Trigger Warning: Legal Exclusion, Misgendering, and Transphobia
The EHRC’s 2025 draft Code of Practice consultation is one of the most damaging pieces of institutional guidance we’ve seen in recent memory. It lays out, in clinical language, the legal justifications for excluding trans people from public services, sport, communal spaces, and community groups—often referring to trans women as “not women under the Act,” ignoring non-binary people entirely, and using the vague and unscientific term “biological sex” to define legal categories.
Many trans people, especially those who have survived state violence, medical trauma, or daily systemic erasure, are finding this document deeply triggering, confusing, and exhausting to read.
So here’s our clear message:
Only Respond If It’s Safe For You
You are under no obligation to read the Code in full or subject yourself to its language if doing so would harm your mental health.
In fact, we do not recommend reading the Code of Practice directly unless you feel emotionally and mentally up to it. The document is long, legalistic, and often written in ways that dehumanise or erase trans people.
Instead, you can:
- Use summary guides created by trans organisations.
- Base your answers on shared templates (like the one below).
- Adapt your answers slightly with your own experience or wording—this makes your submission more personal and impactful, while protecting your time and wellbeing.
Response Template Guide: For Individuals
We’ve created suggested answers to the most harmful sections of the consultation, including those on legal sex, gender recognition, sport, communal accommodation, and more. These are written to:
- Highlight inaccuracies and legal conflicts (with the GRA 2004, ECHR, etc.)
- Challenge the use of “biological sex” as a legal category.
- Uplift the lived experiences of trans and non-binary people.
- Push back against the Code’s exclusionary framing.
You can copy and paste them into the EHRC online form, but we encourage you to tweak them slightly to include your own thoughts or experiences, even if that’s just a sentence or two. This ensures your response is counted as unique and not filtered out as a duplicate.
Example addition:
“As a non-binary person, I already face daily uncertainty about which facilities I can use. This guidance would make it worse.”
or
“I’m a trans woman with a GRC, and it is dehumanising to be told I am not legally a woman when accessing services.”
Response Template Guide: For Organisations
If you’re responding on behalf of an organisation, charity, union, community group or professional body, your voice in this consultation is particularly powerful.
Why? Because the EHRC and government will point to the number and type of organisations that support or oppose the draft Code. If only a handful of anti-trans groups submit polished organisational responses, they’ll claim “broad institutional support.” We cannot let that happen.
Even small voluntary groups, networks and informal collectives can submit as an “organisation” — this includes:
- Local LGBT+ groups
- Women’s groups
- Trade union branches
- Student unions
- Faith-based equality groups
- Equality teams within councils and NHS bodies
We’ve created full suggested organisational responses you can use — covering all the key questions — with legal and rights-based language suitable for organisations.
Important: Please edit the answers slightly to reflect your own perspective or mission. This is crucial because it helps your submission stand out as unique:
- Add a sentence about your group’s purpose.
- Mention any experience you have supporting trans people.
- Highlight if your organisation has concerns about safeguarding, human rights, or equality.
- Highlight concerns of cost and resources that make this Code of Practice unworkable.
Example addition:
“As a local women’s organisation that works with many trans women survivors, we are deeply concerned that this Code will encourage their exclusion from essential services.”
or
“Our organisation advocates for inclusive sport and we believe this guidance will undermine participation and mental health for trans people in our community.”
Protecting Yourself While Taking Action
This consultation is designed to sound neutral, but it isn’t. It invites organisations to exclude us, while pretending it’s a matter of legal tidiness. That’s exhausting. So here’s how to engage safely:
✅ Read summaries, not the Code itself.
✅ Use a template if you don’t have the energy to write from scratch.
✅ Take breaks. Walk away when you need to.
✅ Ask a friend or community group to help you submit it.
✅ Focus on the questions that matter most to you.
✅ Don’t do it alone, we are in this together.
Why Responding Still Matters
We know it’s tiring. We know it feels like shouting into a void. But your voice still matters, especially when so many responses will come from those who support this exclusionary turn in policy.
Your perspective:
- Counters the idea that the public supports trans exclusion.
- Demonstrates the real-world harm caused by vague or hostile guidance.
- Builds a record of dissent for future legal and political challenges.
The EHRC is required to report on the consultation, and individual responses carry real weight, especially when they’re grounded in lived experience.
In Solidarity
We know this consultation is draining. But even small actions, just answering one or two questions, help disrupt the EHRC’s attempt to quietly normalise legal erasure.
Take care of yourself. Take care of each other. And when you’re ready, we’re here with you.
Help Us Collect Evidence — Install Our Browser Extension
If you’re responding to the consultation, you can also help the community by installing our Firefox extension (with a Chrome version coming soon — we’re just waiting on Google approval).
The extension will:
- Record your consultation responses so we can analyse the overall response landscape.
- Help us challenge the EHRC’s narrative if they attempt to misrepresent the tone or content of public feedback.
- Protect your privacy — no identifying or personal data will be collected. Only your consultation answers will be logged securely and handled with sensitivity.
By contributing your response through the extension, you’ll help ensure that trans and supportive voices are visible, counted, and documented — not lost in the process.
[Install the Firefox extension here]
[Install the Chrome extension here]
If you have any questions about how it works or about data privacy, please contact us. We’ll be happy to provide full transparency.
Download the Full Response Pack
We’ve put together:
- A full list of suggested responses to all the key consultation questions (individual & organisation versions)
- Shortened paragraph-length answers
- Notes on how to personalise your submission
Download it here: EHRC Code of Practice Consultation – Individual
Download it here: EHRC Code of Practice Consultation – Organisation