Single-sex spaces where transgender people cannot enter are perfectly legal, Britain’s Equalities and Human Rights Commission has said.
Issuing guidance on the increasingly controversial issue of single-sex safe spaces, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on Monday said that while the Equalities Act states that businesses cannot discriminate against people over “protected characteristics of sex or gender reassignment,” it said that there are some exceptions for single spaces.
The EHRC said that organisations such as hospitals, retailers, hospitality and sports clubs are all allowed to place limits on single sex areas to limit them to only those biologically born either male or female, so long as the “reasons are justified and proportionate.”
Such businesses and organisations are also within their legal rights to opt to open up such spaces to anyone, the equalities watchdog said.
Explaining the guidance, the chairwoman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Baroness Kishwer Falkner said: “Where rights between groups compete, our duty as an independent regulator is to help providers of services and others to balance the needs of different users in line with the law.