In a move that has sparked widespread debate and concern across the United Kingdom, more than 650 businesses and organizations have signed a letter to the government denouncing proposed guidance that would ban trans women from accessing single-sex spaces. The guidance, which is rooted in a recent UK Supreme Court ruling, has ignited a fierce conversation about the balance between legal definitions, human rights, and the practical realities faced by both businesses and the LGBTQ+ community.
Back in April 2025, the UK Supreme Court issued a landmark decision clarifying that, within the Equality Act, the legal definition of ‘woman’ refers exclusively to biological sex. According to reporting from GCN (Gay Community News), this ruling tasked the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) with providing guidance on how these definitions should be interpreted and enforced across various sectors, including schools, hospitals, leisure centres, and cinemas.
Earlier this September, the EHRC delivered a final draft of its guidance to Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson. While the document itself has yet to be released to the public, sources suggest it will instruct institutions to ban trans women from using single-sex spaces, a move that has already triggered a wave of criticism from business leaders, legal experts, and human rights advocates alike.
Among the most vocal critics are some of the UK’s most prominent companies, including Ben & Jerry’s, Lucy & Yak, and Lush Cosmetics. In their letter to Minister Phillipson and Business Secretary Peter Kyle, these organizations argue that the proposed guidance is “unworkable” and “incompatible with modern business values.” The letter warns, “Any final code similar to this draft would tell organisations that we must adopt practices that are incompatible with modern business values, create unworkable operational challenges, and cause significant economic harm.”
The signatories, representing a diverse cross-section of the British economy, emphasized that many have spent years cultivating inclusive environments. “These proposals would tell us to act in ways that directly contradict those commitments; undermining trust, damaging reputations, and risking the loss of valued staff and customers,” the letter continues. The businesses also highlighted the legal risks, noting that the guidance could expose them to “constant risk of complaints and litigation from multiple directions,” and force staff into the uncomfortable and invasive role of “gender police.”
The letter further contends that such practices are likely impossible to implement without breaching Article 8 of The Human Rights Act, which protects the right to privacy, and could also result in discrimination against trans customers and colleagues. As the letter succinctly puts it, “Such practices are not only deeply invasive, but likely impossible to implement without breaching Article 8 of The Human Rights Act, which protects rights to privacy, and risking discriminating against valued trans customers and colleagues.”
Jude Guaitamacchi, founder of the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance, added their voice to the growing chorus of dissent. “Hundreds of businesses, large and small, have signed this letter to tell politicians to fix this mess before they are forced into conflict with their own values and have to deal with impossible operational challenges,” Guaitamacchi stated, as reported by GCN. “The EHRC’s draft fails to respect trans people’s human rights, and would make the UK an international outlier.”
Legal experts have also weighed in, warning that the Supreme Court’s ruling may be widely misunderstood or misapplied. Oscar Davies, the UK’s first out non-binary barrister, offered a pointed critique in an interview with PinkNews. Davies explained that while the Supreme Court’s decision in the FWS v Scottish Ministers case determined that the Equality Act’s definition of sex refers to “biological sex” and that “woman” means “biological woman,” it does not necessarily mandate the exclusion of trans people from single-sex spaces.
“A general rule [of equality law] is that you must not discriminate against someone,” Davies told PinkNews. “Say if we’re talking about service provision in gyms, under Section 29 [of the 2010 Equality Act], you must not discriminate against anyone and that applies for services. You then have what’s called the carve-out, or an exception, to the rule, which in this case is single-sex spaces, which is Schedule 3 of the Equality Act. That says in some circumstances, having a separate or single-sex space can be justified.”
According to Davies, the law is fundamentally permissive rather than exclusionary. “Now, the Supreme Court has said, ‘OK, well, a single-sex space means a space for biological sex,’ but the point here is that these provisions are permissive rather than exclusionary. This is where everyone keeps getting it wrong.” Davies further argued that the Equality Act is “meant to be a shield rather than a sword,” protecting people rather than being used to exclude them. Exclusion, they noted, must be proportionate and take into account the rights of both the complainant and the trans person involved.
The process by which the EHRC’s code is being updated has also come under fire. Human rights and LGBTQ+ groups have criticized the commission’s “rushed” public consultation, which gave the public just six weeks to respond. The final draft, now with Minister Phillipson, is set to be approved without a parliamentary debate—a departure from the norm for such a contentious issue. Davies commented, “Whenever something highly political is going to affect the rights of tons of people, there should always be a democratic debate. There should always be transparency and public accountability.”
Davies also expressed frustration at the Supreme Court’s failure to consider non-binary and intersex people in its ruling, calling it “demeaning as a lawyer to not be recognised by the law that I use in my everyday life.” They pointed out that the ruling’s language—defining sex in strictly biological terms—leaves non-binary and intersex individuals in a legal grey area. “If I’m discriminated against because I’m non-binary, someone takes issue with me being non-binary, and they do this or that because I’m non-binary, would I be able to sue them for discrimination? Potentially not. It’s not super clear.”
With the EHRC’s chair, Baroness Kishwer Falkner, soon to step down, concerns about accountability are mounting. Davies stated, “Baroness Kishwer Falkner’s term is ending soon, and so she’s just going to leave and has made this law, and there’s no accountability. It’s not really fair to anyone.”
Amid these developments, advocacy groups are urging the public to contact their MPs and demand greater scrutiny before the code becomes law. TransActual director Keyene Walker told PinkNews that such a “major change” to UK law should not be approved without thorough parliamentary and public examination.
As the UK stands at a crossroads, the debate over the definition of sex, the rights of trans and non-binary people, and the responsibilities of businesses and lawmakers continues to intensify. The coming weeks may well determine whether the country moves toward greater inclusion or entrenched division.
