Judge rejects argument that advice is legally flawed and excludes trans people from services they have long used
The Good Law Project (GLP) has lost its legal challenge to interim advice released by the UK equalities watchdog that in effect said transgender people should be banned from using bathroom and changing facilities according to their lived gender.
The advice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which has since been withdrawn from its website, was published soon after the landmark supreme court ruling on biological sex last April.
On Friday, Mr Justice Swift found the GLP “does not have standing to bring the challenge in this case” and rejected the arguments put by the group, along with two trans people and one intersex person, that the interim advice was rushed, legally flawed and excluded trans people from accessing services they had been using for years.
Welcoming the high court decision, the EHRC chair, Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, said: “As Britain’s equality regulator, we uphold and enforce the Equality Act. This is the second time the way we have done our duty in the wake of the supreme court’s ruling has been tested in the courts. Both times our actions have been found to be lawful.
