Some people think they’re above the law. There are the cocky scrotes who hop Tube barriers, the dog owners who let their beasts defecate freely, safe in the knowledge that no one dares object with a snarling set of teeth at the end of the lead. And then there are Britain’s public institutions, openly flouting the Supreme Court’s ruling on single-sex spaces.

To tackle this epidemic of institutional lawbreaking, Sir Keir Starmer tried a Robert Jenrick-style intervention yesterday, placing a metaphorical hand on the shoulder of British workplaces and urging them to get on with kicking men out of the Ladies’ loos, “as soon as possible”. The government, he announced, had accepted the ruling, and “everything else flows from that”.

The Supreme Court was clear, neither sincerely held beliefs nor state issued paperwork change an individual’s sex, and the EHRC has urged organizations to update their policies immediately. And yet universities, NHS Trusts, police forces, and councils still seem more afraid of upsetting trans activists than of breaking the law. Across the country, otherwise law-abiding professionals, from HR managers to primary-school governors, have become scofflaws.

The scale of this silent rebellion is staggering, and it’s everywhere. NHS England has been explicitly warned by both Equality and Human Rights Commission chair Baroness Falkner and Health Secretary Wes Streeting to enforce the law on single-sex spaces. Yet the health behemoth is apparently still reviewing its policies, as though ensuring people use facilities that match their biological sex is some fiendishly complex task. Meanwhile, the National Police Chiefs’ Council has circulated a survey asking officers how the ruling had affected them “professionally and personally”. There was no acknowledgement that any members might welcome the restoration of single-sex facilities. And in corporate boardrooms, from the Co-op to Lloyds Bank, CEOs have gushed out hand-wringing statements of solidarity with trans-identified staff, while quietly disregarding the rights of the majority.

What’s behind the mass law breaking isn’t confusion, it’s cowardice and fear. For over a decade, trans ideology has festered in internal staff networks and been funneled into institutions by external training providers. Backpedaling is not only humiliating for the well-meaning dullards who ushered these changes in, it’s potentially explosive in workplaces where grievance-hoarding zealots have been allowed to dictate policy for years.

These same activists genuinely believe that being contradicted by reality is discrimination. In such a climate, following the law requires a backbone. But instead of stepping up, most institutions are shirking responsibility, desperately trying to pass the buck to the EHRC, even though the EHRC has already told them exactly what to do.

In one sense the reluctance to enact the law is understandable, because legal compliance will mean personal confrontation. It means having the guts to say “no” in full view of colleagues who’ve been trained to call dissent a hate crime.

Yet despite the spread of trans ideology, polls consistently show that most of the public support single-sex spaces and there’s no reason to think the CEOs and HR managers feel any differently in private. But fear trumps principle. And now people are hiding behind the EHRC and bleating for more guidance.

Starmer used the same tactic. He spent years pussy-footing around the “woman question” lest he offend activists within unions or the bullies on his own benches. Now, the Supreme Court has settled the Prime Minister’s opinion for him. It is inevitable that there will be further lawsuits to reaffirm the basic human rights of the majority. When the financial risk of litigation begins to outweigh the imagined reputational cost of upsetting the trans lobby, organizations will finally meet their legal responsibilities.

Ultimately, if public confidence is to be restored in British institutions, there must be visible consequences for those who flout the rules. Whether it’s fare dodging or letting men into women-only spaces, the message must be the same: the law applies to everyone or it means nothing.

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Josephine Bartosch is assistant editor at The Critic and co-author of the forthcoming book Pornocracy.

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