TACC (Trans Advocacy and Complaints Collective) can now reveal, through documents obtained via a Freedom of Information request, that in early September 2024, the anti-trans activists Sex Matters secured a closed-door meeting with key figures at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), followed by direct correspondence with the Chair, Baroness Kishwer Falkner.
What followed was not simply a policy discussionâit was a carefully coordinated lobbying campaign designed to reshape statutory guidance on single-sex services, roll back trans rights under the Equality Act 2010, and frame exclusion as legal clarity.
This briefing exposes how Sex Matters is working to influence the EHRCâs direction on gender, law, and human rights through privileged access, misrepresentation of legal precedent, and a deeply anti-trans ideological reinterpretation of equality law.
The Meeting: Behind Closed Doors at Tintagel House
Date: 6 September 2024
Location: EHRC Offices, Tintagel House
Attendees:
- EHRC: Baroness Falkner (Chair), Commissioners, legal staff
- Commissioners’ names have been redacted. Due to possible conflicts of information, we have requested the names in attendance in a separate FOI request.
- Baroness Falkner was in attendance via video call. We have requested the footage of this call.
- Sex Matters: Maya Forstater, Director of Campaigns, Director of Advocacy
Purpose:
To discuss âSex Mattersâ views and EHRC policy and legal engagement in key areas relating to sex/gender.â
The meeting notes reveal that Sex Matters updated the EHRC on its lobbying activitiesâincluding an upcoming Parliamentary eventâand confirmed its newly acquired charitable status. The EHRC, in turn, outlined its forthcoming interventions and legal priorities, including updates to its Code of Practice for Services, Public Functions, and Associations.
Significantly, Sex Matters pressed the EHRC to:
- Simplify guidance to support blanket trans exclusions in services.
- Acknowledge “confusion” over trans identities as a justification for clear-cut definitions.
- Convene “experts from across a range of opinions” to legitimise their framing, citing World Rugby’s exclusionary rules as a positive model.
The Email: Direct Lobbying to the Chair
Just three days later, on 9 September, Maya Forstater sent a follow-up email to Baroness Falkner. Attached was a 2010 draft version of the EHRC Code of Practice, which she described as superior to the final version, blaming its watering down on the trans advocacy group Press for Change.
Key contents:
- Attached guidance: Forstater promotes a version of the Code that explicitly strips away the interpretative protections trans people currently rely on.
- Polling: Used to claim public support for excluding âtrans-identifying malesâ from womenâs services and sport, arguing for âclear languageâ based on widespread confusion.
- Case law: Cites selected legal cases to portray trans inclusion as a legal risk.
- Sport: Presents a report from Fair Play For Women warning of âintimidationâ and the erosion of âgenuinely single-sexâ spaces due to trans inclusion.
The tone is urgent, partisan, and presumptive. Forstater does not just offer viewsâshe proposes policy language, legal interpretations, and even drafts for guidance.
The Legal Strategy: Rewriting the Equality Act by Stealth
Misrepresenting the Law
Sex Matters presents the Equality Act as if it supports the default exclusion of trans people, particularly trans women, from single-sex spaces. They omit the key principle that such exclusions must be:
- Case-by-case
- Proportionate
- A means of achieving a legitimate aim
They ignore that trans women with Gender Recognition Certificates are legally female under UK lawâa position repeatedly affirmed in UK courts, including A v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police [2004] and Croft v Royal Mail Group [2003].
Distorting Case Law
Sex Matters cherry-picks recent tribunal decisions to portray inclusive practice as inherently unlawful or unsafe. They misapply workplace toilet access cases and lean heavily on the controversial ruling in Adams v Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre [2024], which undermined the privacy rights of a non-binary staff member and endorsed forced disclosure of assigned sexâcontrary to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
They also cite pending (at the time, ‘nurses in Doncaster’, which was in fact the Darlington nurses case, and Sandi Peggie vs NHS Fife) litigation supported by ultra-conservative legal groups such as Christian Concern, signalling a wider legal campaign aimed at reinterpreting equality law in favour of sex-based exclusion.
The Strategy: Fear, Confusion, and Control
Sex Mattersâ core rhetorical device is manufactured confusion:
- Confusion about language (âpeople donât understand what a trans woman isâ)
- Confusion about the law (recasting EHRC guidance as misleading)
- Confusion about safety (suggesting trans presence = danger in services and sport)
Their âsolutionâ is to impose fixed biological definitions and push out trans people, particularly trans women, from protections they currently enjoy. But this isnât legal clarity. Itâs erasure dressed as policy reform.
The EHRC’s Role: Independence or Ideology?
The EHRCâs willingness to entertain this lobbyingâand to later adopt overlapping talking pointsâraises serious concerns:
- Is the EHRC maintaining its statutory duty to protect the rights of all under the Equality Act, including people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment?
- Has the Commission become a vehicle for implementing a narrow ideological vision of sex-based rights, through informal networks and partisan advice?
- Are trans people and their representative organisations being given equal access to shape future guidance?
As the body charged with upholding equality and human rights, the EHRC must not allow itself to be co-opted into a campaign that undermines the very people it is supposed to protect.
What Needs to Happen Now
We are witnessing a coordinated attempt to change the interpretation of the Equality Act not through public debate or Parliament, but through backroom influence and distorted legal arguments.
We call for:
- Transparency: All stakeholder communications related to the updated Code of Practice should be published in full.
- Legal balance: Trans-inclusive legal experts and community groups must be given equal footing in shaping statutory guidance.
- No backdoor policymaking: The EHRC must end the practice of secretive meetings with ideologically driven lobbyists and return to its founding mission: to promote and uphold the rights of all.
A Line in the Sand
Sex Mattersâ activism is not about clarity or fairness. It is about controlâcontrol over who counts, who is seen, and who is protected under the law. The EHRC must not allow itself to become the handmaiden of exclusionary anti-trans ideology.
The right to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality under the law does not end because someone else claims to be confused by your existence.
All documents cited in this briefing were obtained by TACC via a Freedom of Information request.
