This is part of our The law is clear – so get on with it! campaign
EHRC code: write to your MP
Write to express your disagreement with MPs who have signed a motion calling for the code to be rejected, and to support those who have not signed.
Labour MP Stella Creasy has moved an early-day motion (EDM) calling for the draft Code of practice for services, public functions and associations produced by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and laid before Parliament on 21st May to be rejected.
MPs who have spoken against the code, including Creasy, blame it for making single-sex spaces and services “trans exclusive”, under the mistaken apprehension that without the code it would be lawful to provide facilities for one sex that admitted people of the other sex who identify as trans.
In fact, this has never been lawful. The Supreme Court judgment of April 2025 solely concerned whether trans people with gender-recognition certificates (GRCs) counted as the opposite sex for the purposes of the Equality Act; it had already been established beyond doubt that those without GRCs did not. But the reasoning of the judgment made clear that a supposedly “single-sex” facility that is open to anyone at all of the opposite sex loses the protections from action for sex discrimination provided by the single-sex exceptions in the Equality Act. In other words, “single sex” has to mean exactly what it says.
The EHRC code does not make law; it simply explains how to follow the law. If it is rejected, the law as clarified by the Supreme Court will stand. But the longstanding problem of misinformation about the rights and responsibilities laid out in the Equality Act will continue to worsen. Service providers will become even less confident about providing single-sex facilities, and about challenging people of the wrong sex who try to use them.
So far more than 120 MPs have signed the motion. Find out if your MP was one of them, and write to ask them why they support a move that will harm human rights and is not supported by most voters.
If your MP did not sign, write to them now to thank them and urge them to stand firm.
Find out who your MP is at TheyWorkForYou.
Check whether your MP has signed the motion at parliament.uk.