On Tuesday afternoon, Jolyon Maugham KC’s band of sunshine, the Good Law Project, posted on both X/Twitter and Bluesky:

The EHRC has removed its interim guidance on the Supreme Court ruling on gender.

But this guidance is what Virgin Active gyms and other organisations used to ban trans people from their toilets and changing rooms … so what now?

And these two short sentences – just 39 words – pack in no fewer than four lies.

Lie 1: The EHRC have never issued any “interim guidance” on the Supreme Court’s ruling of 16 April in the case of For Women Scotland. The interim update posted by the EHRC on their website on 25 April, and removed on 16 October, was not ‘guidance’ as such. In this context, as the GLP well know, the word ‘guidance’ has a very specific meaning.

Lie 2: The Supreme Court ruling was not about “gender” – it was about the meaning of the word ‘sex’ (and the words ‘woman’ and ‘man’) in the Equality Act 2010.

Lie 3: Virgin Active have not banned trans people from their toilets and changing rooms. In August, Virgin Active revised their Club Rules on the use of changing rooms, to bring the Rules into line with the Supreme Court ruling. Those Rules now state: “By law, our members and visitors who use a changing room marked as ‘male’ or ‘female’ must select the one that matches their biological sex.”

Lie 4: There is no evidence to suggest that Virgin Active’s August 2025 decision to bring their Club Rules into line with the Supreme Court ruling was based on the EHRC’s interim update of 25 April.

In fact, Virgin Active’s somewhat belated revision of their Club Rules was prompted by the threat of legal action by GB News presenter Michelle Dewberry, supported by the fabulous women at Sex Matters. As the GLP themselves stated on their website and on social media just a few weeks ago:

This summer, Virgin Active were out in force at London Pride, marching in bright red T-shirts with the slogan “Get Active for Pride”. So how did an organisation that that calls themselves an ally to the LGBTQ+ community end up enforcing transphobic rules?

It all started with a legal threat from Michelle Dewberry, a presenter on GB News and a member of the transphobic group Sex Matters. In February, Dewberry sent a legal letter suggesting that, by allowing trans people to use the changing rooms and bathrooms they identified with, the gym was going against the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Instead of standing their ground, [in August] Virgin Active folded and enforced a changing room and bathroom ban on trans people across all their locations.

No mention of the EHRC’s interim update there. And, announcing the change to their Club Rules in an email to members on 15 August, Virgin Active themselves stated:

We’re writing to let you know about an important update to our Club Rules, following a recent legal ruling that affects our business.

In April, the Supreme Court confirmed that the Equality Act 2010 defines sex in biological terms. While the decision was outside of our control, it is legally binding on our business – as well as other gyms, leisure centres and similar facilities across the UK. As a result, we are required by law to make certain changes to how we operate and manage our facilities.

To comply with the law, we have had to update our Club Rules so that our changing rooms and bathroom facilities are designated according to biological sex.

No mention of the EHRC’s interim update there either, and the GLP have not produced any evidence to substantiate their assertion that the interim update “is what Virgin Active used” to revise their Club Rules. In fact, as is clear from the above, in revising their Club Rules, under threat of legal action by Michelle Dewberry, Virgin Active made the change to ensure they are following the law, as clarified by the Supreme Court in April. And, as Jolyon Maugham himself said in September 2019: if the Supreme Court says it is the law, it is the law.

So, 39 words, four lies. Pretty good going. But yesterday’s X/Twitter and Bluesky posts were not the first time the Good Law Project have lied about Virgin Active’s revision of its Club Rules and the EHRC’s removal of the interim update from their website.

Last Saturday, in an email sent to some or all of the more than 300,000 people on the GLP’s mailing list (including me), campaign manager Charlene Pink opened by asserting:

Virgin Active gyms turned their back on trans people with a changing room and bathroom ban. They tried to justify it by claiming they were following guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, but that guidance has now been withdrawn. 

So, that’s Lie 1, Lie 3 and Lie 4 in one short paragraph. Way to go, Charlene!

But then Charlene contined:

No more guidance means no more excuses. It’s time to make sure Virgin stops discriminating against trans people.

That’s two more lies! The EHRC’s removal of the interim update from their website, six months after the Supreme Court ruling – there was a bit of a clue in the name – makes absolutely no difference to the fact that Virgin Active are required to follow the law. And Virgin Active are not “discriminating against trans people” – if they were, one might expect the GLP to have launched a legal challenge by now.

With her sights seemingly set on achieving some kind of record, Charlene continued:

Virgin Active said they were following the law, but really they were just following transphobes. With no guidance left to cling to, they’ve got zero reason to keep enforcing transphobic rules.

No, Charlene. Virgin Active really are just following the law. They were never clinging to “guidance” (that wasn’t actually guidance), they’re not doing so now, and they’ve got one very good reason to “keep enforcing” their revised Club Rules: the law, as clarified by the Supreme Court on 16 April.

In short, Charlene is a liar. Jolyon is a liar. The GLP are the Good Lie Project.

But why are Charlene, Jolyon and the rest of the GLP telling lies about Virgin Active? Well, as documented elsewhere on this blog, since late April the GLP have grifted a stonking £620,000 from the ‘trans community’, so called, to challenge the Supreme Court ruling. And, for reasons best known to themselves (and their numpty lawyers at the law firm Leigh Day), the GLP chose to focus their legal claim on the EHRC interim update, rather than the Supreme Court ruling itself.

In July, at an inconclusive permission hearing in the High Court, the clearly unimpressed judge ordered the GLP to amend their claim, so as to clarify exactly which bits of the EHRC interim update it is they are seeking to challenge, and on what legal basis. A two-day rolled-up (permission and substantive) hearing of the amended claim is now scheduled for 12 and 13 November,

But with the inevitable (and arguably overdue) removal of the interim update from the EHRC’s website on 16 October, the GLP don’t really have a claim anymore. Oops.

[Update, 28 October: Yesterday, the GLP finally got around to trying to find some evidence to back up their arguably defamatory assertion that Virgin Active are “discriminating against trans people”, posting an appeal on Bluesky.]