The UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has removed guidance on single-sex spaces it published earlier this year after the Supreme Court ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer to “biological woman” and “biological sex”.

Following the ruling in April 2025, the EHRC published interim guidance which stated that trans women can be excluded from women’s facilities. It also stated that in some cases, trans women may be prohibited from using men’s spaces and trans men may be prohibited from using women’s facilities.

This single-sex spaces guidance has now been replaced with a statement urging the UK Government to provide “accurate and up-to-date” statutory guidance on the Equality Act. The EHRC has written to the Minister for Women and Equalities to request an “updated code in Parliament” which will replace their previous guidance.

Without guidance on the Supreme Court’s ruling over single-sex spaces, the EHRC said organisations must “comply with the law” and advised them to seek their own “expert legal advice” for guidance on gendered spaces.

The Good Law Project, which has issued a legal challenge over the guidance, said that despite the removal of the EHRC’s “rushed guidance”, the damage to trans people in the UK has “already been done”.

In a statement, the group said: “A number of employers and service providers have already implemented this interim guidance, with a devastating impact on trans people. These actions may be against the law.”

The Good Law Project’s executive director Jo Maugham said the EHRC’s decision to remove the guidance came “far too late”.

“I’ve spent six months talking to trans people who are afraid to go out because of the climate of fear the EHRC’s interim guidance created,” she said.

Maugham asked if the EHRC will apologise to members of the trans community who have been affected by the ruling.

She said: “Some [trans people] are suicidal – and I am aware of people who have sought to take their own lives. The EHRC has finally taken it down – and my question to them is: if the High Court finds the guidance unlawful, will you apologise to those whose lives you have so profoundly harmed.”

The Good Law Project will challenge the EHRC’s guidance in the UK’s High Court on November 12.

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