The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has now published its guidance entitled Equality Act 2010: Draft Code of Practice for services, public functions and associations, 2026. This represents a major step backwards for the rights of transgender people in the UK and Congleton Pride calls on MPs to stand against it in the House of Commons and demand a more inclusive approach.

Historically, trans-inclusive practices have operated successfully and without issue across the UK. It is only recently that a small, highly funded group of anti-transgender activists has received disproportionate media coverage, allowing them to shift the positions of both the government and the EHRC. This has resulted in guidance that is cruel, inconvenient, and deeply exclusionary.

The core issue is that this new guidance makes it incredibly easy for an organisation to exclude trans people, while making it difficult and legally risky to support them. Notably, the Equality Impact Assessment accompanying the guidance admits that these changes will cause harm to trans people – yet the EHRC chose to proceed in spite of this.

By implying that an organisation could face discrimination lawsuits simply for being trans-inclusive, the guidance effectively forces groups to either ban or segregate trans individuals.

Support Services such as domestic violence refuges that have safely supported trans women for years without issue will now be forced to jump through bureaucratic hoops and absorb extra expenses, or simply exclude trans women altogether.

The guidance treats trans people as a 'third sex' and places gender reassignment at the bottom of a hierarchy of rights. Requiring hospitals to exclude trans patients from wards matching their lived gender creates an impossible logistical crisis, given that mixed-sex wards are strictly limited and single occupancy rooms are rationed for high-risk clinical cases. Trans people already face severe discrimination within the NHS; this will worsen their health outcomes and, tragically, cost lives.

Congleton Pride have urged MP Sarah Russell to oppose the adoption of the EHRC guidance (Credit: Kay Wesley)

The guidance does introduce several important points that we welcome:

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• Non-binary individuals are finally recognised and protected under the characteristic of gender reassignment.
• The guidance explicitly affirms that children can be trans as there is no age requirement for the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment, mandating that schools prevent discrimination, bullying, or harassment against trans, non-binary, or gender-exploring youth.
• The rights of Association have been made clearer in that LGBT+ organisations are able maintain memberships based on sexuality and gender identity, and women's organisations can explicitly include both cis and trans women without being forced to include men.

In spite of these points, the guidance overall is deeply harmful. It is not designed to protect women—it is designed to control them. By enforcing rigid, arbitrary standards, it invites scrutiny upon all women.

In Congleton, we have seen an uptick in online abuse and hate crime towards trans and non-binary people, and this guidance is likely to increase it further.

Gender-nonconforming cis women, or those who do not meet society's opinion of what a woman should look like, will inevitably have their identities questioned. Trans rights and women's rights are not in competition and transphobia often goes hand-in-hand with misogyny.

With this guidance the government is playing into the hands of far-right activists who seek to create division in our communities.

Congleton Pride asks Congleton MP Sarah Russell to oppose the adoption of this guidance in parliament to for the restoration of the rights of transgender people inline with the original intention of the EA2010 and for the legal recognition of non-binary identities.

In Congleton we are in the process of setting up a social and support group for trans and non-binary people. If you'd like more information, please email [email protected] or join the Congleton Pride Facebook group.

Congleton Pride

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