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!

My hope is that the SC ruling and EHRC guidance will lead to a drop in numbers of young people believing that the solution to all their problems is to declare themselves to be the opposite sex. The affirmation of using opposite sex facilities is no longer available, at least not without the risk of being questioned, which in itself is pretty non-affirming. Even the act of deciding whether to use opposite sex, same sex or gender neutral facilities forces the person to recognise that they have not changed sex and that few people actually believe that they have. Hopefully many of the young people not too deeply embedded in the 'community' will find better ways to manage their mental health problems.

Even the act of deciding whether to use opposite sex, same sex or gender neutral facilities forces the person to recognise that they have not changed sex

That's a really interesting point I hadn't heard before. I wonder if, psychologically, it really will make a difference? That, eventually, it will just become second nature, and society will revert back to something resembling what it was 15 years ago.

We need Read some Piaget please! to write an article on it.

Hopefully many of the young people not too deeply embedded in the 'community' will find better ways to manage their mental health problems.

We need to get it out of the schools, so it's not even 'presented' as a possibility.

TRA Mission Accomplished🙁
Confusion is a tactic, isn't it?
Everything is so very complicated, words don't mean what you think they mean, yes but what if..., can you clarify the clarification of the last clarification..etc etc.

Shows how one 'be kind' lie (letting people change sex marker on ID) causes so many later issues.

I think that the real underlying problem is the existence of service providers who are gender-addled. They know what sex people are just as well as the rest of us, but like to think that it's complicated, and that by letting in transwomen they are sticking it to the transphobic 'man'.

They need to be repeatedly told until they get it, that when they provide a women-only service, they will be in legal jeopardy unless they take all reasonable steps to exclude people who look like men (a class of person that 99.9% maps onto actual men).

What's reasonable will depend on context. If safety (DV refuge) or fairness (sport) is at issue, authoritative proof might always be necessary. Otherwise, a request to use a gender neutral alternative, based on appearance only, might be enough. If the service user is female, they can prove it if they want to, but they don't have to if a gender-neutral alternative is adequate to their needs (which btw it has to be, to avoid discrimination against trans people).

Hopefully the legal commentariat will clarify this in the coming months. Although of course people like Maugham will be trying to do the opposite.

The guidance itself is not really a model of elegance and clarity.

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

It is also a return to the status quo ante; this was the state of play during my entire life until the past, oh, ten or fifteen years. When I was a child girls were taught that if a man was being objectionable, we could always duck into a ladies where he couldn't follow us and wait until an adult woman came in, then ask her for her help or escort to get past him. Also that if a man came in and we screamed loudly, help would almost certainly arrive in short order. (Even if a man had to come into the ladies to chuck the perve perp out.)

None of this "screaming is a bigoted hate crime" nonsense back then.

The guidance itself is not really a model of elegance and clarity.

😂Love this! I wonder if it was before Bridget's minions got their hands on it? Surprisingly, I think not, but they definitely didn't make it any clearer (where's the incentive?)

The guidance becomes pretty much a model of clarity if we go back to a situation where government documents accurately display sex.

Sadly it’s outside the EHRC’s responsibility to opine on ID and documentation issues - it has to play the hand it’s dealt.

The deviant GLP case could be a godsend.

If it were (and this is theorectical) to find that men ignoring single sex spaces and invading women's toilets etc, were indeed deviating from the law and violating women's privacy and dignity - it would then class these men as essentially firmly as pervs if only in layman's terms.

It makes Jolyon's gambit particularly high risk for trans people. Not only could it reaffirm women's rights and the law as it stands with an emphasis on safeguarding but it would also highlight people breaking safeguarding as basically antisocial. That would be a spectacular own goal.

If a judgement were to go the other way, I don't think it poses such a risk for women purely because it makes the public in general situation up and go wtf and you will get eventual roll back albeit it slower.

I have no idea what Jolyon is playing at. Playing for such high risk cases which are lose-lose even if successful is utterly bizarre. It's either 5th column or total brainwashed cult thinking. It's not professional. Jolyon is definitely going to get my vote for TERF of the year at this rate.

Is there a legal basis for this?

He seems to just be collecting complaints of the 'they said something nasty about me' type.

Two can play at that game, but would the Charities Commission be interested?

It opens up these conversations about deviancy regardless.

And don't be surprised if he takes it further anyway.

Do you mean will the charity commission be interested in complaints about GLP?

If so, no because GLP aren't a charity

Chaos gremlins.

Needs met by endless boundary pushing and arguing and drama. It does seem to be behaviour a lot of activists show.

Didn't the GLP just change all that anyway because they didn't like the moving goalposts or something of the commission?

Oh, it's worse than that.

GLP was never a charity. I quote from their website announcing the change of ownership structure.

"When Good Law Project was set up in 2017 by Jolyon Maugham he wanted the public interest features of a charity but outside of the moving political guardrails policed by the Charity Commission. So he adopted a structure which mirrored many of the features of charities.

Charities don’t exist to make a profit and can’t declare dividends so Good Law Project was set up as a not for profit company limited by guarantee – such companies can’t declare dividends – and an asset ‘lock’ was added to prevent its assets from being gifted or sold at an undervalue."

Note the use of the word "guardrails". Guardrails, we all know, exist for safety's sake. The vulpicide and his pet project have no time for safety, evidently.

https://goodlawproject.org/our-ownership-structure-is-changing/