Gwent Police has scrapped a policy that told women officers and staff to share toilets, changing rooms and showers with transgender colleagues based on their presented gender rather than biological sex, following the threat of legal action from a women's rights group. The force had been criticised for breaching new equality guidance after the Equality and Human Rights Commission's updated code of practice, approved by ministers, stated that single-sex spaces should be based on biological sex and that trans people should instead be offered gender-neutral facilities, in line with last year's Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman under the Equality Act.

The Mail first revealed in May that the Women's Rights Network had threatened Gwent Police with legal action over its "Transitioning in the Workplace" policy, which stated that trans staff could use facilities matching their presented gender from their first day of transitioning. Gwent Police says the policy was actually withdrawn several months ago and that a revised version is out for consultation with staff networks, though it has yet to be published. Cathy Larkman of the Women's Rights Network welcomed the withdrawal but criticised the force for delaying a replacement policy and for needing the threat of legal action to comply with the law, calling it "an abject failure of police leadership".