"From Trump's America": UK's latest trans bathroom ban condemned by equality advocateshttps://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/05/from-trumps-america-uks-latest-trans-bathroom-ban-condemned-by-equality-advocates/ 🔗Faefyx Collington (27 May 2026)
The U.K.'s Equality and Human Rights Commission has released updated guidance for trans people and public single-sex spaces, which amounts to a bathroom ban. While the guidance has been softened compared to interim policies, it still bars trans people from using single-sex spaces consistent with their gender and allows for people to interrogate users about their "biological sex."
"The law here is a mess, and clearly many businesses will just go gender neutral to avoid the headache, but the government risks pushing trans people yet further out of public life," said Alexandra Parmar-Yee, director of the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance (TSA). "This guidance is going to be a Section 28 moment for this Labour government, defining their legacy on LGBTQ+ rights. It's the sort of trans rights policy we would expect from Trump's America, and is worryingly similar to a U.S. bathroom ban condemned by the U.K. foreign office in 2016."
The new guidance states, "In separate or single-sex services, a trans man will be excluded from the men-only service because his sex is female, and a trans woman will be excluded from the women-only service because her sex is male."
While the guidance has been softened in some places from earlier versions, it still presents a major hazard to both trans people and cis people who don't conform to stereotypical standards of gendered appearance. Trans advocates have said that the guidance has moved in the right direction, removing text from the interim policy that would have allowed people not only to challenge people using single-sex spaces, but to ask them to present a birth certificate to "prove" their gender assigned at birth.
