they'll eventually just get bored and move on to being transgressive about something else...standing on the wrong side on escalators, putting pineapple on pizzas, or something.

putting pineapple on pizzas

There's noting deviant about that, you have pineapple on gammon and chips, why wouldn't you have pineapple on ham and pizza.

No 'Transing' the pizza. 😭

And while they sneak in and out of toilets sniggering -

they will not be in rape crisis services, refuges, hospital wards, women's prisons, strip searching women in police stations, demanding to be inflicted on women to play 'I'm a same sex hcp', or forcing themselves into women's groups.

I remember when India Willoughby waved about his female passport to prove that he was a women on question time. This didn't convince anyone then, and it won't if ask to leave the women's loo.

The immediate problem women have is if service providers pretend it does prove he's a woman. But I assume this attitude would put the provider at risk of sex discrimination?

Ok, that's about enough out of you! Pineapple on a pizza, I ask you ...

The immediate problem women have is if service providers pretend it does prove he's a woman. But I assume this attitude would put the provider at risk of sex discrimination?

Yes, and I hope so. I think we've had the answer already, somewhere, but there's been so much discussion now, I'm getting confused!