If the EHRC won’t do its job, we challenge the government to do better
For immediate release: 27 August 2025
If the EHRC won’t do its job of looking out for the rights of minorities, it’s time the government took up the challenge. That’s why this morning, TransActual delivered 10 volumes of EHRC consultation responses – the best part of 2,800 pages – of evidence to Equality Ministers Bridget Phillipson and Nia Griffith.
That’s evidence in the form of responses to the EHRC ‘consultation’ on guidance to business and other organisations in the wake of the supreme court ruling in April. Because it is clear that the less trans-positive evidence it has to engage with, the happier the EHRC is. First, they tried to reduce the consultation period to an almost unheard of two weeks. Then they put the job of analysing submissions out to an unspecified AI process. In addition, their stakeholder ‘Q&A’ sessions didn’t even feed into the formal consultation.
In a letter to Nia Griffith and Bridget Phillipson, delivered with the volumes, TransActual Chair, Helen Belcher wrote: “please forgive us for not trusting any outcome from the EHRC that emerges from such a clearly biased exercise. The use of AI is especially concerning, given the known issues when dealing with ‘niche’ or ‘non-normative’ content, and the lack of transparency in how the data will be handled or ability to check the working of the tool.
“[The responses] reflect the community’s outrage, hurt and horror that unelected judges can overturn, at a stroke and without listening to trans people, the legal understanding we’ve had for 15 years; that the EHRC should immediately rush so gleefully to implement trans-exclusionary policies while denying any “loss of rights” for trans people; and that a Labour government should sit on its hands, ignoring multiple international human rights experts, and so betray a minority they now consider inconvenient.
“Individuals who have been happily and peaceably transitioned for years – decades, even – now face a deeply frightening and uncertain future within the UK.”
The responses:
We asked individuals and organisations to send us copies of their consultation responses. Back came 375 – a mere fraction (0.73%) of the 50,000-plus responses received by the EHRC.
However, we suggest they give a far more authentic insight into the feelings of the trans community and their allies right now than any AI-generated summary the EHRC will produce.
Further Information:
For further information, contact jane fae via press@transactual.org.uk