PUBLIC bodies such as the NHS must update their policies in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex-based rights, Britain’s equalities watchdog warned today.

The Supreme Court’s ruling that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act were “biological” terms was “enormously consequential,” according to Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) chairwoman Baroness Kishwer Falkner.

She confirmed that trans women could no longer take part in women’s sport and that “single-sex services like changing rooms must be based on biological sex.”

“If a male person is allowed to use a women-only service or facility, it isn’t any longer single-sex, then it becomes a mixed-sex space,” she said.

She indicated that a new statutory code for public bodies incorporating the judgment would be put before Parliament by summer.

The NHS will “have to change” its 2019 policy, of accommodating trans people “according to their presentation,” she said.

The clarity of the ruling, she argued, meant the NHS “can start to implement the new legal reasoning and produce their exceptions forthwith.” 

In a thinly veiled warning, she said the EHRC stood ready to “use enforcement” where bodies failed to adapt.

The EHRC chairwoman added that trans people “have rights, and their rights must be respected.”

Gender reassignment remains a protected characteristic under the Equality Act, making it illegal to discriminate against trans people.

She said: “It’s not a victory for an increase in unpleasant actions against trans people. We will not tolerate that.

“We stand here to defend trans people as much as we do anyone else. So I want to make that very clear.”

As the EHRC chair called on bodies to adapt to the judgment, Alba Party MSP Ash Regan — who quit as a Scottish government minister over its gender reforms before defecting from the SNP — vowed to table a motion in Holyrood calling on Scottish government to take “urgent action” to make sure public bodies are “following the law” and putting the ruling into practice.

But Green MSP Maggie Chapman was less enthusiastic, warning: “The response by For Women Scotland and associated groups yesterday was very, very clear.

“They are taking this as a victory and I think that’s something quite potentially dangerous about where they go next.

“We’ve already heard people say they want to repeal the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and trans people are worried that people are coming after their right to exist.”