Guidance

Response to call for input on single-sex spaces guidance

Published 17 December 2024

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

The previous government launched a call for input seeking examples of policy or guidance from public bodies – or organisations that advise public and private organisations – which might wrongly suggest that people have a legal right to access all single-sex spaces and services according to their self-identified gender. This call for input, which covered Great Britain, opened on 1 May and closed on 26 June 2024. Thank you to those who took the time to respond. 

Background – the Equality Act 2010

The Equality Act 2010 (“the Act”) allows service providers to operate separate and single-sex services – such as toilets, domestic abuse refuges and changing rooms – when needed. They can also exclude people with the ‘gender reassignment’ protected characteristic, if justified. This important legislation ensures that safe spaces are available to those who need to access them, such as victims and survivors of domestic or sexual violence.

Call for input results

Overall, 404 individual pieces of guidance which fit the response criteria outlined on the call for input gov.uk page were submitted. After reviewing these examples, we found that the majority seem to correctly interpret the Equality Act’s single-sex spaces provisions. In some cases, guidance reflected the organisation’s own policy to allow those with the ‘gender reassignment’ protected characteristic access to single-sex spaces that correspond with their self-identified gender, but did not incorrectly suggest that this is mandated by the Act. Had organisations suggested that their policy was mandated by the Act, however, this would have been a clear misinterpretation of the law.

Approximately 10% of the guidance submitted had text or examples that seem to have misinterpreted the Act’s single-sex spaces provisions. This was in a number of nuanced ways, including not acknowledging that the Act allows providers to exclude those with the ‘gender reassignment’ protected characteristic where justified, or, acknowledging but misinterpreting these exceptions.

This suggests that there is confusion or a lack of awareness among some service providers and some of the public about the Act’s single-sex exceptions, and how to apply them in practice. Although guidance does exist, the results of this call for input suggest that there is further work to do to ensure everyone has clarity about these exceptions in a range of different contexts. The Minister for Women and Equalities has since written to the EHRC as the independent regulator to share the findings from the call for input and to ask them to review the examples of guidance that seem to have misinterpreted the Equality Act. 

Moving forward, we will explore the best ways in which we can give providers assurance about the rights afforded by the Act and how to lawfully apply the exceptions, including through guidance. We want to ensure that everyone is able to receive the support they need and feel safe when accessing a variety of different services. 

For updates and information which will be posted over time, please visit the Office for Equality and Opportunity on GOV.UK.