Unfortunately, despite today being the first day of Pride Month, there’s some transphobic bullshit going on in the UK right now. Six weeks ago, UK Supreme Court ruled that under the 2010 Equality Act, a person’s gender may be defined in law only by the sex they were assigned at birth. The Equality And Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the country’s independent body that advises organizations on how to comply with the Equality Act, has since issued some disappointing guidance on how that ruling should be interpreted in law, saying that “trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men (biological women) should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities, as this will mean that they are no longer single-sex facilities and must be open to all users of the opposite sex.” The guidance states that trans people “should not be put in a position where there are no facilities for them to use,” but their only real options are to use the bathroom corresponding with their sex assigned at birth, or use a lockable single-stall bathroom in the off-chance that one is available.
