Liberal Democrat members have overwhelmingly rejected official guidance on the use of single-sex spaces, arguing that it leaves transgender people at risk of being excluded from public facilities.
The party passed its Restoring Trans Rights motion on a show of hands at its annual conference in Brighton.
It describes the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s code of practice as “discriminatory and unworkable” and calls for it to be replaced.
Ed Davey backed the move, telling the BBC that the guidance was not “fit for purpose”.
The decision makes the Liberal Democrats the first of the three largest parties in Parliament to formally oppose the EHRC’s approach. The Green Party has also called for the guidance to be withdrawn.
What the Lib Dems have voted for
The motion calls for a new EHRC code that allows everyone to access public facilities safely while giving businesses and other service providers clearer protection from legal action.
It also proposes a dedicated cross-party parliamentary committee to examine whether the law adequately protects transgender people and recommend changes where necessary.
Members reaffirmed support for reforming the Gender Recognition Act by removing the requirement for medical reports, ending the spousal veto and giving legal recognition to non-binary people.
The motion states:
“Trans women are women, trans men are men, and everyone deserves to live in safety and with dignity.”
It also argues that women’s rights and transgender rights should not be presented as competing demands.
The full motion published by the Liberal Democrats says recorded hate crimes against transgender people increased by 50 per cent between 2020 and 2025. It also points to reports of gender non-conforming women being challenged or harassed in female facilities.
The Lib Dems are challenging the guidance, not reversing the court judgment
The legal distinction is important.
In April 2025, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the words “woman”, “man” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex.
The judgment followed a case brought by For Women Scotland against the Scottish government. It found that possessing a gender recognition certificate does not change a person’s sex for the purposes of the Equality Act.
The ruling did not remove legal protection from transgender people. Gender reassignment remains a protected characteristic, while trans people may also bring discrimination or harassment claims in some circumstances under their acquired gender.
The Liberal Democrat conference has not overturned that judgment, nor could it. The party has instead rejected the EHRC’s instructions on how organisations should apply it.
The distinction has sometimes been lost in coverage of the vote. Changing the Supreme Court’s interpretation would require Parliament to amend the Equality Act. Replacing the EHRC code would change the guidance used by service providers and considered by courts without automatically rewriting the underlying law.
What the EHRC code says
The EHRC published its revised code in May, and it came into force on 5 August.
It says toilets, changing rooms and other facilities described as single-sex must be organised according to biological sex. A facility that admits transgender people on the basis of gender identity cannot be described as legally single-sex.
Trans women may therefore be excluded from women’s facilities and trans men from men’s facilities.
The guidance says exclusion must be justified as a proportionate way of achieving a legitimate aim, such as protecting privacy, dignity or safety. It also warns that failing to provide a suitable alternative could amount to discrimination against transgender people.
Critics argue that the practical result can be exclusion from both sets of facilities. A trans woman may be barred from a women’s toilet but fear harassment or violence in a men’s toilet. Gender-neutral facilities are not available everywhere.
The Lib Dem motion also objects to what it describes as the “policing” of people who do not look conventionally masculine or feminine. That concern is not limited to transgender people. Some gender non-conforming women have reported being challenged in women’s facilities because strangers assumed they were trans.
The difficulties surrounding local interpretations of the ruling were previously illustrated by the dispute over trans access to Hampstead Heath’s bathing ponds.
‘Tired of being a culture war prop’
Lucas North, who spoke in support of the motion, said the rights of women and transgender people did not need to be placed on opposing sides of a political culture war.
Rebecca Jones told delegates that, as a trans woman, she was “tired of being a culture war prop”.
She described becoming frightened of using public spaces and worrying that prolonged attention from strangers could develop into abuse.
The motion did face opposition inside the conference hall.
Reigate councillor Mark Johnston argued that the Supreme Court’s decision was “unassailable” and warned that the party risked damaging its credibility with voters.
Party activist Zoe Hollowood said rejecting the guidance would tell women that they were “second-class citizens” and argued that the proposal was out of step with public opinion.
The mood in the hall was nevertheless strongly in favour, and the motion passed easily.
Davey chooses a clear dividing line
The vote gives the Liberal Democrats one of the clearest positions among the main Westminster parties on transgender rights.
Labour has accepted the Supreme Court judgment while facing questions from some of its MPs about whether the EHRC code can work in practice. The Conservatives have strongly defended sex-based access to single-sex spaces.
The political risk for Davey is obvious. Opponents will portray the policy as an attack on women’s rights and use it to challenge Liberal Democrat candidates in constituencies where the party is targeting socially moderate Conservative voters.
That argument was made explicitly during the debate, with critics warning that the party was allowing an internal issue to distract from its efforts to prevent Nigel Farage reaching Downing Street.
Supporters reached the opposite conclusion. They argued that a liberal party should defend a minority facing rising hostility even when doing so may be electorally uncomfortable.
There are still practical questions to answer. The motion demands safe access for everybody, but the party will eventually need to explain how its preferred rules would operate in toilets, changing rooms, hospitals, refuges and other services where privacy or safeguarding concerns arise.
For now, the conference has settled the party’s direction. The Liberal Democrats want the EHRC code rewritten and the law reviewed, while continuing to insist that women’s rights and transgender rights can be protected together.
Leave a Reply