Transcript of a letter in the National (21/10/25)

Transcript of a letter in the National today (21/10/25).

Guidance from EHRC should be challenged by Labour

I WRITE as a feminist and the parent of a trans teenager. I have also spent years
working to safeguard women and children. I understand risk- and where harm comes from. I’m writing because of the damage being done by the initial guidance on single-sex spaces from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), and the urgent need for principled leadership from Keir Starmer.
The trans community – and by extension, my child – faces hostility, suspicion, and dehumanisation simply for existing. The hatred I see online is terrifying. When politicians fail to stand up for their rights, it sends a chilling message: that trans people are not safe, not welcome, not worthy of dignity. That families like mine don’t matter.

But it also fails women. It misdirects their fear. The risk to women and children is overwhelmingly from cis men. Women are not safe in their own homes – why are we talking about toilets?

This guidance doesn’t protect women it undermines us. It shifts the burden of safety onto marginalised groups, rather than addressing the real sources of harm. It tells cis women that their fear should be directed at trans women, rather than at the systems that fail to protect them from male violence.
It also divides us. It pits cis women against trans women, when we should be united in fighting misogyny, inequality, and abuse. It distracts from the real battles – like the epidemic of domestic violence, the failures of the justice system, and the rise of online misogyny. It offers a false sense of security while leaving the actual threats untouched. As a feminist, I find this deeply regressive. It’s not about protecting women – it’s about controlling spaces.

And this brings me to the hypocrisy of current safeguarding rhetoric. Politicians claim to be protecting children, yet ignore the fact that many public spaces – swimming pools, for example – are not gendered. Children routinely share spaces with cis men, often with no supervision. No-one seems
concerned about safeguarding in those contexts. Male children routinely stand beside adult men exposing themselves at urinals – yet no-one calls for reform in those spaces. Sex offenders are not routinely stopped from using public toilets. But no pearl-clutching for that. Why? Because the concern isn’t about safeguarding – it’s about targeting trans people under the guise of protection.

The current political framing of trans people as a blanket risk is not only inaccurate – it’s unethical. It is also incompatible with trauma- informed practice.

Blanket bans and exclusionary policies ignore the complexity of trauma, identity, and safety. Trauma-informed work requires us to consider the individual, not to impose rigid categories. It demands that we create environments where people feel safe, seen, and respected.

A blanket ban on access to gender- affirming spaces does not support healing. It retraumatises. It isolates. It tells vulnerable young people that their needs don’t matter.

And as a survivor of male abuse myself – both as a child and an adult – I am deeply disturbed by how people like me are being weaponised to justify trans exclusion. I did not experience abuse at the hands of trans women. I experienced it from cis men – like so many others. This is not discrimination I want. It is not protection I asked for. To use survivors’ pain to exclude trans people is not safeguarding.

I am astounded that Labour have not yet publicly rejected the EHRC’s guidance. Surely their role is to challenge it – not quietly adopt it. It is the role of politicians to lead, to legislate, to protect – not to defer responsibility.

The EHRC’s proposals are unworkable. They do not support the rights of my trans child. From what I’ve read, they are focused on exclusion, not inclusion. Are we going to segregate trans youth like it’s 1950s America? That seems to be what Wes Streeting is suggesting. Will my child have to walk miles to find a toilet they can safely use? This issue does not exist in a vacuum. Women in the UK face enormous challenges. We have a police force riddled with misogyny. În Scotland alone, there were 65,000 reported domestic abuse incidents last year. We face inequality in healthcare, threats to reproductive rights, and systemic failures in protecting victims of violence. Online misogyny is on the rise. These are the issues that demand urgent attention.

Yet here we are talking about single-sex spaces. This is not about protecting women. It is about stoking fear. It is about scapegoating a marginalised group. And it is deeply harmful – not just to trans people, but to all women.

All this could have been avoided. So much harm has been done – harm that will take years to undo. My child’s life has been made more painful, more difficult, more isolating. Not because of who they are, but because of what the Labour Party has legitimised. Because of the fear and hatred that has been fuelled.

I urge Keir Starmer to reject the EHRC’s guidance, to listen to trans people, parents and professionals, and to lead with empathy – and more importantly, with evidence. Because right now, Labour is failing trans children. As a parent, it’s horrifying. Parent of a Trans Child