The EHRC's Single-Sex Code Is Now Law in Practice. Trans Groups Are Suing to Stop It.

Back in May, we told you the EHRC’s revised Code of Practice on single-sex services had been laid before Parliament, starting a forty-day clock that would decide whether it became binding guidance. Parliament didn’t disapprove it. On August 5, the code came into force across England, Scotland and Wales — and within hours, trans rights groups had filed the first paperwork to challenge it in court.

What actually changed on August 5

The code translates last year’s Supreme Court ruling in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers — which held that “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 means biological sex — into operational rules for everyday service providers. As of this month, it’s no longer a draft sitting in Westminster; it’s the statutory text that gyms, hospitals, refuges, sports clubs and public bodies are expected to follow when deciding who can use which facility.

The scale of what’s affected is not small. According to reporting on the rollout, more than 13,000 toilets, 5,000 changing rooms and 18,000 signs across the UK fall within the guidance’s scope. Organizations that operate single-sex spaces — women’s refuges, changing rooms, some support groups — are now expected to define those spaces by biological sex, not gender identity. Where that leaves trans people without an appropriate facility, the code introduces a new requirement: providers must offer a “third” or gender-neutral space instead.

It’s worth repeating what we said in May, because it’s still true and still gets lost in the noise: the code is not primary legislation. It’s statutory guidance that courts and tribunals must “take into account,” not a criminal law. But in practice, for the institutions that run Britain’s public spaces, it functions as the rulebook.

The legal challenge

Good Law Project, working with an unidentified trans claimant and several trans-inclusive organizations, filed a pre-action protocol letter against the UK government and the EHRC on the same day the code took effect — the formal first step before a judicial review claim can be filed in court.

Jess O’Thomson, Good Law Project’s trans rights lead, didn’t mince words in the group’s announcement: “It’s difficult to believe just how far backwards our government has gone on trans human rights. This Labour government pushed through its transphobic guidance in the face of opposition from many MPs, including nearly a hundred of its own backbenchers. It’s not just immensely harmful. We think it’s unlawful, and completely against human rights. So this challenge is absolutely essential.”

Alexandra Parmar-Yee, director at Trans+ Solidarity Alliance, framed the harm in practical terms: “Today the revised Code of Practice to the Equality Act comes into force, without scrutiny, debate or a vote. The Code of Practice has already caused serious harm to trans people across the UK, and these harms will only increase with implementation. Trans people will be shut out of the services they need, made to feel unwelcome and unsafe in public spaces. Our lives will feel smaller and more precarious.”

Parmar-Yee’s language about the code passing “without scrutiny, debate or a vote” points to the mechanism that got the code here: because Parliament didn’t act within its forty-day window to disapprove it, the government was free to set a commencement date without a floor vote — a procedural reality that’s now part of the legal argument being made against it.

What the challenge would need to prove

A pre-action protocol letter isn’t a lawsuit. It’s a formal notice, required under UK civil procedure, that sets out the claimant’s legal argument and gives the government a chance to respond before judicial review proceedings are filed. If the response doesn’t satisfy Good Law Project, the next step is filing for judicial review in the High Court, where a judge would assess whether the EHRC acted lawfully in producing the code and whether it is compatible with the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act’s own protections for gender reassignment as a protected characteristic.

That’s a genuinely open legal question. The code’s defenders will point out that gender reassignment remains protected under the Act, and that the code explicitly requires providers to offer alternative facilities rather than leaving trans people with no options at all. Its challengers will argue that a “third space” requirement is itself discriminatory — treating trans people as neither men nor women — and that the process by which the code became binding sidestepped meaningful democratic scrutiny.

Where this leaves trans people in Britain right now

For now, the code is in force and organizations are expected to comply with it, whatever the outcome of the eventual court case. That’s the immediate, practical reality: NHS trusts, leisure centres, prisons and refuges are updating signage and policy based on a document that may or may not survive judicial review.

We don’t know how long a judicial review claim would take to resolve if Good Law Project proceeds — UK courts have discretion over timelines, and cases with this much public interest often move faster than ordinary civil litigation, but “faster” in the UK court system can still mean months. What’s clear is that the fight over this code isn’t over just because it’s now technically law. It’s moved from Parliament to the courts, and from a policy debate to a test of what the Equality Act actually requires.