The Equality Act guidance has been published – with gender-critical groups calling it a "significant milestone" and trans rights activists branding the law "a mess"Lauren Gordon Emerging Audiences Editor and Stanley Murphy-Johns Press Association10:34, 22 May 2026Gender-critical campaigners have welcomed new Government guidance on single-sex spaces as a "significant milestone" while trans rights activists have labelled the law "a mess" and likened the policies to "Trump's America".‌The updated code has been published more than a year following a landmark Supreme Court ruling in April 2025, which determined the words "woman" and "sex" in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.‌Campaigners on both sides of the debate have responded to the new guidance written by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and published on Thursday.‌The chief executive of sex-based rights charity Sex Matters stated the guidance means "no more excuses" for the organisations who have yet to align their policies with the Supreme Court ruling.READ MORE: Scotland makes history by appointing its first openly LGBTQ+ Deputy First MinisterREAD MORE: Labour announces trans-inclusive conversion therapy ban in King's Speech BillHowever, campaign group the Good Law Project (GLP) argued the approach was discriminatory and outside the "international human rights norm".‌Both sides are at odds over whether the guidance will lead to more organisations establishing gender-neutral spaces.Trans+ Solidarity Alliance director Alexandra Parmar-Yee said: "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.""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 US bathroom ban condemned by the UK foreign office in 2016."‌"While some language has been softened, the same exclusionary core remains. Treating trans people like this puts the UK outside the international human rights norm, and the right thing for Labour to do here would be to urgently legislate to clarify Parliament's original intent for trans equality."Maya Forstater from Sex Matters said: "Service providers have been put on notice that if they respond by getting rid of single sex facilities and going fully 'gender neutral', this may be unlawful direct or indirect sex discrimination against women."The guidance does encourage the establishment of gender neutral spaces in situations where trans people would otherwise have no provision available to them.‌It states: "It is very unlikely to be proportionate to put a trans person in a position where there is no service that they are allowed to use."For Women Scotland, who secured victory in the Supreme Court case over the definition of a woman, said they were "pleased" that the guidance had "finally been laid".They added: "Hopefully, this will mark an end to the unjustified excuses and delays in implementing the Supreme Court ruling. There is now no reason for public bodies and organisations to evade their responsibilities to women."Article continues belowThe GLP's trans rights lead, Jess O'Thomson, noted big "changes since the previous, transphobic draft" but the result still was not "good enough".Ms O'Thomson said: "It still treats trans people as a third sex, suggesting they should be made to use separate spaces – entirely ignoring the harm this causes, and human rights law. We will keep fighting this discriminatory approach."