𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

A minister could not answer directly when asked how the Supreme Court ruling would impact on how trans people are treated in hospital. Karin Smyth also could not answer which changing room a transgender woman should use after yesterday’s verdict.

Britain’s highest court on Wednesday decided that transgender women are not legally women in a landmark verdict. Asked about the ruling’s impact on previous NHS guidance, which says trans people should be accommodated according to their legally recognised gender, health minister Karin Smyth told BBC Breakfast: “If I remember, the guidance you’re alluding to is an appendix to some previous guidance, and one of the issues, as I said earlier, that we are already looking at with the NHS is how they make sure that trans people are treated with privacy and dignity.

“But the ruling is very clear that sex means biological sex, and… the NHS will obviously be complying with that as every other public body will.”

Asked what her response was to trans people worried about the ruling, the minister said: “Rights remain enshrined in the Equality Act. There are protected characteristics for trans people under the gender recognition part of the Equality Act.

“If there are changes to be made, that needs to be looked at carefully with the guidance, but this law was about women’s rights and rights under the Equality Act for sex and for service providers making sure they are compliant with that.”

When asked by Times Radio whether a trans woman used a female changing room yesterday, which changing room should they use today, an answer was not clear.

Ms Smyth said: “Look I think we need to make sure that in this discussion we are following both the law so that is clear for women and for service providers and you know…this varies upon what the provision of those service providers are. Large organisations, smaller organisations, many smaller organisations.”

The chairwoman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission has said “single-sex services” like changing rooms and toilets “must be based on biological sex”.

Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chairwoman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday morning: “Single-sex services like changing rooms must be based on biological sex. If a male person is allowed to use a women-only service or facility, it isn’t any longer single-sex, then it becomes a mixed-sex space.

“But I have to say, there’s no law that forces organisations, service providers, to provide a single-sex space, and there is no law against them providing a third space, an additional space, such as unisex toilets, for example, or changing rooms.”

Asked about the risk that trans people will no longer be allowed to use facilities designed for either male or female, she added trans rights organisations should push for more neutral third spaces to accommodate trans people.

She said: “There isn’t any law saying that you cannot use a neutral third space, and they should be using their powers of advocacy to ask for those third spaces. But I think the law is quite clear that if a service provider says we’re offering a women’s toilet, that trans people should not be using that single-sex facility.”