EHRC will extend consultation on gender guidance, insiders say

The equality watchdog is expected to give in to demands that it allow more time for consideration of its formal guidance on the supreme court ruling about gender issues, after what sources say has been a substantial backlash from staff and stakeholders.

- Peter Walker Libby Brooks

Some insiders say the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) may be forced into a U-turn on its initial response, which was criticised as overly literal in defining how organisations should respond to the ruling that "woman" in the Equality Act refers only to a biological woman.

The EHRC's interim advice, published nine days after the supreme court decision, set out that transgender people should not be allowed to use toilets of the gender they live as, and that in some cases they also could not use toilets of their birth sex.