Trade unions vow to fight against single-sex spaces

Eight trade unions, including Unison, Unite and the National Union of Students, have voiced strong opposition to new Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) guidance on single-sex spaces and pledged to resist its implementation. The code of practice, which came into force earlier this month, requires toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards and refuges to be allocated according to a person's biological sex rather than their gender identity, following a Supreme Court ruling last April that defined "woman" in law by reference to biological sex.

Unison, which has 1.3 million members, said over 600 members had reported the guidance was "unworkable" and that some employers had scrapped trans equality policies as a result; general secretary Andrea Egan vowed to "take the fight to every workplace." The NUS, representing seven million students, is urging activists to display trans rights posters and set up "inclusive sports teams" in protest, with the union's Avery Greatorex calling the guidance "ideologically motivated." Other critical unions include the GMB, the British Medical Association and the University and College Union. Sex-based rights group Sex Matters accused unions of prioritising "trans-identifying men" over women's safety, while equalities minister Bridget Phillipson insisted the guidance preserves "clear protections" for trans people alongside safe single-sex spaces such as refuges.