Exclusive: City giants tighten trans policies
City firms are being forced to tighten up inclusion policies and prevent transgender staff from using single-sex bathrooms, after the equalities watchdog published fresh directions on enforcing the seismic Supreme Court ruling on gender last year.
Square Mile giants including Admiral, Coventry Building Society and Santander have all updated their HR procedures to bar trans staff and visitors from female and male facilities, Morning Wire can reveal, in line with the new guidance from the regulator.
Last week, the Equality and Human Rights Commission published its eagerly anticipated code of practice for services organisations clarifying how to interpret the landmark Supreme Court judgment on the definition of sex last April.
The guidance made clear that service providers should restrict single-sex spaces like bathrooms and changing rooms to people of that biological sex unless those facilities were self-contained. It also encouraged firms to provide a ‘third’ or mixed-sex space on the condition it doesn’t compromise single-sex provision.
The formal code, which clarified initial guidance from the EHRC last year, has forced several financial services firms to reevaluate legacy diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, after several were accused by Sex Matters, a charity, of not conforming to the watchdog’s early guidelines.
Firms update trans guidelines
In a report from May titled Sex-based rights in the City, the gender-critical organisation listed over a dozen firms it said were failing to restrict access to women-only facilities to biological females. Among the household names called out by Sex Matters were Natwest, Standard Chartered and insurance giant Prudential.
Morning Wire can reveal that the report, combined with last week’s fresh guidance, has triggered several of the named blue-chip firms to update their transgender policies. A spokeswoman for Admiral said that following the EHRC’s code, it had “aligned our relevant policies with the legal position”. The FTSE 100 insurer had been waiting for official guidance before changing its policy, which are understood to have previously allowed transgender staff and visitors to use single-sex spaces.
Coventry Building Society, a mutual organisation that was also included in the Sex Matters paper, has also adjusted its policy to “provide a safe and inclusive environment for all colleagues”, it said. A spokeswoman told Morning Wire that in the wake of the EHRC’s update, the lender is now “complying with the legal guidance and ensuring we offer both single-sex spaces and gender neutral spaces”.
The changes underscore the tightrope that companies have to walk in the wake of a landmark Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman last year. In the case, judges defined a woman as someone who is biologically female, and ruled that transgender people should therefore be excluded from women-only spaces. The judgement had vast repercussions for a host of large-cap firms, many of which had originally introduced DEI policies that treated staff based on their identified gender as opposed to biological sex.
Earlier this year, Lloyds told trans women not to use its female lavatories as part of an update of its policy, after being accused by activists of not taking the Supreme Court ruling sufficiently seriously. Under its revamped approach, staff at Britain’s largest high-street lender are now expected to use facilities based on their biological sex. Insurance giant Aviva made a similar update to its policies last year, a person familiar with the matter said.
Supreme Court ruling leaves employers on tightrope
Some trans advocacy organisations had warned that the ruling – and EHRC’s guidance – was incompatible with operating a genuinely inclusive workplace. Legal campaigning group the Good Law Project accused the Supreme Court of ripping up the Equalities Act “without hearing a single trans voice” and vowed to fight back and “defend the human rights of all”.
But Bobbi Pickard, chief executive of Trans in the City, told Morning Wire that balancing the two priorities was “absolutely possible”.
“Usually the big FTSE employers have access to lots of universal toilets,” they said, adding: “Those businesses that have been motivated enough to think a little bit more outside of just the bare words of the guidance have very quickly established that they don’t need to exclude trans people at all.”
The equality watchdog’s code of practice was predominantly targeted at ‘service providers’, meaning companies like gyms, restaurants and hotels whose operating model involves hospitality. It is also expected to publish a similar set of guidance aimed specifically at employers later this year. Santander, which as well as being one of Britain’s largest banks also operates a chain of banking cafes, is understood to be updating guidance for those hospitality sites but is waiting for the EHRC’s full workplace guidance before formally updated its rules for staff.
A Santander spokesperson said: “We remain committed to providing an inclusive and respectful workplace for all colleagues, and accessible services for customers across our Work Café network. We are aware of recent guidance from the EHRC and are in the process of reviewing our footprint and policies in light of the recommendations made.”
Standard Chartered, Natwest and Prudential did not respond to a request for comment.