Labour has delayed the publication of official guidance that would require businesses and public bodies to offer single-sex spaces to women.
Women and Equalities Secretary Bridget Phillipson described the proposed rules as “trans-exclusive” and has failed to sign them off more than three months after receiving them.
The guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) was drawn up following a Supreme Court ruling that only biological women are women under equality law.
The full guidance from the EHRC has not yet been released, with sources telling The Telegraph Ms Phillipson had insisted on additional bureaucratic processes that have held the approval up.
In a submission given to the High Court, she said there were “many entirely plausible exceptions” to the single-sex rule.
According to Ms Phillipson, the guidance failed to take into account “common sense” exceptions.
This includes instances such as pregnant women using men’s loos to avoid queues at theatres and women being unable to take their “infant sons” into changing rooms at swimming pools.
She has been accused of “using every excuse in the book” to stand in the way of the Supreme Court ruling, in the hope that she will find a reason to force the EHRC to rewrite its guidelines.
Women and Equalities Secretary Bridget Phillipson has submitted her comments to the court
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Shadow Minister for Equalities Claire Coutinho said: “Government lawyers, working under Bridget Philipson’s instruction are trying to rewrite the Supreme Court judgment that sex means biological sex.
“It is clear that they have no intention of complying with the law or implementing the ruling to make sure women’s rights to single-sex spaces are protected. The minister’s arguments would be laughable if they weren’t so dangerous.
“Calling for sex-based rights on a case-by-case basis to try and appease radical gender activists in her own party is a betrayal of women and girls everywhere.
“Whether it’s this court case or failing to publish the EHRC’s draft code of practice, the Government is doing everything it can to deny women the right to single-sex spaces.”
Claire Coutinho accused Labour of trying to ‘appease radical gender activists’
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A Government spokesman said: “The EHRC has submitted a draft Code of Practice to ministers, and we are working at pace to review it with the care it deserves.
“This is a 300-page long and legally complex document and it is important for service providers that we get this right.
“It would be catastrophic for single sex-services to follow guidance that wasn’t legally sound and then place them in legal jeopardy again.
“That is why it is vital we get this right.
LGBT+ campaigners have criticised the draft guidance
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Campaigners have raised fears the new guidance could be a “licence to discriminate based on looks”.
Trans rights organisation TransActual strongly criticised the reported guidance, which it described as “cruel”, and called on the Government to reject it and order it to be “completely rewritten.”
They added: “We’ve seen this before, people trying to make our society into a place that is only safe for ‘normal’ ladies. Not just loos. But sports centres, changing rooms and more.
“We know from experience that women of colour and butch lesbians are more likely to be seen as unfeminine by strangers, so this policy would have racist and homophobic impacts as well as being obviously incredibly harmful for trans people.”
“We offer our solidarity to the many cis women who have been targeted and harassed for their appearance by ‘gender critical activists’ who believed they were trans, and who would be put even further at risk by these rules.”
Liberal Democrat MP Josh Babarinde, speaking in Parliament last month, said the guidance as reported would be “unworkable for business.”
A Downing Street spokesman said: “More broadly I do think you’d be hard-pressed to find people across the country who don’t think that a fellow human being should be treated with dignity and respect under the eyes of the law or in everyday life.”
