Author JK Rowling has hit out at Labour MP Samantha Niblett after she used a holiday video to criticise new statutory guidance on single-sex spaces, with Rowling suggesting the clip belongs in a “Museum of Female Treachery” as the exchange reignites Labour’s internal divisions over transgender rights and sex-based protections.
JK Rowling has criticised Labour MP Samantha Niblett after the South Derbyshire MP used a video filmed on holiday to attack the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s updated guidance on single-sex spaces. Responding on X, Rowling wrote that the video should be “preserved in a Museum of Female Treachery so that schoolgirls of the future can watch in horror, then offer up a silent prayer of thanks for their rebellious, thoroughly TERFy great-grandmothers.” The exchange has reignited tensions within the Labour Party over how to balance transgender inclusion with sex-based rights following a landmark Supreme Court ruling last year.
What Niblett said
Niblett, a self-described trans ally and the MP behind the “Summer of Sex” campaign, also known as “Yes Sex Please, We’re British,” which promotes comprehensive relationships and sex education, consent education and reducing stigma around discussions of sex, recorded the video while on holiday. In it, she criticised the EHRC’s statutory Code of Practice on single-sex spaces, which came into force around 5-6 August 2026.
Niblett described the guidance as unclear and said it “protects nobody,” argued it dismissed the “lived experience” of transgender people, and said it risked fuelling division and hatred towards them. She also said the guidance failed to protect gender-critical “cis women,” a group she characterised as people who “hate trans people,” and expressed shame at politicians involved in producing the guidance.
The background: Supreme Court ruling and EHRC guidance
The dispute follows the UK Supreme Court’s April 2025 judgment in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers, which ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex for the purposes considered by the court. Following that ruling, the EHRC updated its statutory Code of Practice covering services and public functions, setting out how providers should apply the Equality Act in areas including single-sex toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards and refuges. The guidance directs that such single-sex facilities should be organised according to biological sex, while also making gender-neutral options available.
It is worth noting that the updated Code does not remove protections for people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. It explicitly states that transgender people remain protected from unlawful discrimination and harassment under the Equality Act.
Rowling’s response
Rowling has long argued publicly that single-sex spaces, women’s sport and certain legal protections should be organised around biological sex, while also maintaining that transgender people should be able to live free from discrimination and harassment. Her response to Niblett’s video framed it as an example of a woman undermining sex-based rights and protections for women and girls, drawing on language she has used previously to describe gender-critical women as resisting what she sees as the erosion of those protections.
The post quickly generated significant engagement on social media, continuing Rowling’s long-running and prominent involvement in public debate over gender identity, sex-based rights and the interpretation of equality law in the UK.
Labour divisions deepen
The exchange has exposed continuing tensions within the Labour Party over how to respond to the Supreme Court ruling and the resulting EHRC guidance. Fellow Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi publicly pushed back against Niblett’s comments, accusing her of advancing a “pro-sex work, pro-porn agenda” and stressing that women and girls need protection from men.
More broadly, some Labour MPs and activists have continued to push for stronger self-identification or inclusion-focused approaches to transgender rights, while others, alongside the updated EHRC code itself, have placed greater emphasis on sex-based protections, particularly in relation to women’s safety, privacy and fairness in single-sex spaces and sport.
A wider debate over single-sex spaces
The dispute over Niblett’s comments has drawn renewed attention to broader questions concerning single-sex services and spaces, including toilets, changing rooms, hospital accommodation, prisons and sport. Supporters of the updated EHRC guidance argue it provides much-needed legal clarity for service providers and safeguards women’s safety in these settings. Critics of the guidance, meanwhile, contend it risks excluding transgender people from ordinary participation in public life, a divide that continues to shape debate both within Westminster and more widely across British public life.
