Today we sent a submission to the GANHRI Sub-Committee on Accreditation, the international body which accredits National Human Rights Institutions, to raise concerns about the behaviour of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in relation to the Supreme Court judgement on the meaning of Sex in the Equality Act.

You can read our submission in full here, and find our more about the Supreme Court judgement here.

Several other trans-led organisations and allies have also written to GANHRI echoing our concerns, including TransActual, the Trans Advocacy and Complaints Collective, Trans+ Solidarity Alliance, and Amnesty International.

In the submission, we highlight some of the ways in which the EHRC has failed to advocate for the equality and human rights of trans people in the UK since the Supreme Court judgement, and has in fact made the situation worse by suggesting that we should be excluded from single-sex services and spaces that match our gender identity across the board.

A key point that we raise is that while it is the EHRC’s job to interpret the law and produce guidance based on this understanding, if it is truly their belief that the only correct interpretation of the Court Judgement is that trans people be excluded by default, then we would expect them to raise this as a significant human rights issue to the UK Government, and advocate for changes to be made.

In the absence of this, it’s hard to see the recent behaviour of the EHRC as anything other than an effort to further exclude trans and non-binary people from public life.

Vic Valentine, manager of Scottish Trans, said:

“We should be able to rely on our national human rights institution to protect and promote the rights of everyone. But instead we’ve had years of the EHRC not only not standing up for trans people but frequently acting in ways that make our lives harder. Right now we face the real possibility of trans people being excluded and segregated from services and workplaces on a daily basis. Instead of the EHRC trying to prevent that they’re actively pushing to make it happen.”