Disability Rights UK rejects EHRC toilet guidance and backs trans rights
Disability Rights UK (Image: Disability Rights UK)
Disability Rights UK has condemned the EHRC’s updated Code of Practice, rejecting any suggestion that disabled toilets should be treated as a fallback for trans people excluded from gendered facilities in its Disability Rights UK statement.
The charity said: “We will not fall for it. We will not be used as a ‘loophole’ in the wider erosion of trans rights.”
Disability Rights UK added: “We are appalled at implications from the Code that an adequate workaround is trans people using Disabled toilets instead. It is a vain attempt to get two marginalised groups to blame one another for our lack of facilities, when the blame lies firmly at the feet of policymakers.”
The updated EHRC code was published more than a year after an April 2025 Supreme Court ruling that the words “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex. Disability Rights UK said it “firmly opposed” that judgement last year, and warned the revised code “sets a dangerous precedent for the weakening of protected characteristics and risks further ostracisation of trans and intersex people from public life”.
The code indicates that toilets designated male or female should be for those of that biological sex, and suggests trans people can use accessible toilets, individual lockable toilets or unisex toilets. Disability Rights UK said the disabled community “knows how it feels to be scapegoated” for trying to access essential services, stressing that “trans rights do not come at the expense of Disabled, nor anyone else’s.”
What the EHRC code says on toilets
Disability Rights UK said accessible facilities are not an optional extra. The charity said: “Our RADAR key scheme began in 1981, rooted in the understanding that accessible facilities can be the difference between living the lives we deserve – socialising, travelling and working – and complete social exclusion.”
The organisation’s intervention comes amid wider debate about the regulator’s approach, including the UK’s largest trade union calling out the EHRC over trans guidance.
Concerns beyond toilets
Beyond toilets, the updated code includes guidance on sport, stating trans people should compete alongside others of their birth sex rather than gender identity. It also says hospital wards can lawfully exclude trans patients if single-sex. Disability Rights UK raised concerns about the impact in healthcare settings, saying the guidance “invites increased medical stigma and negligence … and will lead to even worse health outcomes in an already bleak landscape”, in a climate where a ‘hostile’ anti-trans environment in the UK has been linked to people being deterred from healthcare.
Disability Rights UK concluded that the EHRC revision “effectively segregates trans and intersex people from public spaces”, and called on other Disabled People’s Organisations to oppose it.
