FILL OUT OUR 2 MIN SURVEY ABOUT THE IMPACTS OF THE CODE OF PRACTICE ON YOUR ORG

Many women's organisations we've spoken to have been holding off on updating their policies after the Supreme Court ruling on the Equality Act last year. Many were waiting for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to have its' guidance approved by Parliament.

The EHRC's draft Code of Practice was laid before Parliament on 21 May 2026. The Code is not legally in force quite yet, though. After being laid before Parliament, it enters a 40-day scrutiny period, and it only takes effect once a commencement order is made by the Minister. The existing 2011 Code remains the applicable statutory code in the meantime, although it's worth noting that the Supreme Court ruling itself already legally binds organisations regardless.

So, if you haven't already done so, now is the time to embark on a thorough policy review for your organisation.

What the Code says

The Code follows the Supreme Court's April 2025 ruling in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers, which confirmed that "sex" in the Equality Act 2010 means biological sex. The Code translates that ruling into practical guidance across a wide range of settings, including healthcare, hospitality, leisure, and community organisations.

For women's organisations, the key point is this: single-sex services are legally defensible, and the Code provides a clearer framework for operating them. Restricting access to a service or space on the basis of biological sex is lawful where it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, such as providing a safe environment for women who have experienced sexual or domestic male violence, or running refuge accommodation where women are living in a shared space.

What it means in practice

If your organisation runs women-only groups, services, or spaces, the Code supports your ability to maintain those on a biological sex basis, so long as it serves a legitimate and proportionate aim.

Importantly, it also clarifies that organisations which do allow trans women to use women's facilities can no longer designate those spaces as 'single-sex' under the Act.

For most women's voluntary and community organisations, the practical implications are about service eligibility and group access, not physical infrastructure. Whether your organisation runs a support group, delivers outreach, or provides one-to-one services, the relevant question is: on what basis do you define your beneficiary group, and does your policy reflect that clearly?

Toilets and changing rooms: does this apply to women's organisations?

Much of the media coverage has focused on toilets and changing facilities, and the Code does set out clear requirements in this area. Whether those requirements fall on your organisation depends on your relationship to the premises you use.

If you deliver services from a building your organisation owns or manages, then as both a service provider and an employer, you have direct responsibilities. Toilet and changing facilities in your building should operate on a biological sex basis. As an employer, you also have a duty not to leave trans staff without any usable provision. In practice, this means, where feasible, making a self-contained, fully private lockable room available, rather than simply designating a cubicle within an existing single-sex toilet block.

If you hire space from another organisation, such as a community hall, a church, a leisure centre, then the responsibility for the physical facilities sits with the venue, not with you. Your obligations in that context are about how you run your service and who you admit to it, not about the toilets. It's worth being aware of what facilities the venue provides, particularly if you are running services for women who may have safety or safeguarding needs, but you're not legally responsible for the venue's infrastructure.

If you are a small organisation with a single shared toilet, which is pretty common in converted houses or small offices, then the Code acknowledges this reality. A single self-contained lockable room used by one person at a time is treated as an acceptable arrangement, even where it isn't formally designated as single-sex.

What about trans inclusion?

The Code doesn't require women's organisations to exclude trans women from their services. It simply clarifies that they can do so lawfully and provides the legal basis for it. Organisations that want to maintain trans-inclusive policies remain free to do so, but they need to understand what that means in practice.

The key shift is definitional. If your organisation allows trans women to access women-only services or spaces, those services can no longer be described or operated as 'single-sex' under the Equality Act. That doesn't necessarily make them unlawful; it just means the single-sex exemption no longer applies, and the service is effectively a mixed-sex one.

For many organisations, the practical question is whether their governing documents and charitable objects reflect how they actually operate. If your objects refer to "women" as your beneficiary group, you may need to consider whether your definition of that term is consistent with how you deliver your services and whether it needs updating to reflect a conscious policy decision either way. This is worth discussing with your legal adviser or the Charity Commission, particularly if your funding or safeguarding obligations are tied to operating single-sex provision.

Organisations that want to remain open to trans women while retaining clarity about their primary purpose should take legal advice before making any changes to their governing documents or policies. Simply adding "and trans women" to an existing women-only definition is unlikely to be sufficient, and may end up creating new legal challenges, since a service defined in those terms is a mixed-sex service and no longer protected by the single-sex exemption, while also potentially being open to challenge from other groups who are excluded from it, such as trans men and men.

How eligibility is defined matters enormously, and the right approach will depend on your organisation's specific purpose, client group, and funding arrangements. This is not an area where off-the-shelf language is advised.

Others may conclude that their service model, particularly where it involves trauma-informed work with survivors of male violence, requires them to operate on a biological sex basis, and the Code now gives them a clearer legal footing to do that.

The most important thing is that the decision is made consciously, documented, and proportionate to your organisation's purpose and the needs of the women you serve.

Where this all leaves the women's sector

For women's organisations, hopefully, this is largely a moment of clarification rather than disruption. It's important to make sure your policies accurately reflect the law and that any changes are documented, proportionate, and grounded in your organisation's specific context.

See equality law expert Audrey Ludwig's online presentation and WRC's FAQ document about the ruling here.

FILL OUT OUR 2 MIN SURVEY ABOUT THE IMPACTS OF THE CODE OF PRACTICE ON YOUR ORG

Photo by Sasun Bughdaryan on Unsplash