TL;DR: The Trans+ Solidarity Alliance has criticised Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s silence on Trans+ rights, after nearly 1,000 Trans+ people and allies signed up to lobby their MPs in parliament about the harms of the EHRC Code of Practice. A Trans+ Solidarity Alliance press officer, Sophie Perry, provides analysis of the day for QueerAF.
Andy Burnham’s reticence on trans rights does not have to continue, an advocacy organisation told QueerAF, after a mass lobby that was attended by a thousand Trans+ people and allies who queued for hours to get a chance to speak to their MP.
Organised by the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance, a mass lobby is an organised event where a large number of people meet their MP on the same day in parliament to raise awareness about a specific issue. On Wednesday 9th September, it was focused on opposing the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) updated Code of Practice coming into force.
The Code sets out that organisations which provide single-sex services and spaces must exclude Trans+ people from them, or no longer label them as ‘single-sex’. This is the case even if someone has a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) that changes their legal sex. The guidance effectively segregates Trans+ people from single sex spaces, setting out that it may be appropriate to exclude them from these spaces and provide ‘third spaces’ instead - QueerAF
It is the second time the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance have run a mass lobby. The first was in June 2025 and urged politicians to halt trans-exclusionary policies in the wake of the UK Supreme Court’s ruling in the case of For Women Scotland vs Scottish Ministers, which decided the UK’s legal definition of the protected characteristic of ‘sex’ is based on what the court called ‘biological sex’, which it determined as sex assigned at birth.
This time round, the mass lobby focused on pushing Andy Burnham’s Labour government to legislate to protect Trans+ rights and undo the damage done to trans people's everyday lives by the Code.
Alfie Bailey-Bearfield, advocacy lead at Trans+ Solidarity Alliance, exclusively told QueerAF the current situation for Trans+ people across the UK is “untenable”.
“Since Andy Burnham took office, we’ve heard almost nothing from him about the trans community,” he said, “while trans people are being shut out of daily life and put at risk using services they need because of the EHRC’s unjust and unworkable guidance.”
Bailey-Bearfield described how successive governments have “failed to stand up for our community” and urged Burnham to “break this pattern”.
“Andy Burnham has stood with LGBT+ people before. We’re asking him to do it again now when it really counts, and fix the law,” they added.
What happened at the mass lobby?
The mass lobby took place against a backdrop of demonstrations from various left-wing organisations in Westminster that afternoon, including pro-Palestine campaigners, anti-Brexit activists, and those demanding the government fix the housing crisis.
Nearly 1,000 people signed up to take part in the mass lobby, with queues on the day to get into Westminster Hall stretching along the Palace of Westminster and across the road next to Abingdon Street Gardens, a distance of some 500 feet.
Inside Westminster Hall, constituents discussed the impact of the Code on themselves, their loved ones and wider communities with their MP, sharing stories of exclusion, isolation and harassment.
Dozens of MPs across the political spectrum came to meet their constituents, with some even offering up their time to speak with people whose own MPs refused to meet with them.
After leaving the Houses of Parliament, attendees could walk across the road to Parliament Square, where they could write personal messages to Prime Minister Burnham in a giant greeting card that bid "Farewell to Britain's standing on LGBTQ+ rights".
Despite a long history of LGBTQIA+ allyship throughout his political career, Burnham urged a “live and let live” approach to the Supreme Court ruling and subsequent EHRC guidance during his leadership campaign earlier this summer.
“Let’s implement the guidance, but to do it in the fairest and most compassionate way possible,” he said, adding he thought “the time has come to take the Supreme Court ruling and the guidance and implement it, but to do it in a way that protects those spaces but does not marginalise already marginalised communities” – LBC
Since taking office in Downing Street, however, Burnham has been relatively coy about discussing Trans+ lives, rights and issues altogether – something which has not gone unnoticed by the community.
In response to QueerAF questions that Burnham has been silent on trans rights since taking office, the Cabinet Office said “the government is committed to protecting the rights, dignity and safety of all LGBT+ people. There are clear laws in place to protect trans people from discrimination and harassment, which we will continue to uphold.”
They also claimed that the Labour government had been improving LGBT+ healthcare, despite policy rollbacks that have led to reduced gender affirming care, cancelled surgeries for Trans+ adults and waiting lists of over 200 years for Gender Identity Clinics.
Labour’s LGBTQIA+ policies have led to the UK being downranked by international human rights groups
In recent years, the UK has rapidly slid down the international rankings on LGBTQIA+ rights, due to the implementation of various policies across successive Conservative and then Labour governments that LGBTQIA+ – particularly Trans+ – communities view as actively harmful.
In the ILGA-Europe Rainbow Map rankings, the UK has fallen from 16th position in 2024 to 22nd position in 2026 – down from an overall high of 1st place in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
After more than a decade of Tory rule, Labour’s landslide victory in the 2024 General Election was viewed by many as an opportunity to reset.
Despite often billing itself as the party of LGBTQIA+ rights because it brought an end to the ban on out LGBTQIA+ people serving in the armed forces and Section 28, and equalised the age of consent, Labour under Keir Starmer was characterised as having “abandoned” the community.
In 2022 Starmer declared “trans women are women”, but by 2025 he had reversed that position, with his spokesperson saying the Supreme Court ruling “made clear” a “woman is a biological woman”.
Given the continued puberty blockers ban for Trans+ youth and publication of the much-criticised draft Conversion Practices Bill under Starmer, followed by the implementation of the EHRC guidance and introduction of new school guidance described as Section 28 2.0 under Burnham, the UK’s ranking in the 2027 may once again tumble even lower than previous years.
Analysis: Burnham’s silence is deafening
After two years of Starmer’s Labour, the queer community is pretty used to hearing a whole lot of nothing supportive from our elected officials. Burnham’s silence, after a lengthy career of allyship, feels like more of the same – and it is no less insidious.
Burnham’s silence is leading to an increasing view by members of the LGBTQIA+ community that we have become another policy area that he was happy to pick up when the political climate was more forgiving and can happily put down now, when the media climate makes that support more complex. I saw that media attitude first hand at the lobby – I spoke to two wire photographers who they pulled a face and wandered off after I said they couldn’t expect to see any flag waving and banners at a mass lobby. Clearly they decided that, unlike a loud protest, the day was of little news value.
Despite the EHRC Code of Practice already having a devastating impact on Trans+ and gender non-conforming cis people, this massive lobby event has largely gone unreported. This, alongside a backdrop of numerous other legislative decisions, has created an environment where LGBTQIA+ rights are actively going backwards.
There are many people in our community who vividly remember the horrors of the armed forces gay ban, the isolation of Section 28 and the pain of not being able to marry the person they love.
In the years and decades to come, we will have countless stories of the negative effects of the EHRC’s Code of Practice; about how people were harassed and abused just for being Trans+, barred from community groups they had long been part of and prevented from accessing the services they desperately needed.
Politicians have a chance to stop all that, though.
As the vast number of people who turned up to Wednesday’s mass lobby shows, Trans+ people want to talk. We just need politicians to listen.
Sophie Perry acted as Trans+ Solidarity Alliance’s press officer for the mass lobby.
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