UK trans women can use female changing rooms if no complaints

9/12/2025 6:36

British employers can allow trans women to use female changing rooms despite a landmark ruling on the definition of a woman under equality laws, but

alternative solutions may be necessary where complaints are raised, a tribunal said on Monday.



Transgender rights have become highly politicised in Britain and elsewhere as broad advances in LGBT rights have triggered a backlash among social conservatives and some feminists.



An employment tribunal said in a summary of its judgment that a recent decision by the UK Supreme Court – which said that only biological women meet the definition of women under the UK's Equality Act – did not make it "inherently unlawful" for a trans woman to use a female changing room.



The tribunal also ruled, however, that workplaces permitting someone to use the changing room of their reassigned gender was not necessarily lawful either, raising the prospect of future legal disputes.