Leaked, unpublished guidance from the U.K.s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) recommends policies that would exclude trans people from public single-sex spaces such as restrooms. It would also encourage those running public spaces to question peoples gender identity and exclude them if they suspected they were trans.According to The Times, which obtained the leaked guidance, Under the new guidance, places such as hospital wards, gyms and leisure centres will be able to question transgender women over whether they should be using single-sex services based on how they look, their behaviour or concerns raised by others. If there is doubt they are telling the truth about their sex, they could be banned from using those services once those running them had considered relevant factors. Related Over 60,000 women sign a letter in support of trans women & calling out false feminism The EHRC reportedly first delivered this guidance document to U.K. ministers three months ago. The minister for women and equalities, Bridget Phillipson, has not yet officially published the guidance. The documents were leaked to The Times by anonymous political figures who claimed the Labour Party was delaying publication to avoid political backlash.Under the new guidance, a persons sex remains their biological sex, whether they have a GRC [gender recognition certificate] or not. A trans man with a GRC is a woman and a trans woman with a GRC is a man, for the purposes of the Act. That would mean that allowing a trans person to access a single-sex space based on their gender identity could be considered unlawful sex discrimination. Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Subscribe to our Newsletter today While this guidance would be harmful to trans people, it would also cause problems for those who do not fit societal expectations of men and women. One example described by The Times says that a trans man could be excluded from a womens space because he presents as a man and women could reasonably object to his presence, despite the guidances requirement that he use spaces consistent with his sex assigned at birth.Trans rights advocates denounced the new guidance. Astonishingly, the U.K.s human rights watchdog is attempting to mandate that staff at cinemas, hospitals, bars, and cafes must try and judge whether users are trans or not based on appearance alone, said a spokesperson for the organization TransActual in a statement. This is a license to discriminate based on looks, plain and simple.Weve seen this before people trying to make our society into a place that is only safe for normal ladies. Not just loos, but sports centres, changing rooms, and more. We know from experience that women of colour and butch lesbians are more likely to be seen as unfeminine by strangers, so this policy would have racist and homophobic impacts as well as being obviously incredibly harmful for trans people.We cannot believe that government would be so foolish so hell-bent on shooting itself in the foot as to go along with this. We therefore trust that Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson will treat it with the contempt it deserves and reject this costly, cruel, and unworkable guidance, sending it back to the EHRC to be completely rewritten. The controversy around EHRC guidance on trans access to single-sex spaces began in force back in April after a U.K. Supreme Court ruling. For Women Scotland brought a case to challenge the governments policy of allowing trans women with a GRC access to services, protections, and roles designated for women. The Supreme Court ruled that for such purposes, trans people should be considered their sex assigned at birth (which they refer to as biological sex).In response to the ruling, EHRC released interim guidance in late April for how public and government spaces should treat trans people. That guidance was unclear and internally inconsistent, leading to significant confusion, and was eventually pulled from the EHRC website in October. It was recently revealed in court that the interim guidance was drafted in less than a day.The document received by The Times appears to be the guidance that would have replaced that interim guidance had it been published when it was received. Phillipson has suggested that the months passing by are standard for such considerations. The code of practice that the EHRC are bringing forward applies only to adults, she said (although it is unclear how it would avoid being applied to minors). Ill go through that thoroughly and carefully. While Phillipson said that trans people deserved dignity and respect, her comments implied that trans women were not included in her own definition of women. This is an important area and we want to make sure that women have access to a single-sex provision. Thats incredibly important for domestic violence services, rape crisis centres, so that women are able to heal from the trauma theyve experienced. But, of course, trans people should be treated with dignity and respect.The EHRC was recently taken to court by theGood Law Projecton behalf of several plaintiffs over its initial guidance. The judge has reserved their decision while they consider the case.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.