The Supreme Court decision earlier this month to make biological reality rather than self-identification the basis for gender relations continues to impact society, with Barclays bank being the latest institution to align itself with the new legal reality.
The Telegraph reports that the bank will no longer allow transgender women to use the ladies facilities, and vice versa. The new policy, which is yet to come into effect, represents a sharp turn from the bank.
In 2023 things were rather different. In November of that year, Ann O’Donoghue, a director of the company’s HR department spoke at a Trans in the City event, and indicated that Barclays employees could use whichever facilities they felt aligned to their gender.
“From an LGBT+ perspective, what we want to do, and we do have it in our policy, is that you can use the facilities which align to your gender identity. That is in our policy, that is our approach, that is what we do," she said at the time.
Since then there has been a Supreme Court ruling pronouncing the dominion of biology over ideology and updated interim guidance by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). According to the guidance, employers are required to provide single sex facilities for their employees, although trans employees should not be left with nowhere to go.
A spokesman for Barclays told The Telegraph that they are working to ensure the company complies with all guidance and legal requirements:
“We will make any changes to our practices that are necessary to ensure we are compliant with legal requirements and we are reviewing the Supreme Court’s recent ruling," he said.
“We will be making any necessary changes to comply with the EHRC interim guidance.”
The EHRC noted that it was only offering “interim” guidance and said that it hoped to provide a fully updated Code of Practice to the government by June. The equalities body also noted that it would be providing separate guidance on how the Supreme Court ruling will affect sport “in due course”.
