UK’s largest trade union calls out EHRC over trans guidance

UNISON, the UK’s largest trade union, has passed a motion condemning the nation’s top equality watchdog’s worrying trans rhetoric.

Members of the public service union heavily criticised the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) over its interim guidance on ‘single-sex’ facilities.

The since-scrapped policy was brought by the UK equalities regulator in response to the Supreme Court’s verdict on FWS v Scottish Ministers, which ruled the 2010 Equality Act’s definition of a woman excludes trans women.

In response, the EHRC recommended that trans people be banned from facilities and services aligned with their gender identity and, in “some circumstances”, their birth sex, too.

Since the update was published, numerous businesses have begun implementing policies banning trans women from using female facilities which have caused multiple women, cisgender and transgender, to face discrimination based on their looks alone.

Despite the recommendations being scrapped in October, the High Court ruled earlier this month that the interim update was not unlawful and called for trans people to be excluded from the correct spaces at work.

‘Women are more than our appearance’

Members of UNISON’s National Women’s Committee unanimously passed a motion opposing the EHRC’s interpretation of the judgment during its National Women’s Conference over the weekend.

The motion accuses the regulator of having stoked “confusion and division” with its interim update, saying that all women were being “scrutinised, challenged, and interrogated” at work based entirely on how they look.

It called on union chapels to work with Black, disabled, and LGBTQ+ activists and members to produce their own guidance for those who may experience discrimination under a trans-exclusionary toilet policy.

“Women are more than our appearance,” a spokesperson said during the conference. “We are workers, carers, organisers, fighters. We are complex, messy and brilliant human beings and none of us should be reduced to whether we look like somebody else’s idea of a woman.”

Lucy Power, a member of the committee, said the interim update had failed to recognised the “complex, diverse realities” of women’s lives and served to harm those whose gender expression, identity, or sexual orientation did not fit “narrow societal expectations of what a woman should look like”.

North Tyneside member, Jenny Black, said the anti-trans furore had caused women’s rights to access services and spaces to be determined by “how feminine they look”.

She added: “We are debating this motion because the goal of the gender critical movement is to remove trans women like me from society.”

Under the Court’s interpretation of the interim update, it could be lawful for service providers to exclude trans people from accessing spaces in line with their lived gender. They must, however, prove that the exclusion meets a certain condition under the 2010 Equality Act.

A spokesperson for the non-profit Trans+ Solidarity Alliance blasted the ruling, saying it had only served to further complicate the already “incoherent” legal situation.

“What bathroom a trans person can use in a pub may now depend on whether they are there as an employee or for a drink,” they said.

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