Trans guidance for civil servants must stay secret, ministers say

[IwantToRetire]

Ministers have refused to publish transgender guidance for civil servants, raising concerns about whether the rules respect women’s rights.

The rules about <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/vIObJ/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/03/civil-servants-defy-official-trans-guidance/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">how transgender civil servants should be treated at work were sent to government departments in May.

But the Cabinet Office refused to share the draft policy with The Telegraph because “ministers and officials may not feel comfortable sharing their views”.

This decision not to publish the guidance has raised concerns that it may not respect women’s rights, with Claire Coutinho, the shadow minister for women and equalities, accusing Labour of “running scared of scrutiny”.

Full article at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/07/18/trans-guidance-civil-servants-stay-secret-ministers-say/ and at https://archive.is/vIObJ

All polling data shows the electorate is happy for trans-identifying people to have the same rights as everyone else, but that they do not believe that they should be able to access opportunities and facilities meant for the opposite sex.

Getting one step closer to me launching my campaign for the recognition and rights of People of Female Body.

We are the female half of the human species. We welcome people of all genders who are of Female Body and deal with the reality of being Of Female Body in a scoiety shaped by the default Male.

The ignorant muddling of Female and Woman through history has given us an entwined history, deep mutual understanding and many common concerns and challenges and because of this we feel deep kinship with women. We appreciate and respect women. Many of us even identify as women. However, we recognise that Women are a diverse group that does not depend on sex and just because a person has a female body we should not assume she is a women, or vice versa.

So out of respect for and solidarity with Transwomen, those most marginalised of women, when speaking of the needs and existemce of People of Female Body, we will never use the word woman for ourselves. We are and always will be People of Female Body.

And for both ourselves and for our transwomen sisters, we demand the right to be seen in our own right, decoupling our voices and our rights and our spaces from "women" altogther.

Shockingly, for far too long the existence of transwomen among women was never recognised. And this transphobia meant that female-only rights, spaces and protections, things that were put in place specifically to mitigate the risks and challenges faced by we of Female Body, were wrongly labelled "women's rights. spaces and protections", erasing transwomen's needs, experiences and very existence.

We seek to right this historic wrong and challenge the old offensive idea that women had to be female by making it clear that so-called "Women's" provisions are nothing to do with woman at all, they are and always were for People of Female Body.

We will take back those things for People of Female Body, thereby both regaining the truth of our sex from the gender stereotypes of the past and freeing women to stand proud as the beautiful mixed sex group they truly are.

Join me! Fight for People of Female Body. WE WILL HAVE LANYARDS!!!

FlirtsWithRhinos Lanyards - and cake too, right?

Thanks for the update.

I wonder if they will make changes?

I am sorry you have to deal with this on a first hand daily basis.

The DEFRA case is demonstrating precisely why SEEN needs to exist and exactly what it is fighting against for women and gay people - while being called 'hateful' and a threat merely for existing at all.

If women and gay people being allowed legal protections and equality is merely 'picking on trans people' in your view, then I really can't help you.

😂

Considering a lady recently won a disability discrimination case against Manchester Uni on the use of pronouns and a pay out of £51k they are going to have to be careful on what they say they will do and how they enforce it.

I'm pretty sure SEEN were consulted on it. An email went round about it.

I've put the Seen logo in my email signature as a tiny act of defiance. If other people can have LGBTQ++ or whatever it is, I'm their signatures, I should be allowed the SEEN one. So far I've only had positive responses.

If you need to get an understanding of what ‘the electorate’ ie the UK population think about the topics that would be relevant to the Civil Service guidance, here is a thread with lots of links. Including one the Labour Party did for the general election.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5445880-statistics-poll-evidence-archive-thread?page=1

Maybe you need to get a better understanding of what the electorate thinks before attempting to shame people for having discussions you, personally, disagree with.

The guidance is to ask people to use toilets and spaces appropriate for biological sex but they will not actively enforce it, as they say it isn’t possible.

Generations of babcie klozetowe (“toilet grandmothers”) all over central and eastern Europe would disagree!! Those ladies might’ve been mean with the little squares of toilet paper, but they sure as hell always knew who to let in and who to keep out of which toilets. I bet some veterans could make themselves available for consultation if the UK Cabinet Office would like to engage them at a competitive price.

I haven’t shamed people for having a discussion. But you’re right I do disagree with anti trans bigotry (obviously), and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to point out that mumsnet is well known for anti trans activism and radicalisation. If you think the strength of feeling here is representative of most other environments in the country, you’re wrong.

In France & Belgium we used to have Madame Pipi although it must be twenty years since I last saw one.

fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dame_pipi

I speak to women all the time who disagree that male people should be accessing female single sex provisions.

You are making false generalisations that you have fuck all evidence to support and you are basing those generalisations on your own prejudiced view.

And it is not credible for you to deny that “I don’t think ‘the electorate’ is as obsessed with picking on trans people as mumsnet, tbh.” and “and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to point out that mumsnet is well known for anti trans activism and radicalisation” is you posting a moralistic judgement based on your own uninformed prejudice.

A judgement intended to shame anyone who disagrees with you.

Ok. I know that you must already know this is a weird echo chamber, so I won’t fight you on it. I’m just going to keep on being respectful to my trans and non binary colleagues in the real world.

You’re entitled to your opinions, but others are free to judge you for them (and they will). That’s consequences 🤷‍♀️

What does 'being respectful...trans....non binary siblings...involve?

How big is your family that you have many siblings to het involved with? Is there something in the trifle at your house?

Have you misread colleagues as siblings?

Would you like to tell us whether you agree that male people should be fully excluded from using female single sex provisions (from the age of about 8 years old) regardless of whether that male person has a transgender identity or not?

If trans identifying men stayed out of women's single sex spaces (their legal right) there would be no issue, now would there?

Why are you supporting the illegal behaviour of these men and not supporting women's legal rights?

Disagree away. Just expect that any falsehoods such has spurious claims about the electorate disagreeing with people discussing the need for single sex provisions to be pointed out as being unevidenced false generalisations that are very easily disproved.

Lot of words to say i don't have any answers and can't explain why men should be allowed in women's spaces just because they wear a skirt

Are you able to define the difference between "having a discussion" and "anti-trans bigotry"? Because all I've ever seen on trans Reddit or Bluesky the two are treated as synonymous. And even the most innocuous and polite of questions will get people banned.

Blimey.

“You’re entitled to your opinions, but others are free to judge you for them (and they will). That’s consequences 🤷‍♀️”

This really is the posting of an uninformed person who fully believes they are on the right side of history but cannot formulate an articulate and evidenced or at least logically reasoned argument.

it is just the usual ‘you are all bigots’ type post.

MN is what happens when women educate themselves about what TRActivists are actually really maening when they say TWAW for instead of assuming "they" couldn't possibly mean that" - where that is cocks in women's bogs and changing rooms, men fighting as "women" in contact sports, rapists jailed in female prisons, men taking women's awards, achievements and first-woman-tos... and so on.

Trust me, when women realise the kind gentle transwomen of their imagination who are ever-so demurely grateful for women's generous indulgence in allowing them into our spaces and certainly wouldn't dream of forcing themselves ahead of women in women's own spaces, rights and opportunities are NOT who is actually under discussion here, they soon change their opinions!

Tells you everything you ned to know. Wrong pronouns = disciplinary; wrong toilets or changing rooms = just crack on mate.

How women in the civil service are managing to not simply explode with fury is beyond me. I suppose it's because they know that there is no way that they would be listened to, or their views considered WORIADS. I'm beyond angry at these bastards.