The government will ban its trans employees from using bathrooms that reflect their gender, a Cabinet minister has suggested.
Pat McFadden suggested such a decision is the “logical consequence” of last week’s Supreme Court ruling on gender and comes after the equalities watchdog issued interim guidance on the issue.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) guidance states that trans women “should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities” in workplaces or public-facing services like shops and hospitals. The same applies to trans men, who are biologically female, using men’s toilets.
Asked whether the government, as an employer, will stop trans people from using the changing rooms or bathrooms that they wish to use, Mr McFadden told the BBC: “Yes, that’s the logical consequence of the judgment and the guidance that’s come out, that people use the facilities of the biological sex.
“That’s what the court said and that’s what the guidance has said.”
Pressed on whether the government would ban trans people from using bathrooms that reflect their gender, he said: “Like any big organisation, we will react. But look in reality, when you say ban, am I going to be standing outside toilets? I’m probably not. There isn’t going to be toilet police, but that is the logical consequence of the court ruling and the EHRC guidance.”
The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said he hopes “everybody is treated with kindness”, adding: “This has been a debate where there’s very strong feelings around it, but the important thing of the last week is the court has given clarity about facilities.”
The EHRC’s guidance also insists that trans people “should not be put in a position where there are no facilities for them to use”.
It comes after the Supreme Court declared that the words “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex.
The ruling has been interpreted to mean that trans women, who are biologically male but identify as women, can be excluded from women-only spaces like toilets and changing rooms.
The guidance has been released because “many people have questions about the judgment and what it means for them”, the EHRC said.
Its guidance also states that schools must provide single-sex changing facilities to boys and girls over the age of eight, adding that “Suitable alternative provisions may be required” for trans pupils.
It adds that trans girls “should not be permitted to use the girls’ toilet or changing facilities, and pupils who identify as trans boys (biological girls) should not be permitted to use the boys’ toilet or changing facilities”.
The watchdog also said that sports clubs and other associations of 25 or more people are allowed to be exclusively for biological men or women.
Such clubs “can be limited to people who each have two protected characteristics”, the guidance said. This would mean, for example, that a lesbian women’s sports club should not admit trans women.
The watchdog is working on a more detailed code of practice following the Supreme Court ruling, which it said it aims to provide to the government for ministerial approval by June.
On Sunday, the Green Party urged the EHRC to withdraw the guidance, dubbing it “ill-considered and impractical” and warning that it “leaves many unanswered questions about how services will be provided in a way that meets trans people’s needs”.
Co-leaders of the party Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay said: “As it stands the guidance is likely to cause both distress to the trans community and further confusion to employers, businesses and service providers who are trying to understand what the supreme court ruling means for them.
“In particular, this guidance could put trans people at risk of discrimination in the workplace, and is overly prescriptive in a way that seems to fly in the face of the tolerance that we value in this country.
“For example, it doesn’t seem right that a lesbian organisation or space that wants to include trans women should be prevented from doing so.”
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said his initial view on the guidance is that there are “lots of questions still to be answered about how this is enforced”.
He said the issues needs a “thoughtful discussing”, adding: “We want to ask more questions about this, because we do need answers. Lots of people are confused. Lots of people are quite worried and anxious.”
It comes after TV personality and trans campaigner Jaxon Feeley told The Independent that single-sex spaces for women will become more dangerous, not safer as a result of the Supreme Court ruling, warning it will be impossible to enforce.
Mr Feeley warned that the emphasis on biological sex opens up a whole host of other issues for single-sex spaces, including that trans men will now be forced to use women’s spaces, including bathrooms and changing rooms.
Outlining the myriad difficulties in enforcing the policy, the campaigner – who transitioned from female to male while serving as a prison officer in the UK – said: “If I walk into a [women’s] toilet now and say: ‘Well, I was assigned female at birth’, people are not going to be happy about that. I feel like people are going to be quite intimidated by that.
“It not only obviously puts [biological women] in a difficult situation, but it also allows any [cisgender] man to walk into any so-called official single-sex space now and say, ‘Well, I was assigned female at birth.’ How are you policing that? You can’t police that.”
