Civil servants warned they face misconduct probes if they challenge trans colleagues over female toilets

New Whitehall guidance leaked to journalists warns female civil servants that confronting a transgender colleague who uses women's toilets or changing rooms could constitute 'unlawful harassment'. Employees who persistently decline to use a colleague's preferred pronouns — in what the document describes as an attempt to 'deny, mock or invalidate' a trans identity — face formal misconduct investigations. The guidance applies across central government, arm's-length bodies and the NHS, and comes a year and a half after the Supreme Court ruled that biological men cannot use facilities reserved for women.

Maya Forstater of Sex Matters, a sex-based rights charity, described it as 'indefensible' that public-sector bodies had taken 18 months to update their policies following the Supreme Court ruling.