Summary
As public service workers, we are deeply concerned about the implications of the proposed Code of Practice’s guidance on single-sex spaces for our work.
Public Service Workers raise concerns about the implications of the new single-sex spaces guidance.
By the Tasha DeGrasse Project (pseudonym for a group of public service workers).
As public service workers, we are deeply concerned about the implications of the proposed Code of Practice’s guidance on single-sex spaces for our work. Namely:
- The excessive responsibility placed upon us to clairvoyantly predict when a complaint is legitimate or when someone has accessed a space not corresponding to their sex.
- The lack of protection against malicious allegations and contested policies, particularly regarding our legal protection if we make an error.
- The amount of work hours and funds that would be needed to allocate to managing our single-sex services policies.
- The risks presented to service users who are already vulnerable due to disability, mental ill health, or disenfranchisement.
- The risks presented to service users and staff who have a right to privacy that cannot be denied simply in order to disprove an accusation of transness.
- The lack of information available to the public about our roles, rights, and responsibilities in the line of work potentially leading to unreasonable expectations, demands, or even abusive behaviour towards us.
- The lack of information available to private businesses and the lack of clarity which may lead to inconsistent policies, impeding our ability to engage in cross-sector work.
Therefore, as project members and members of the wider public service worker community, we have compiled examples from our respective roles, illustrating the challenges we will face in our professions.
Complex Needs and Disabilities
Concerning young people and adults with complex needs, the main duty of the care team and its staff is to prioritise the quality of life of our service users. This includes facilitating access to public life by managing the risks associated with trips outside the home. The new guidance raises new risk assessment concerns due to the possible change in behaviour from members of the public, as well as businesses whose policies and training have not considered the intersection of gender and disability.
Many complex conditions result in visible physical differences, which may make the person’s sex difficult to determine at a glance. If challenged, this could cause severe distress to many of the people we work with.
Hypothetical examples based on professional experience:
- A woman with an adrenal condition and a developmental disability may not appear female or visibly disabled = if confronted at a leisure centre changing room, she could become alarmed, causing challenging behaviour that would require new risk assessments
- An autistic man with a condition causing absent puberty may not appear male or visibly disabled = if confronted at a restaurant toilet, he may suffer anxiety over his appearance and over the risk of future confrontations, causing him to refuse to access public spaces in the future
These service users would be unduly impacted by members of the public or staff at the location investigating their appearance.
Furthermore, we do have some service users who are transgender themselves, and who would suffer greatly were they to lose access to the groups and services they previously enjoyed. We are speaking of vulnerable people who may not fully comprehend why they are being targeted or why they would be barred from a group they have been attending for years. As it is our responsibility to protect them, we would be forced to preemptively narrow their participation in public life to prevent harm.
In addition, sometimes care staff or family members with caregiving duties will attend to the hygiene and health needs of a person of the opposite sex. In situations where neutral or accessible spaces are not available, we recognise that care staff would likely be permitted to access the single-sex space appropriate to the service user, as the space should suit the privacy and dignity of the service user, and staff acts as an auxiliary service. However, members of the public may not be aware of our job role or this exception. A confrontation of any length could cause distress.
A longer confrontation may cause a delay in attending to the service user’s needs. A more serious confrontation may not de-escalate if a member of the public does not accept the care staff’s explanation of our professional rights and duties. We would also have to delicately navigate how to explain that the service user needs our assistance without exposing their medical information, specific care needs, or vulnerabilities. This is a safeguarding and data protection requirement – however, it may be perceived as cagey or suspicious to people who do not understand our jobs.
We are concerned that the new guidance will unduly impact people with complex disabilities and functionally reduce their access to public life due to the risk of mismanaged situations causing harm to our service users.
Crisis Referral
There’s no dignity and respect in the bin bag full of clothes she brings to the door.
- There’s no ID either. Never had a passport. He took her driving license. She couldn’t guess where her birth certificate is. She’s got a library card from when she lived in Sutton, if that helps?
- I’m supposed to care if she’s cis or trans and I’m supposed to care if she has no documents with her. I must suck at my job cause I only care that she’s scared and sad and maybe we can change that.
- Folks saying dignity and respect like it’s a physical thing or currency we can give someone to make up for whatever dehumanising hoops we make them jump through to earn acceptance that does not exist.
- How could I show dignity and respect if I look into the eyes of a woman who has been told she’s ugly and worthless every day for the past five years and then ask her to confirm she’s 100% female?
- If I must scrutinise her face as a phrenologist looking for any sign of masculine temperament which might lead to a report or get us in trouble for having the bleeding heart to help her, how dignified and respected would she feel?
- Will she vomit up confessions of her facial hair or how she hasn’t got makeup or that her voice is hoarse from shouting when she can’t handle the judging eyes of dignity and respect – and their power to close our door in her face?
- If she can’t be worthy of the place we booked her then maybe we got enough dignity and respect left in the bank to send her to someplace where she won’t be scared any more. If nowhere’s got space am I allowed to extend her the dignity and respect of making a call first – as if she had somewhere else to go?
Homeless Services
The EHCR guidance presents a number of challenges to the homeless sector, and a potentially existential challenge to the provision of women-only services.
The people we work with rarely have the kind of documentation which might indicate their gender. Our organisation works with rough sleepers with complex needs, including alcohol and substance abuse. This group have often been sleeping rough – or cycling in and out of homelessness – for a long time, and repeated displacements mean they have lost core documents.
Gender presentation can often be vague due to the effects of substance abuse, medical conditions, or the active desire among homeless women to hide their gender so as to feel less vulnerable to harassment and abuse. Homeless people are often mistrustful of authority figures, and may be reluctant to engage with questioning about their gender.
Given this, for many homeless women it will be impossible to ascertain their “sex” as defined in the guidance, forcing us to steer such women into mixed hostels, even where this is deeply inappropriate (e.g. women fleeing domestic abuse).
In a worst-case scenario, organisations might stop providing all-women services altogether, since there is no foolproof way to ensure that trans women have access to the service. Protecting the organisation from legal liability at the expense of vulnerable women who need this provision.
Human Resources
The new EHRC guidance on single-sex spaces has found many employers reassessing how to balance conflicting responsibilities. From an HR perspective, the way online discourse frames our responsibility is misleading. And often serves up a plethora of impractical or illegal suggestions which amount to the on-demand outing of trans people at the behest of any formal complaint. It is laughable that some have an impression we can – and indeed must – access an employee’s files or demand new documents whenever someone desires to know their sex.
Some employers also misunderstand HR’s role and abilities in this area. I am concerned that the guidance is misleading to employers, as I have already had to explain to higher-ups that we do not, in fact, know with certainty what sex a person was born as.
- We do not have access to a person’s full life story and documents.
- We cannot demand some forms of information.
- We cannot disclose the information we do possess without a good reason.
- We cannot single out one employee for an investigation.
In some misguided effort to comply in advance, we did begin to make changes in our systems, such as ensuring that we asked employees to update their “gender” on their profiles to “legal sex” and to answer if this was their natal sex. As a protest, we received an influx of “prefer not to answer” to both. If we make a report on demographics, we now must choose between using their internal record from their ID – which may be their natal sex or their certified sex – or not counting employees who refused to respond. I highly doubt this is the sort of result which gender-critical activists were hoping for.
Due to the immediate complexity of implementing this apparently simple task, consultations are being carried out, and workshops are being attended. Not to determine how we can enforce the guidance – that ship sailed and sank – but to determine how we can develop an iron-clad policy document to protect us legally. My employer is neither pro-trans nor pro-gender-critical – they are pro-CYA.
So, practically, our policy will feature:
- An acknowledgement of the current interpretation of the Equality Act, with our sincerest promise to uphold it in any capacity we can.
- A record confirming that we asked employees to update their personal information.
- An audit of available facilities listing the ways they comply with the guidance.
- Signage informing people that single-sex spaces are based on natal – sorry, “biological” – sex.
- Employee training on how to respond to reports, largely consisting of ways to skirt around the fact we do not have the ability to confirm someone’s natal sex.
- An assessment of the need for additional security to escort people out of the building if they are being disruptive.
We do not have the ability to bring about the changes which gender-critical activists demand, even if we wanted to. And we are not alone; most organisations are similarly limited. The extent to which guidance shall be applied in day-to-day operation will be in the form of paperwork to prevent people from successfully taking legal action against us. If the gender-critical activists intended to burden businesses with additional legal expenses and paperwork, they have succeeded fantastically.
Policing
The Supreme Court guidance and further ECHR guidance are actively contributing to further discrimination that transgender individuals and some cisgender individuals face on a regular basis.
Within the last 4 years transgender hate crime is up 93% in the past 4 years between 2021-2025 from the statistic points in 2018-2021. Enforcing bathroom and single-sex spaces where transgender individuals are excluded or forced to use assigned gender at birth spaces will create further targeted crimes/incidents including to those who appearance may appear ambiguous to another (for example; a woman with short hair).
Surveys suggest that 88% of transgender individuals do not report hate crimes/incidents to police due to lack of satisfaction with police response and fear of further discrimination. This is directly from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). I have had assaults happen to me as a police officer and I have had them dealt with as swiftly as possible. I cannot imagine living as a victim of crime who cannot see justice due to fear of further discrimination or lack of satisfaction with police response.
Previous police responses to the LGBTQLGBTQ LGBTQIA+ is an inclusive term that includes people of all genders and sexualities, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer, intersex, asexual, pansexual, and allies. While each letter in LGBTQIA+ stands for a specific group of people, the term encompasses the entire spectrum of gender fluidity and sexual identities. https://abbreviations.yourdictionary.com/what-does-lgbtqia-stand-for-full-acronym-explained.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT+ people in the UK over the years has caused years of systemic issues and a large rift between the two causing an “Us and Them” divide which makes our jobs as police officers harder, when in a world with increasing unknown threats where they may be in an online space, on our homes, on our streets or coming in from abroad. We police by consent in this country and we need every member of our society to be on board with that but we also need to create a space that is friendly to them so that they feel safe to report crime and that they know that we can deal with that effectively.
As a police officer, I have enough workload to manage even without investigating increased hate related crime. If I attend an emergency call about a fight ongoing in a single-sex space and I am with another colleague whose sex aligns with that space, but mine doesn’t, do I have to wait outside? This increases risk and safety concerns for my colleague. If I am having to enforce these rules, how will I do so that manages risk but also the guidance? Currently I work in a police force where we are struggling with the demand of increasing workloads and there is a concern that with this guidance that becomes law there may be a rise in malicious complaints that are made to police which take time to work through and can obscure or stop us from attending more serious offending that needs addressing quickly to reduce evidence loss, apprehend offenders and secure charges to increase conviction rates.
Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984, detained persons can be searched under several sections, such as S1 of PACE (relating to stop and search powers) and S32 of PACE (relating to searches upon arrest powers).
These two powers give police officers the ability to search any person regardless of gender in order to find, dangerous implements, implements to escape from lawful custody and evidence relating to an offence. On many occasions, I have had to search for someone of the opposite sex to myself because my colleagues are busy, and detained persons often do not appear to care, as this can speed up the time it takes for us to process them through police custody. In addition to this, S54 of PACE, which is powers in relation to searches in custody and strip searches, we are looking for those items that I mentioned earlier.
Of the overall prisoners in the UK, 96% of these are male offenders, whereas there are 0.34% of transgender offenders, with the rest of the percentage taken up by female offenders. There are, on average, 346,500 transgender individuals living in the UK, with 339 of them incarcerated. That is 0.09% of 0.5% of the population! It does not make sense to unnecessarily to discriminate a small percentage of the population in the name of reducing violence against women and girls.
As usual, we are at the mercy of the loud minority that is spending large amounts of money to frame transgender rights into a mainstream political talking point. Why are we actively politicising the right for someone to live freely as themselves in accordance with UK law?
Being called out as a police officer to an incident where a transgender individual is using the wrong bathroom will alienate the transgender individual and embolden ignorance and transphobia. If we recall a time where in areas of America where Jim Crow laws existed and we had ‘black bathrooms’ and ‘black water fountains’ surely, we are creating these spaces unknowingly once again.
If we consider what I have mentioned going forward in relation to the guidance where transgender individuals be offered a third space or gender-neutral space this would ‘out’ individuals and could increase transgender hate crime/incidents. If someone who is cisgender and uses a bathroom where their appearance may not match the bathroom they are using for example a female with short hair and typically masculine presenting clothing and they are reported for “using the wrong bathroom” this would create undue distress and, how can I investigate these reports without having to see clear sex identity?
I cannot conduct strip searches to prove whether someone’s genitals match their assigned gender at birth as this is not something that I search for under PACE as we are looking for dangerous implements, implements to escape lawful custody and evidence of an offence. In layman’s terms unless the person to have any of these items on their person we cannot legally strip search a detained person as this would be violation of PACE.
Looking the ethical implication of this overall. If this guidance becomes statutory, I am violating their human rights under the Human Rights Act 1998 namely; asking someone to use a bathroom that conforms with their sex I violate Article 14 protection from discrimination; restricting someone’s freedom by arrest due to them using the ‘wrong’ bathroom, I violate Article 8 respect for your private and family life and Article 5 right to liberty and security; strip searching someone to prove their gender aligns with their sex, I violate Article 3 Freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.
Security
Events and security need clear procedures to follow to prevent loss. If someone states they have seen someone of the wrong sex in a single-sex facility, security needs to act. The new approach creates a risk.
Problem: security cannot confirm if an offence has occurred. Security is not empowered or able to investigate flash points. We cannot demand evidence. If the person is using the space as intended and does not volunteer proof they are in the wrong space, we have no further options. Especially in this current time, relying on the person who made a report “just knowing” is bad policy.
If security removes someone who is in the correct space, this is a liability. If the person who made a report remains angry or unsatisfied after security found no wrongdoing, allowing the reported person to stay could also be an offence. Security would usually be unable to leave a high friction situation between the reported person and the accuser. Situation falls to requiring onsite risk assessments or manager discretion to resolve. Both of which still leave the onsite security in a no-win situation when a report is made.
Leaving companies responsible for making policy decisions assuming everyone will just know and no one will made a mistake or maliciously act is just ridiculous. If everyone followed rules there would be no police. Site risk assessments will therefore be varied, may be unverified, and result in inevitable mishandling as there is no legitimate means of handling a flash point situation over the possibility of single-sex facility misuse in the first place.
SEN Education
The guidance does not clarify to what extent SEN provisions must prioritise that intimate care is provided by staff of the same sex as the student. There are high-support settings where most students use nappies, need help toileting, undress inappropriately, change clothes, or bathe at school. It would be nearly impossible to guarantee that same-sex care is always provided, as 76% of SEN teachers and 93% of support staff are female, while 71.4% of students with a care plan are male. To demonstrate that effort was made to comply with guidance, schools might implement new policies to monitor the provision of intimate care by opposite-sex staff, limit it where possible, and justify it where not. This sort of policy could make it harder to deliver care in school.
Staffing shortages in SEN schools are no secret, supply staff use is high, and a school cannot reasonably predict their day-to-day staff demographics. Prioritising a gender balance in class may result in staff being moved more frequently than they already are. If policy is to prioritise same-sex care, staff might hesitate to attend to an opposite-sex student’s needs until they have confirmed same-sex staff is not available. This would delay a student’s needs being met and risks reduced quality of care if staff feel it necessary to minimise how long they spend on intimate care of an opposite-sex student. Parents may also now have specific expectations that care must be delivered by same-sex staff, resulting in reports, parent-staff conflict, and anticipatory stress.
Without more explicit protections for people administering care, the work environment may become difficult for staff and standards of intimate care for students may decline.
Social Work
As part of the statutory multi-agency approach to social care (updated most recently in the Working Together To Safeguard Children 2026 from this March), Children’s Social Care are required to action all referrals.
Every referral creates a triage process, which can occupy the already understaffed administrative and social work DAS teams for up to a day. There are already serious issues around wasted time and resources caused by malicious referral which are made by people wishing to abuse the referral system to harass ex partners etc, while the service has little recourse to address malicious time wasters or do anything to reduce the problem.
With the new code of practice, this system – already ripe for abuse – risks further burying our beleaguered social services. If members of the public were to start reporting people for using single-sex facilities that are incongruous with their appearance (as permitted by the code of practice guidelines), this has the very real potential to create a deluge of referrals which this service, already understaffed, is legally required to investigate. The serious concern here is around the number of cases that genuinely require social care’s attention being buried in the resulting noise. For this to be actionable without crippling the service, the social care budget would need to increase dramatically.
In conclusion:
Each contributor (or group of contributors) responded to this task somewhat differently, and many of us were surprised by the challenges other members of our community would face. Still, a clear trend runs through all our contributions: the proposed guidance on single-sex provisions is impractical, unenforceable, and inhumane.
Those of us working in public service jobs are deeply concerned about the dismissiveness with which these issues are being treated. The suggestions we are being presented with are simplistic and do not truly understand how our jobs work. As spokespeople insist “we can just tell”, “we just need clear policy”, “we should not actively police services”, “organisations which do not enforce the law face legal risk”, and “most people will obey”, they ignore the complexity of the systems they are attempting to redesign.
The passing of this guidance will lead to large and ongoing financial costs, wasted time, a reduction in the availability or effectiveness of essential services, and endangerment of public service workers and vulnerable people in our care. A regulatory body must not subject us to guidance which would allow a trans witch hunt to take priority over our operational purposes.
The proposed Code of Practice, as it stands, is not fit for purpose and must be rejected.
(The Tasha DeGrasse Project extends thanks to those outside our small group who group members reached out to. We are grateful to everyone who supported us by adding input from fields or niche areas which our own expertise does not cover.)
