Councillors backed a call for the council to refuse to implement the “Draft Code of Practice on Services, public functions and associations”, if the council’s legal team confirms the move would be lawful.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published the updated code following a Supreme Court judgment last year, ruling that “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refers to sex assigned at birth.
The draft clarifies that service providers may legally restrict single-sex spaces, including changing rooms, to biological sex.
But a motion to a Full Council meeting condemned the draft code as “incoherent and self-contradictory, discriminatory, and impossible to implement in a reasonable and proportionate manner”. It called on the council to “protect LGBTQIA+ workers and service users” by refusing to implement the guidelines.
Word from the Cabinet
Cllr Natalie Kane, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Inclusion, Democracy and Culture, said the guidelines would have “significant negative impacts for many across the borough, in the first instance the LGBTQIA+ community”.
She added: “For trans, intersex and gender non-conforming individuals, as well as those men and women who do not fit normative social representations of gender, these guidelines present the danger of discrimination and prejudice in the spaces where we should be prioritising care, support and service provision.
“When residents access our public services, they should not be concerned about how their gender is perceived, but how we provide the very best service for them, every step of the way.
“Trans women are women, trans men are men, Trans rights are human rights. Let us work together to build a Lambeth that is fair, equitable, and just.”
The motion asked council officers to advise on the legality of refusing to implement the guidelines – “and to proceed with non-implementation should officers advise that this is a lawful option”.
Councillors also endorsed a plan for the council to produce a policy for its own workplaces and services “which protects and champions transgender and non-conforming people’s right to basic dignity and respect for their private life”.
