EHRC consultation - schools technical guidance

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/guidance/technical-guidance-schools-consultation

'This technical guidance explains schools’ legal obligations not to discriminate against, harass or victimise pupils, as set out in chapter 1 of Part 6 of the Equality Act 2010 (the Act).

The guidance is different in England, Scotland and Wales.

We are running a consultation on this guidance. You can access the consultations for each nation from this page'

'Technical guidance for schools consultation 2026

This technical guidance explains schools’ legal obligations not to discriminate against, harass or victimise pupils, as set out in chapter 1 of Part 6 of the Equality Act 2010 (the Act).
This guidance is not a statutory code issued under section 14 of the Equality Act 2006, but it may be used as evidence in legal proceedings.
We have updated the guidance to:

• include updates and developments in the law relating to types of discrimination and protected characteristic groups
• explain how the Act applies in different education settings and institutions like academies, special schools and school-based clubs
• clarify the interaction between the Act and other related laws
• explain how the Act applies in specific circumstances, for example where restraint, isolation and seclusion is used

We have developed guidance for each nation to reflect the differences in law across England, Scotland and Wales.

We are running this consultation to gather feedback on how clearly the guidance explains schools’ obligations under the equality act and whether we have accurately reflected the law.

You can access the guidance, consultation surveys and instructions on how to take part by selecting the links on this page.'

I was referring to individually lockable spaces

Safeguarding law exists, and conflicts with this activist lead, adult based interpretation of EA2010. In and of itself it is discriminating against children on the pc of age - to treat them exactly the same as adults with no regard for their developmental stage and the appropriateness of doing so.

'Age' is a PC but the government and its lawyers seem to totally ignore that PC because it's not all about adult men who can push their activist agenda.

The EHRC would have been better placed obtaining a robust legal opinion on the conflicts between safeguarding law and this interpretation of EA2010 which assumes adult agency for children (therefore discriminating on the pc of age) than producing this pile of shit at taxpayers expense. Proper legal analysis of where these collide is long overdue.

This is adultification.

In KCSIE it says that Safeguarding overrides GDPR where needed. It should also override EA2010 in my opinion where it's important, as it is here. The law has to make decisions about this sort of thing all the time, but because it's only safeguarding and only children who can't speak up for themselves, lawyers have been piss poor. You don't get rich being a lawyer protecting children, of course.

Emotional abuse in KCSIE includes this as part of its definition (direct quote)
". It may involve conveying to a child that they are worthless or unloved, inadequate, or valued only insofar as they meet the needs of another person. It may include verbal abuse, such as persistent criticism, belittling, or name-calling, as well as not giving the child opportunities to express their views, deliberately silencing them or ‘making fun’ of what they say or how they communicate. It may feature age or developmentally inappropriate expectations being imposed on children. These may include interactions that are beyond a child’s developmental capability "

Given no adult, including from within the EHRC, has yet produced a coherent definition of what the pc of 'gender reassignment' means for children of different ages, clearly making decisions on what happens to safeguard children on this basis is highly irresponsible and likely to cause harm. Children should be protected both under safeguarding and under EA2010 pc of age from developmentally inappropriate adultification. This does the opposite and pretty clearly conflicts with KCSIE.

It puts schools practically in an impossible situation too. What if there's no safe third space? What if ensuring there's adequate adult supervision of a third space means other children lose out on education, or SEND interventions? Is any of that 'reasonable'? Does it just depend on which activists / adults have the deepest pockets to bring court cases or kick up a fuss in terms of which children lose the most?

If we're going to let a child's view on whether or not they want to pretend to be a different sex to the one they were born take precedence, then why not let them get married, 'choose to' have sex, drink, get a job? I suspect those pushing this idiocy may have those goals further down the line tbh.

It's already been established that children cannot meaningfully consent to experimental surgery to help them pretend to change sex. Given this is true, children should not have the pc of 'gender reassignment' at all. Anything else is so poorly defined as to be meaningless and dangerous for the very children that those writing this rubbish purport to care about. Though they clearly don't, it's clearly ALL about adult wants here.

It's also disappointing to see such an incoherent mess published under the leadership of Mary-Ann Stephenson.

Yes, hoped for better there. And as @Cantunseeit says, it's just whackamole all the time with these bloody orgs. Thanks goodness that Sex Matters and Transgender Trend are on the case, indeed.

What an excellent post! Thank you for laying out so clearly the conflict between the rights of children versus adult activist demands

"Safeguarding law exists, and conflicts with this activist lead, adult based interpretation of EA2010. In and of itself it is discriminating against children on the pc of age - to treat them exactly the same as adults with no regard for their developmental stage and the appropriateness of doing so".

Maybe we can push for responses to the consultation to include the demand that the EHRC considers safeguarding children? Get them to explain why they assume that the pc of gender reassignment applies to babies, toddlers etc. and how that fits in with society's responsibility to safeguard the young? Expose their thinking and the influence of activists.

This should be an article in the national press. Well said.

Absolutely it should. Great post, very cogent. 👏

Thanks all, you'll give me a big head!

I also think this idea that getting children, who might just be going through a phase, to use a separate space and be seen as somehow different from the other children is a problem. It's adults making a decision that is hard wiring difference and that may not to go well for children in school.

Surely it's better that the child, formerly known as Dave, now Janine, who's decided to wear a skirt, is just treated like any other boy. This is how he'll be treated in the real world by normal people once he leaves school. Adults creating false expectations is not kind. Maybe it's kinder to expand the bandwith of what boys can wear (maybe some pics of David Beckham in his skirts would help!).

There's no awareness in this 'guidance' (pffft) that creating a separate space to pee itself may not be in the child's best interests and 'inclusion'. It's the opposite of 'inclusion' it's deliberate separation.

Is it really true that a boy who's used the boys toilets for years with no problems will suddenly need a separate one?

If he's been bullied in the toilets previously well then, this might be a reason for wanting to be considered a girl which isn't actually about 'gender dysphoria' and a deep inner adult identity, isn't it? The school should know about that and address that, because if he's been bullied it's likely other children will be too. Is every child who's been bullied in the school toilets afforded a separate space? If not, why not?

The framing is already so deeply inappropriate for children, especially primary aged children, it's more full of red flags than bunting and also denies the reality of schools in a very dangerous way.

'In KCSIE it says that Safeguarding overrides GDPR where needed. It should also override EA2010 '

Perhaps the DfE would be able to comment on that.

Safeguarding is a major problem if a child is isolated from its peers in a separate room, to which adults may have access. Such an arrangement would need a teacher or teaching assistant to supervise the child by checking the room and making sure no-one enters while the child is changing. This is impossible in a school setting especially if the child is using a teachers' changing area or lavatory, so this arrangement won't work. Also, the Cass review pointed out that social transition is not a neutral act and allowing a separate changing area would be a social transition - not at all helpful to the child and a safeguarding issue in its own right.

Yes. Add to that the issue of where clothes / possessions should be stored during the lesson if it's a toilet open to others, plus potential hygiene issues relating to changing in a toilet.
Schools are very good at thinking outside the box but this is "activist law" trying to determine how schools manage. As experience shows us, these activist proposals are never in children's best interests.

That's a good point. I believe that different government departments are meant to comment and flag issues that are problematic when looking at policy / legal proposals from other departments? It's meant to ensure that the right and left hand in government know what each other are doing. 🙄

So surely the DfE legal team should be flagging up the safeguarding implications of this? Unless of course they follow the Stonewall law where trans tops everything and the rights of vulnerable groups don't matter?

Cass only said that it’s not a neutral act. She didn’t recommend a blanket ban on social transition like some suggest.

More's the pity.

Indeed. The psychological harm done to young children by lying to them that they're the opposite sex is off the scale in terms of damage. I won't derail this thread by posting the link to the clinical psychologist who details how this works.

But I will point out that adults in schools & elsewhere who socially transition nursery and primary children are doing precisely what we've been discussing in recent posts.
Prioritising a disordered belief that takes advantage of the legal "error" that assumes that the pc of gender reassignment can apply to little children rather than safeguarding them from the extreme damage this does to them

I've been stewing over this a bit, exacerbated by one of my children's classrooms being evacuated for hours due to a highly dysregulated child whose needs were clearly not being met putting both the child and classmates in an unsafe situation.

This 'guidance' is such a waste of taxpayers money when the schools that are supposed to take heed (which hopefully they won't do - and stick to KCSIE) are struggling.

Practically this is going to be impossible. They don't have enough TAs or teachers to deliver SEND interventions which are (supposedly) legally required via EHCPs, The system is on its knees.

Many families who homeschool now do so TO SAFEGUARD their children because the system in schools is failing to meet needs.

And against this backdrop of no money and not enough staff (and retention and recruitment crises) schools are supposed to magic up the spaces and staff for safe use of third spaces for children who've been gaslit into believing they can change sex. FFS.

I hate the term 'check your privilege' but the people who came up with this bullshit need to go and spend a few weeks in a school before making so many assumptions in their bubble of entitlement.

"And against this backdrop of no money and not enough staff (and retention and recruitment crises) schools are supposed to magic up the spaces and staff for safe use of third spaces for children who've been gaslit into believing they can change sex. FFS".

Not to mention staff and students having to do the pronoun dance, the PE curriculum / changing rooms etc having to be negotiated, activists and certain parents weighing in with their views and demands. My school once got a letter from a transactivist organisation when we told a girl thinking she was a boy that she couldn't share a dormitory with boys on a field trip.
The staff cancelled the trip rather than compromise safeguarding.

That's the reality of all this and it's so disappointing to see the EHRC trying to erode the steps the DfE have taken to restore the rights and safety of all children.

With the SEND and home schooling situations changing the pressure is going to be piled on the system in the next couple of years, not lessened.

The change to the regulated activity threshold means that any volunteer working with children on more than 3 days in any 30-day period or overnight , requires an Enhanced DBS check with Children’s Barred List. This could potentially include some of your members who regularly give talks to schools.

I imagine this means that a company like Diversity Role Models will simply ensure that they don't sign up for more than 3 sessions per school per month, which should be fairly easy for them to arrange.

I do appreciate that these new rules are focused on safeguarding, but I hope the safeguarding rules for days 1-3 are stringent enough!

it's so disappointing to see the EHRC trying to erode the steps the DfE have taken to restore the rights and safety of all children.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. I'd like to know why they are doing this. I assume it's activists within the EHRC trying to get around the DfE guidance, or at least trying to introduce confusion and precedent for those school staff who don't understand or don't want to understand the DfE guidance.

But, the DfE guidance is statutory, isn't it?

I'm not sure what you think contradicts KCSIE. Third space changing rooms, having to use preferred pronouns or avoid using them, allowing boys into girls' PE groups, they're all in KCSIE as well, saying the same things.

KCSIE says that schools should not initiate social transition, using wrong-sex pronouns IS social transition. Using no pronouns one could argue is also social transition as it's clearly not normal language usage.

KCSIE says that social transition should only happen in extremely rare circumstances with the involvement of medical oversight. This document seems to suggest as soon as any child says 'I feel a bit like the opposite sex' they've got the pc of gender reassignment and that's enough for all these changes which amount to social transition. So there is a huge gulf between what KCSIE is saying and this document.

KCSIE is safeguarding focused. This 'guidance' is focused only on one PC in the EA 2010 and is in direct conflict with other PCs and safeguarding law (in my opinion). There is absolutely no attempt to consider other PCs, especially age, age appropriateness for safeguarding and the appropriateness for safeguarding of treating children like mini-adults with fixed identities, no matter their age.

There is also no meaningful definition of 'gender reassignment' in the context of schools or children. If schools should not initiate social transition as per KCSIE, then there will be virtually no child with the pc of 'gender reassignment' in schools because they also now can't get physical treatments (due to the lack of medical evidence of benefit), and for any child who could conceivably fall under this umbrella, they'll have a medical team around them. So I'm sure that can be dealt with on a case by case basis as for every child who is under complex medical care with a medical team around them. It's certainly the case that the advice from that medical team about what's best for the wellbeing and mental health of that child in a specific school context (with some knowledge of physical and staffing constraints to accommodations in the school) is going to be better than some vague theoretical 'guidance' by people with no knowledge of real school life.

Then the rest of the children can get on with appropriate sex-based safeguarding and not being used as validation props (emotional abuse) for an adult ideology.

Maybe have a read of the thread? There's lots of explanation from those knowledgeable about safeguarding and working in schools who have clarified all the areas where the EHRC technical guidance conflicts with the careful changes that centre children's safety in KCSIE & other DfE guidance.

Edited to add that I've just realised that @womendeserveequalhumanrights has explained it perfectly for you 🙂

I often think about reasonable adjustments in relation to medically vulnerable pupils. Many children have medical conditions that go to mainstream schools. For example it’s estimated around 9 children will have epilepsy in an average secondary school.

I have had really worried parents chat to me about their children attending school with such conditions as epilepsy, diabetes, allergies because there is a constant worry that if they collapse they need to be seen. Most children will end up rushing to the toilet is they feel nauseous which may be a precursor to a bigger medical event.

In the not such distant past the standard design had a 15cm floor-door gap so that was a safeguard. The cubicles were single sex, semi-private, in a washroom private to that particular sex. If a child collapsed, it would be obvious.

Then mixed sex cubicles or single sex cubicles within a mixed sex open washbasin area began fashionable. In these designs, not risk assessed, as far as I can get with FOIs, mean the design is completely private.

School toilet cubicles can still have doors and partitions that finish upto 15cm above floor level. However it is an option. And I have never seen it done for a mixed sex environment (unless a school has just relabelled the single sex designs to mixed sex).

There is also a problem with toilets being refuges for children in mental health crises. We need to be able to know the child is having a mental health crisis quickly.

The Health and Safety Executive have an example of a reasonable adjustment in a toilet for a man with prostate cancer to have a special sanitary bin. I think door gaps are more than a reasonable adjustment.

If anyone is going through this document, please could you make the case for single sex toilets having cubicles that are not fully enclosed to protect children, particularly girls from assaults, and to protect children from harm. This affects medically vulnerable children’s rights to a safe environment. This should have been covered under statutory measures such as https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5ce6a72e40f0b620a103bd53/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions.pdf

yet there are many schools that now do not have suitable toilets because of ‘inclusion’ of both sexes in the environment around the cubicle.

Using no pronouns one could argue is also social transition as it's clearly not normal language usage.

I don't see how this could be social transition. But I fully agree it's not normal language usage.

I use exactly this approach with trans-identifying children so that I avoid the whole issue of social transition entirely whilst also not using sex-based pronouns that may cause unnecessary upset and/or a communication barrier.

I also use it for trans-identifying adults but for a different reason: I will not pretend that I believe everyone has a gender identity by using pronouns that differ from people's sex. This reason also applies to children but it's not my primary reason.

Avoiding pronouns entirely, including "they" which would be a social transition in my view, does take effort but it removes the subject of gender identity from the table. This means that support can be given without gender identity needing to be a part of it. For example, an autistic child going through sensory issues with puberty (e.g. breast development, periods, facial hair growth) can talk about how difficult this is without bringing "gender" into play.

If children do open about about what's distressing them about their body, an adult can listen without affirming or pushing back. There could be all sorts of reasons why a child is focused on their body, including issues which relate to gaining back a feeling of control if experiencing trauma or overwhelm, such as with anorexia or following a sexual assault.