Genocide prevention watchdog slams EHRC’s transphobic code with searing response

On 20 June, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security issued a statement condemning the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) anti-trans Code of Practice, which is currently up for parliamentary scrutiny.

For those unfamiliar, the Lemkin Institute is a multinational, non-governmental organisation which monitors for signs of genocide around the world. It was named for Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-Jewish lawyer who coined the term ‘genocide’, and campaigned to instate the UN’s convention on the crime.

In the past year, the institute has issued red flag warnings for Israel’s genocidal actions in Palestine and Lebanon, Trump’s threats against Iran (and trans people in the US), Somalia and Syria, among others.

Likewise, just 13 months ago, the institute issued a red flag for the UK’s transphobic Supreme Court ruling. By siding with anti-trans campaign group For Women Scotland and holding that trans women are not women under the Equality Act, the court set in motion the UK’s current assault on trans rights.

‘Increasingly hostile environment’ for trans people

In particular, the EHRC — nominally the country’s human rights watchdog — immediately set off writing a new Code of Practice eliminating trans people’s previously established rights. Unsurprisingly, the Lemkin Institute also penned a letter calling out the commission’s previous chair, transphobic Tory plant Kishwer Falkner.

The latest attempt has now been laid before Parliament. It calls to exclude trans people from single-sex spaces reflecting their gender, and also frequently their assigned sex. The government’s own impact assessment stated that it will harm trans and gender non-conforming individuals, in all probability.

Because the government is forging ahead with it regardless, the Lemkin Institute has now issued yet another warning. It stated precisely why it’s speaking out now, as a genocide watchdog, calling the Code of Practice:

emblematic of the increasingly hostile environment in the UK for the trans and intersex communities. In its attempt to erase trans and intersex people from public life, this document is genocidal in nature.

That inclusion of intersex people alongside the trans community is necessary and vital. It stems directly from the incoherence of the EHRC and Supreme Court’s reliance on ‘biological sex’.

An attack on the intersex community

Effectively, both organisations treat sex as being synonymous with ‘sex assigned at birth’. Inevitably, this creates massive problems for intersex people under the new code. As such, the EHRC is effectively ignoring and denying the rights — even the existence — of intersex individuals:

When asked directly about Intersex people, Dr. Stephenson, chair of the EHRC, contested the use of the terminology of intersex, despite ‘intersex’ being the term intersex-led organisations consistently prefer, and being the terminology that was recently used by the Council of Europe in October 2025 in a recommendation the UK supported.

Stephenson replied that:

We are talking about male and female spaces and then a unisex space, which many people might use for different reasons.

Rightfully, the Lemkin Institute called this out as “explicitly demonstrating” that:

intersex people are apparently expected to use unisex spaces and are therefore not excluded from the segregation proposed by the guidance. The Code of Practice’s conflation of biological sex with sex assigned at birth and Dr. Stephenson’s language and response here make it explicit that the UK has no intention of keeping the commitment made to intersex people at the Council of Europe.

The pattern of genocide

Beyond this, the statement also laid out why it was addressing the UK’s hostility to trans and intersex people in its capacity as a genocide watchdog. It highlighted that:

The gender critical movement in the UK is scapegoating trans people for invented problems and using that as justification to erase them from public life. This is consistent with the 9th Pattern of Genocide: Denial and/or Prevention of Identity. The message to the trans and intersex communities is clear: Cease to exist as a trans person unless you want to be accused of harassment for trying to use a public toilet that matches your identity.

On that note, the institute also called out the EHRC’s push to effectively silo trans people into ‘third spaces’. In no uncertain terms, it stated that:

such policies can rightfully be described as the segregation of trans and intersex people.

And, in turn, the statement explained exactly how this process mirrors another “common genocidal tactic”:

Othering a group of people and separating them from the rest of society is inherently disrespectful to that group’s human dignity. […] If the general public is conditioned to believe that the targeted group forms a “separate” and problematic category that poses threats requiring segregation, they are less likely to oppose future genocidal actions against that group.

‘The true test of civilization’ is how we treat trans people

The genocide watchdog highlighted the fact that Labour’s Nadia Whittome had submitted an early day motion calling for Parliament to disapprove the code. Currently, it stands at some 147 signatures in support. As such, the statement urged:

the British public to write to their MPs asking them to sign the Early Day Motion to prevent this genocidal document from being adopted. We also encourage all who are able to attend Trans Solidarity Alliance’s Mass Lobby for Trans Equality on the 25th of June.

You can find details of the Trans Solidarity Alliance event on 25 June at the link here. 

The Lemkin Institute signed off:

Trans and intersex people have always existed in our world. The true test of civilization is how a society chooses to treat them.

The UK has already provided its answer to this question. As soon as it was politically convenient, our government and courts reinterpreted their laws and rewrote their codes to monster trans and intersex people.

Make no mistake — this is a clear demonstration of the fragility of the rights of all minority groups in the UK.

Featured image via Lia Bekyan / Unsplash