URGENT ACTION: (v.3 26/4/25) Write to your MP!

The UK could be about to introduce the most severe Bathroom Bill in the Western World. Protest The Supreme Court ruling and the UK government's rush to blanket ban trans women from women's spaces encouraged by the EHRC. Below is some guidance on how to write to your MP and what to say. Update: If you have already written and booked a meeting with your MP, download some guidance on what to say at the meeting via our home page.

The trans community is facing an existential crisis in the UK after the Supreme Court ruled on April 16th that for the purposes of The Equality Act 2010 sex should be classified as biological (i.e. as recorded at birth). On April 22nd, the Labour government inflicted further pain on it by announcing a (seeming) public policy change that would see all trans women banned from women's toilet's, changing rooms and other women's single-sex facilities. The government seems to think that the answer to "protecting trans people's rights" is to insist that trans women use men's toilets. It is unclear at this time how far they are prepared to go to enforce this. They have since said that they await proposals for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on how to make these changes. The EHRC, with a recent history of being extremely hostile to the rights of trans women, are said to working "at pace" on these proposals and have announced that they plan to submit them by the end of June. However, in pursuit of an anti-trans position consistent with their statements for at least the last four years, on April 25th, the EHRC rushed out an 'interim update' which suggested a draconian interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling. This would see trans people preemptively banned from single-sex facilities that match their lived gender en masse and potentially banned from all single-sex facilities. This is not what the Supreme Court indicated was required, and we believe that this EHRC overreach is in line with a long standing and documented agenda of prejudice towards the trans community. Be clear - the EHRC update has no legal force of any kind, though we believe that its language has been crafted to create the impression that it does. In law employers and service providers are not required to follow it. The situation is developing fast with a government desperate to fend off attacks from the press, the Tories and Reform. The implications for trans people in the UK of all this at are stark. This is not the time to sit back and hope someone else is going to fix this. You need to act - if you are trans, if you love or care about a trans person, or if you are an ally who is simply appalled by the prejudice that guides how the national discourse treats trans people in the UK, and especially this toxic Supreme Court ruling - produced after the Court heard evidence in depth from five committed anti-trans groups yet allowed no contribution at all from any trans person. Make a start by emailing your MP. Do it today. Time is short. Ask for a meeting to talk about all this. And share this guidance with five others asking them to do the same and who in turn can find 5 more people who will do the same. Here are some pointers about what to say. Don't feel you need to include them all - we feel that these are the key points. Use your own words and adapt as you see fit - this will greatly increase your chances of getting a reply. We lay these out in two sections - they are similar but have some differences of emphasis. Section 1 is for you if you are transgender. Section 2 is for you if you are cisgender. In each, one aspect is very important - clearly opposing the horrific proposals for Equality Act Statutory Guidance that the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is planning to introduce soon. This will be the next battleground and it is vital that these proposals are stopped.

If you are trans Title your email with something like: The recent Supreme Court ruling, plus the government response has terrified me. Please meet me to discuss this. (NB - Use your own words) 1. Say that you want a meeting with them urgently... ...about the Supreme Court Ruling which included in it a judgment on the meaning of a woman in The Equality Act 2010, plus the dangerous and prejudiced response of the government which could be about to destroy trans people's ability to exist in UK society. 2. Say how the ruling and subsequent government responses have left you feeling. Don’t hold back, be clear and honest and as blunt as you like. You can find some of what the government has been saying here and here.

3. Say something brief about yourself. This might include how long you have been transitioned, your personal situation, family, partner, work or anything else important etc. You don’t need to say lots, but the purpose of this is to create in the reader a sense of you as a person – to combat the abstract and negative picture of trans people that the media and Gender Criticals like to promote. Maybe mention how long you have been using single-sex spaces without any issues. If you have been physically attacked or abused for being trans, consider saying that.

4. Say what you are frightened of now. Being detained and prosecuted for using a women’s toilet? Being forced to use the toilet of the sex you were assigned at birth (as the government on April 22nd suggested you will have to). Point out that this is completely unacceptable and a reversal of decades of common practice, without any reason. If you are a trans woman say that this frightens you. It would mean that you would be vulnerable to humiliation, abuse or physical attack, including rape. You may add - if you feel as many do - that you have absolutely no intention of using a male toilet or changing room and will not do so. Apart from the real risk, it's an extraordinary insult to your dignity. If you are a trans man, who may appear to the world identical to a cisgender man, using women’s toilets could mean distressing the women there? Or perhaps being attacked by a male partner outside? And what’s to stop a predatory man walking in to a women’s toilet, claiming to be a trans man and then attacking someone?

5. Point out that gender neutral toilets are only available in a tiny number of venues.

The government seems to think this is the answer. It is a ridiculous suggestion. And in any case, the last government passed legislation to ensure that it was more difficult for new venues to offer them. Today the government seemed entirely unaware of this.

6. Add that you will be left with nowhere to go.

If you cannot use the toilet that aligns with you lived gender when you are out of your own home and if there are no gender neutral facilities (there seldom are), you will effectively be removed from society. You won’t be able to participate in that society. 7. Explain that the Supreme Court’s ruling – if enforced - would amount to gender policing for all women. ...cisgender or transgender, as women’s appearance will inevitably be assessed when they use a toilet or a changing room. Women who don’t conform to stereotypical versions of femininity – i.e. long hair, make up, dresses, or who are ‘too’ tall or muscular, perhaps – can increasingly expect to be under suspicion, challenged and asked to prove their identity. This already happens - women of colour who may not conform to white Western images of femininity disproportionately experience it. It will worsen and become more sinister and dangerous. In such situations, cisgender may women say that they are not trans. How are they to be believed? Will women be expected to carry their birth certificates around to enter a toilet or a changing room? Will their genitals be checked!? A voice analysis perhaps? And in this ludicrous, Orwellian, scenario, how would a post-operative trans woman’s genitals be distinguished from those of a cis woman? Chromosome tests in changing rooms!? Who’s going to do all this policing? The rules of what it is to be a 'permissible' woman are going to become ridiculous and extreme - a profoundly anti-feminist turn and one which

8. Consider saying that these questions seem not to have been considered by the Supreme Court in its ruling nor by a panic-stricken government desperate to fend off attacks from the press. With respect to the Supreme Court you might add that one reason is likely because the Court allowed five anti-trans organisations to make submissions during the hearing but prevented any trans voices from being heard. With respect to the government you might raise its terror of a savagely anti-trans press that has waged a campaign to destroy trans people for at least ten years.

9. This one is very important – please don’t miss it out. The EHRC Interim Guidelines April 25th and what comes next. Say that you are very concerned that the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC - the body that is supposed to oversee the law with respect to protecting minorities) has announced that it is going to bring Equality Act Statutory Guidance (i.e. mandatory rules) to Parliament by the end of June which could make a reality of the scenarios above by blanket-banning all trans people from facilities that match their lived gender. The EHRC is an advisory legal body and the government is waiting for it to launch these punitive guidelines so that it can pretend it is only "following advice". But the EHRC is a profoundly anti-trans organisation which has for the past few years consistently fought to limit the rights of trans women. Already (25th April), the EHRC has rushed out an 'interim update' that pressurises organisations to 'comply in advance', with a legal take on the Supreme Court ruling that promotes its deeply anti-trans position. This states that trans women should be banned from all women's spaces and trans men should be banned from all men's spaces. This is not what the Supreme Court ruling said (The Court ruled that service providers could prevent access to trans people to these facilities but that they did not have to, as ex Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption pointed out last week). There are technical, but legally ridiculous reasons why they are suggesting that companies must do this.

They go on to suggest that it may also be appropriate to keep trans women out of men's toilets too, and trans men out of men's women's toilets (ironically the last place either group would ever want to be anyway). The upshot of that could be that trans people have no facilities to use at all. The EHRC recognises that in these guidelines and suggests that if it looked like trans people might end up with no toilet at all then that shouldn't happen. But it doesn't suggest a plausible solution except mentioning 'mixed-sex' facilities which should be provided as well as single-sex ones (irrespective of cost or practicality). The update is tortured, unworkable and deeply humiliating to trans people. Tonally it treats trans people like aliens. If employers need to go through all these expensive hoops to accommodate just a few trans employees (which is all it will ever be), wouldn't it be easier to somehow just not employ them at all? Wouldn't that also help the employer avoid getting into the crosshairs of the EHRC Gender Police? Further - and this is important - The Supreme Court ruling said nothing about what employers should or should not do. Yet the EHRC has deliberately started to extrapolate - to support a position of getting all trans people banned from the facilities that they want to use, need to use and have been using for decades without incident, either at work or anywhere else. Lastly, the EHRC has announced a 'consultation' on these proposals, prior to sending recommendations to the government for Statutory Guidelines. It is allowing 2 weeks for this - a hyper-accelerated attempt to railroad its proposals through and to prevent opponents from gathering their arguments to challenge the EHRC. A typical consultation period for something like this, in which the body running the process wanted to be seen to be transparent and inclusive, could easily be 6-12 weeks, to ensure all voices are heard and especially in respect of a issue like this where an entire minority group is staring at having its long-held rights completely removed. We believe that it has been put under pressure by the government to do this - the latter is desperate for this issue to 'go away' before their political opponents can do them more damage. Ironically, 2 or 12 weeks, one phrase in the EHRC's press release is especially chilling: 'The Supreme Court made the legal position clear, so we will not be seeking views on those legal aspects'. To paraphrase this: 'We'd like to invite people to confirm we have got the law all exactly right and we won't accept contributions saying we've got any of this wrong. Trans people are getting blanket banned, even if the Supreme Court didn't suggest that, we just want ideas on how to do it.'

10. Finally, add that you feel the Labour government has also completely abandoned the trans community We are less than 1% of the population. That a party which has long prided itself on a commitment to social justice and minority rights is acting this way is incomprehensible.

11. Close by saying that you really want your MP to meet you urgently... ...to talk about this more and that you’d like their office to be in touch to set this up.

12. Don’t forget to add your full name and address... and maybe a contact number on your email. This is essential as it proves that you live in that MP's constituency. There is no possibility that they will respond to you unless you do this. Once you have sent your email, try to ask 5 friends to do the same – trans or cis. And ask them to pass on the request.

You can find out who your MP is here https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP

You can find out more about their views and how they have voted here https://www.mysociety.org/wehelpyou/who-is-your-mp

We encourage you to write to your MP irrespective of whether or not you feel they will be sympathetic. Some will respond and you’ll get an invite to a meeting. Some won’t. If they don’t, and you feel able, try again. But even if you sense you are getting nowhere, MPs do monitor how many emails they are receiving on certain topics and they take notice – especially MPs who represent marginal constituencies and who worry that if they miss something important it might end up causing them to lose their seat in the next election.

Remember this above all else. Those who hate trans people think they have won a great victory, even a knockout blow. But they are wrong. Look at the number of people who turned out on the streets in support of the trans community in the days following the Supreme Court ruling. Remember that the repeal of the horrific, homophobic Section 28 legislation passed in the 1980s was achieved by people doing what you are doing – pressurising MPs, over and over, until they listened. **********

If you are cis

Title your email with something like: I’m not trans but I have a loved one/friend/colleague who is. He/she/they are terrified. Please meet me to discuss this urgently (NB - Use your own words)

(If you are writing not because you know someone who is trans, but you are an ally and you simply find what the Supreme Court has done reprehensible, thank you – adapt your email accordingly)

1. Say that you want a meeting with them urgently...  ...about the Supreme Court Ruling which included in it a judgment on the meaning of a woman in The Equality Act 2010, plus the dangerous and prejudiced response of the government which could be about to destroy trans people's ability to exist in UK society.

2. Say how the ruling and subsequent government responses have left you feeling. Don’t hold back, be clear and honest and as blunt as you like. Focus here on the fact that you write as a cisgender person, and that you feel many cisgender people are deeply shocked by what has happened or would be if they realised the full implications. You can find some of the things the government has been saying here and here.

3. Say something brief about your relationship with a trans person (if you have a relationship with one) Family, sibling, partner, child, colleague, friend etc? Don’t give their name or identifying details unless you have explicitly asked them if that’s ok.

4. Say what the trans person you know is frightened of now. Being detained and prosecuted for using a women’s toilet? Being forced to use the toilet of the sex they were assigned at birth (as the government on April 22nd suggested they will have to). Point out that this is completely unacceptable and a reversal of decades of common practice, without any real-life reason. If the person you know is a trans woman say that would mean them being vulnerable to humiliation, abuse or physical attack, including rape in a men's toilet or changing room. You may add - if you know they this way feel - that they have absolutely no intention of using a male toilet or changing room, will not do so, and that you support them. If they are a trans man, who may appear to the world identical to a cisgender man, using women’s toilets could mean distressing the women there? Or perhaps being attacked by a male partner outside? And what’s to stop a predatory man walking in to a women’s toilet, claiming to be a trans man and then attacking someone?

6. Trans people will be removed from society Add that if they cannot use the toilet when they are out of their own home, be it at work, shopping, using a public building like a library, railway station, cinema, or elsewhere, then trans people will effectively be removed from society. They won’t be able to participate in that society. Simply claiming that gender neutral toilets will fill the gap is a non-starter and having trans women use the men's toilets and trans men use the women's is ridiculous. Point out that trans people have been using single-sex spaces in accordance with their assigned gender for decades without incident. In Parliament on April 22nd one MP referenced a letter from a trans constituent who had been doing so since the 1970s without the slightest problem - and now was very scared.

7. Gender policing - and it's going to be cisgender women who suffer As a cis ally you may want to focus on this section – even make it a central aspect. Every MP is (at least publicly) cisgender so this could resonate powerfully. 

Explain that the Supreme Court’s ruling and subsequent government statements – if enforced - would amount to gender policing for all women, cisgender or transgender, as women’s appearance will be assessed when they use a toilet or a changing room. Those women who don’t conform to stereotypical versions of femininity – i.e. long hair, make up, dresses, or who are ‘too’ tall or muscular, perhaps – can increasingly expect to be challenged and asked to prove their identity. This already happens - women of colour who may not conform to white Western images of femininity disproportionately experience it. And if cisgender women say that they are not trans, how are they to be believed? Will women be expected to carry their birth certificates around to enter a toilet or a changing room? Will their genitals be checked!? And even if they were, in this ludicrous scenario, how would a cis woman’s genitals be distinguished from those of a post-operative trans woman? Chromosome tests in changing rooms? A voice scan? Who’s going to do all this policing?

8. The Supreme Court and the government have ignored all this. It's a travesty. Consider saying that these questions seem not to have been considered by the Supreme Court in its ruling, and that you find that extraordinary. You might speculate that one reason is because the Court allowed five dedicated anti-trans organisations to make submissions during the hearing but prevented any trans voices from being heard. You might speculate (depending on your MP) that the government is simply running scared from a hysterical British press and a culture war that has filled newspapers with literally thousands of anti-trans hate articles in the last few years.

9. It's a sickening distraction from the real issues facing women. You might wish to point out that in a society in which 1 in 4 women are subject to domestic violence in their lifetime and in which one woman is killed by an abusive partner or ex in the UK on average every five days, it is not trans women who are committing these crimes. That you wish campaigners would drop their vendetta against trans women to focus on supporting women who are really at risk. Trans women are in fact at a risk of being the victims of violence too, as media campaigns and political hounding has contributed to major increases in hate crime over the last few years.

10. This one is very important – please don’t miss it out. The EHRC Interim Guidelines April 25th and what comes next. Say that you are very concerned that the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC - the body that is supposed to oversee the law with respect to protecting minorities) has announced that it is going to bring Equality Act Statutory Guidance (i.e. mandatory rules) to Parliament by the end of June which could make a reality of the scenarios above by blanket-banning all trans people from facilities that match their lived gender. The EHRC is an advisory legal body and the government is waiting for it to launch these punitive guidelines so that it can pretend it is only "following advice". But the EHRC is a profoundly anti-trans organisation which has for the past few years consistently fought to limit the rights of trans women.

Already (25th April), the EHRC has rushed out 'an interim update' that pressurises organisations to 'comply in advance', with a legal take on the Supreme Court ruling that promotes its deeply anti-trans position. This states that trans women should be banned from all women's spaces and trans men should be banned from all men's spaces. This is not what the Supreme Court ruling said (The Court ruled that service providers could prevent access to trans people to these facilities but that they did not have to, as ex Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption pointed out last week).). There are technical, but legally ridiculous reasons why they are suggesting that companies must do this. They go on to suggest that it may also be appropriate to keep trans women out of men's toilets too, and trans men out of men's women's toilets (ironically the last place either group would ever want to be anyway). The upshot of that could be that trans people have no facilities to use at all. The EHRC recognises that in these guidelines and suggests that if it looked like trans people might end up with no toilet at all then that shouldn't happen. But it doesn't suggest a plausible solution except mentioning 'mixed-sex' facilities which should be provided as well as single-sex ones (irrespective of cost or practicality).

The interim update is tortured, unworkable and deeply humiliating to trans people. Tonally it treats trans people like aliens. If employers need to go through all these expensive hoops to accommodate just a few trans employees (which is all it will ever be), wouldn't it be easier to somehow just not employ them at all? Wouldn't that also help the employer avoid getting into the crosshairs of the EHRC Gender Police too?

Further - and this is important - The Supreme Court ruling said nothing about what employers should or should not do. Yet the EHRC has deliberately started to extrapolate - to support a position of getting all trans people banned from the facilities that they want to use, need to use and have been using for decades without incident, either at work or anywhere else.

Lastly, the EHRC has announced a 'consultation' on these proposals, prior to sending recommendations to the government for Statutory Guidelines. It is allowing 2 weeks for this - a hyper-accelerated attempt to railroad its proposals through and to prevent opponents from gathering their arguments to challenge the EHRC. A typical consultation period for something like this, in which the body running the process wanted to be seen to be transparent and inclusive, could easily be 6-12 weeks, to ensure all voices are heard and especially in respect of a issue like this where an entire minority group is staring at having its long-held rights completely removed. We believe that it has been put under pressure by the government to do this - the latter is desperate for this issue to 'go away' before their political opponents can do them more damage.

Ironically, 2 or 12 weeks, one phrase in the EHRC's press release is especially chilling: 'The Supreme Court made the legal position clear, so we will not be seeking views on those legal aspects'. To paraphrase this: 'We'd like to invite people to confirm we have got the law all exactly right and we won't accept contributions saying we've got any of this wrong. Trans people are getting blanket banned, even if the Supreme Court didn't suggest that, we just want ideas on how to do it.'

11. Finally, add that you feel the Labour government has also completely abandoned the trans community Trans people make up less than 1% of the population. That a party which has long prided itself on a commitment to social justice and minority rights is acting this way is incomprehensible.

12. Close by saying that you really want your MP to meet you urgently...  ...to talk about this more and that you’d like their office to be in touch to set this up.

13. Don’t forget to add your full name and address... ...and maybe a contact number on your email. This is essential as it proves that you live in that MP's constituency. There is no possibility that they will respond to you unless you do this.

Once you have sent your email, try and ask 5 friends to do the same – focus on cisgender friends. And ask them to pass on the request to others too.

You can find out who your MP is here https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP

You can find out more about their views and how they have voted here https://www.mysociety.org/wehelpyou/who-is-your-mp

We encourage you to write to your MP irrespective of whether or not you feel they will be sympathetic. Some will respond and you’ll get an invite to a meeting. Some won’t. If they don’t, and you feel able, try again. But even if you sense you are getting nowhere, MPs do monitor how many emails they are getting on certain topics and they take notice – especially MPs who represent marginal constituencies and who worry that they might not spot something that could cause them to lose their seat in the next election.

We hope to publish more material soon to support you as and when you manage to get a meeting with your MP.

Remember this above all else. Those who hate trans people think they have won a great victory, even a knockout blow. But they are wrong. Look at the number of people who turned out on the streets in support of the trans community in the days following the Supreme Court ruling. If all of them acted, and asked 5 more to do the same, what might be the effect of that? Remember that the repeal of the horrific, homophobic Section 28 legislation passed in the 1980s was achieved by people doing what you are doing – pressurising MPs, over and over, until they listened.

We fight on.

Trans Legal Project.