The Labour government is continuing with austerity and cuts which impact our communities as well as pushing through the EHRC code of practice. They bear responsibility for the anger in communities about the sorry state of our public services which results in Reform gaining support. Reform, who recently announced over £50bn in disability cuts. Reform, who have committed to repealing the Equality Act. The party whose councils it controls have banned Prides and LGBT+ education in schools. Reform, whose answer to all of society’s ills is to create even more division by attacking the most vulnerable groups.
The manufacture of a so-called culture war, in which anti-migrant and anti-trans rhetoric mutually reinforce a global rise in bigotry, serves only to fracture the solidarity among people who’d otherwise be fighting a common cause on pay, conditions, and privatisation. This highlights the common battle that we all have in fighting for race, disabilty, women’s and LGBT+ liberation as part of the fight against cuts. We have a key role in the trade union movement to unite our members against the attempts to divide us and to challenge austerity.
The fight for dignity at work is one part of the fight against capitalist austerity and Reform.
A new frontline opened across all civil service departments in July. Following the publishing of the EHRC’s latest guidance, which gained statutory status on August 5th, the Cabinet Office produced a new model policy and guidance for departments on how managers should treat Trans+ members of staff. This guidance and policy includes a bathroom ban, in which the Trans+ community may not use the bathrooms of their lived gender, and a change to departments’ special leave policy, reducing it from the current twelve weeks currently provided.
At least twelve weeks of special leave has been afforded up until now, and is absolutely necessary. To use just one example – trans women who undergo bottom surgery cannot sit for long periods for the first six weeks following surgery. For the first twelve weeks, a trans woman must dilate, which includes lying naked on the floor, inserting rods into their neovagina to ensure it does not close in on itself. This must happen multiple times a day. What government building has the facility to accommodate this?
PCS has clear policy with motion A348 carried at ADC on opposing the EHRC guidance and defending our Trans+ members’ rights. We are also challenging the discriminatory attack on special leave. It is totally unacceptable that Trans+ people would need to consciously choose between having life-saving surgery, or maintaining a positive sickness record as the Cabinet Office guidance suggests departments should instead manage gender affirming surgery under sickness policies. This is all under the guise of legal advice the Cabinet Office has received which supposedly suggests that this change is necessary to avoid claims of indirect discrimination from other protected groups such as disabled people, in so-called “preferential treatment of Trans+ people”. The PCS NEC left coalition will oppose any attacks on equality rights and will place demands on the cabinet office to improve equality conditions to meet the needs of all our members. We will challenge the current coordinated attack on our Trans+ members and the community as a whole.
One negative consequence of employers poorly implementing the toilet ban is that our disabled members will be disproportionately impacted as already scarce disabled facilities will be used by displaced Trans+ members who do not feel comfortable in or feel welcome in either gendered toilets
PCS now has a left coalition for change majority on the NEC who are committed to fighting to implement our union policies in the talks at national level with the Cabinet Office. This includes involving the Proud National Committee as the recognised LGBT+ advisory committee to the NEC in developing the union’s response. We are pressing for full support and guidance to be produced for all the negotiators across the bargaining units in the union to deal with how employers are seeking to implement the Cabinet Office guidance on the EHRC Code of Practice
This work has been frustrated by the refusal of the general secretary to carry out conference and nec decisions. https://bln.org.uk/2026/08/18/nec-agree-major-national-campaign-strategy-but-the-general-secretary-refuses-to-implement-it/
Shortly after Conference concluded and the EHRC’s guidance was published, the General Secretary suspended on union business, which prevented the NEC from carrying out the immediate actions contained in Motion A348, carried at this year’s ADC, which called on the NEC to lobby ministers and call for a full parliamentary review of the guidance. Similarly, actions have been taken by the PCS Legal Department without first consulting with Proud, as instructed in conference policy.
The left coalition NEC majority will explore all avenues to implement our union policies including all those to defend our Trans+ members overwhelmingly carried at successive ADCs. We will challenge the discriminatory attacks on the special leave policy.
As well as challenging the Cabinet Office guidance in talks and exploring all legal avenues it is essential that we mobilise the collective strength of our union to defend our Trans+ members in our workplaces. We need to promote our trans-inclusive polices across our membership and encourage our members to stand by their fellow workers and challenge any discrimination and abuse that is aimed at our Trans+ members.
It is essential that negotiators familiarise themselves with the Grainger criteria, the method by which beliefs such as those held by Gender Critical activists are considered “protected”. Not all gender critical beliefs are protected, and the manifestation of their beliefs in the form of intentional deadnaming and misgendering are certainly not protected. In the case of Mackereth vs DWP, David Mackereth’s appeal was not upheld following his sacking as he refused to follow the DWP’s policy on preferred pronouns. The court found that the DWP was correct to fire Mackereth as he breached policy. Similarly, in the case of Souza v Primark, the court found Primark liable as it did not have policies in place to protect its Trans+ staff as they were humiliated and abused.
What cases like Mackereth and Souza demonstrate is that the narrative of litigious gender critical groups being overwhelmingly successful is wrong. Having strong policy that protects Trans+ members of staff reinforces the employer’s ability to combat employment tribunal claims. Instead, the Cabinet Office may have opened the civil service to a fresh wave of claims from its Trans+ employees.
The EHRC’s guidance does not create new legal obligations, and it is not an authoritative statement of the law. Guidance for workplaces has not yet been published, so the Cabinet Office is not compelled to force through this new policy. The law matters, but only as ammunition in an argument that must be fundamentally about solidarity.
Resist the cabinet office model policy and guidance
- Fight for a workplace built on mutual respect, not tolerance.
- Stop changes to special leave policy.
- Oppose the introduction of a bathroom ban for the Trans+ community.
- Improve equality policies and terms and conditions for all our members.
Join the Broad Left Network to help us in the fight to defend our Trans+ members, improve equality rights and conditions and unite everyone in the battle again
PCS Broad Left Network 