Campaign group, the Good Law Project (GLP), claimed the guidance was 'legally flawed' and 'overly simplistic'. Three anonymous individuals also criticised the guidance.

Mr Justice Swift endorsed the interim update that the EHRC published in April last year as an accurate statement of the law for employers and service providers and ruled that 'transsexual persons' under the Equality Act have no right to use opposite-sex toilets or changing rooms.

GLP was judged not to have standing as it lacked 'sufficient interest' in the legal questions. The three anonymous claimants did have standing, and so their substantive arguments were considered. The court dismissed their claims in their entirety. It found nothing that was wrong in law about either version of the EHRC's statement, and found that the claimants' human rights had not been breached by being told not to use facilities provided for the opposite sex.

Alternatively, GLP argued that if the EHRC were right about the law, then the Equality Act and the 1992 workplace regulations breach human rights. The court dismissed the human rights claim: ‘This judgment makes absolutely clear that it is lawful for employers and service providers to provide straightforward separate-sex facilities, and that it may be unlawful indirect discrimination against women not to.'

The judgment urged businesses and services to follow the law, seek specialist advice, but also use 'common sense' in how they organised facilities.

In response, The Good Law Projects said: ‘We always knew this would be a long and hard fight. We are going nowhere. We will fight until the battle is won.'

The EHRC's full guidance or code of practice is still being considered by the government.