Hospitals and gyms will be able to request the birth certificates of transgender people to protect single-sex services, the equality watchdog has said.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission said it may be ‘necessary and proportionate’ to ask somebody about their birth sex in certain situations, provided it is done in a ‘sensitive way’.
However, in new guidance released today the EHRC also warned that asking a trans person their birth sex may open public bodies up to claims of discrimination under human rights laws.
Following April’s Supreme Court ruling that sex is biological, the Commission released interim guidance that trans women ‘should not be permitted to use the women's facilities’.
The EHRC today published more detailed guidance that protects single-sex spaces in line with the landmark ruling and has wide-ranging implications for workplaces, shops, hospitals and sports clubs.
