Last week, NSUN, in collaboration with other mental health organisations, wrote to Secretary of State Bridget Phillipson and the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to raise concerns about the EHRC Code of Practice and the impact it could have on trans and non-binary people’s safety and wellbeing by excluding them from healthcare and other public services, spaces, and facilities.
This follows our previous letter, sent in December 2025, responding to the draft Code of Practice to voice serious concerns about the harm the guidance could cause.
We would like to reassure our members that this guidance is not legally binding and the details of how it will be interpreted and implemented remain to be seen. We, along with many others, will continue to fight for the dignity and safety of all trans and non-binary people. We will resist the harmful narratives that are designed to divide and distract. We will spend the coming weeks analysing the updated Code of Practice and continuing the fight for trans health justice.
Ruairi White, NSUN’s CEO, said: “This is the first major revision to the EHRC Code of Practice in ten years, and it threatens a rollback of rights for trans and non-binary people in this country.
Trans people already face discrimination and barriers in access to healthcare, including mental healthcare. The new Code of Practice risks worsening this situation, and trans people’s mental health, by leading service providers to further restrict trans people’s access to healthcare and other support services. The guidance is unclear and unworkable, and most of all it’s unjust.
Our politicians must engage with these risks. Parliament must scrutinise the guidance, and the Government must legislate to protect the rights and dignity of trans and non-binary people.”
Click here to read the letter
Dear Secretary of State and Chair,
Following the publication of the EHRC Statutory Code of Practice on the 21st May 2026, we write to you about concerns about the Code’s impact on trans and non-binary people, about whether it will receive appropriate parliamentary scrutiny, and how it may be implemented in practice.
We wrote to you previously on 3rd December 2025, alongside a wider group of leading mental health organisations across the UK, highlighting that “the proposed guidance risks deepening these inequalities [experienced by trans and non-binary people], undermining people’s dignity, safety and access to support”. We also highlighted concerns that the Code may contribute to mental health services becoming places of risk, not refuge, and could erode the conditions that enable people to feel safe and supported. The publication of the revised Code has not reassured us.
We note that the Government recently committed to a Mental Health Strategy to “drive a fundamental shift towards prevention – treating people earlier and faster, and supporting those with mental health conditions to live a full life and stay active in education, work, family life and their communities.”
We are concerned that the Code, and its implementation, will prevent many trans and non-binary people from living a full life in the UK, and may contribute to conditions where trans and non-binary people’s mental health is negatively affected.
Critically, given the significant impact the Code of Practice could have, and the interest in it from multiple sectors and stakeholders, we believe it should receive proper parliamentary debate and scrutiny. We call on you to ensure that a parliamentary debate is accommodated at the earliest opportunity. Only with such a debate will the views and voices of trans people, non-binary people, the mental health sector and those we work with, be properly heard.
The utmost importance should also be placed on ensuring that the Code is implemented in a way that is considered, well-managed and mitigates harm. We fear a knee-jerk response from a range of services that could, overnight, bar trans and non-binary people from essential services. We encourage you and the EHRC to guide providers of services to take a gradual and considered approach to implementation, one that mitigates harm to trans and non-binary people, and provides adequate alternative support before any single-sex exclusions may be applied.
We would be pleased to meet with you to discuss how the Code can receive adequate scrutiny, to explore our concerns in more detail, and discuss how the Code of Practice can be implemented with minimal harm.
Yours sincerely,
On behalf of the undersigned organisations:
Julie Bentley, CEO, Samaritans
Andy Bell, CEO, Centre for Mental Health
Dr Sarah Hughes, CEO, Mind
Mark Rowland. CEO, Mental Health Foundation
Mark Winstanley, CEO, Rethink Mental Illness
Sarah McIntosh, CEO, MHFA England and the Association of Mental Health First Aiders
Amy Whitelock Gibbs, Chair, Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition
Ruairi White, CEO, National Survivor User Network (NSUN)
Jane Hughes, CEO, Mental Health Matters
Vanessa Longley, CEO, Beat
Vanessa Pinfold, CEO, McPin Foundation