The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) is the country’s best-known child-protection charity, and the only one with statutory powers. The least that schools using guidance it produces should be able to expect is that it is lawful and in line with the principles of child safeguarding. It is therefore seriously worrying that the latest version of its guidance for schools on changing rooms confuses and misdirects the staff and school leaders who are supposed to protect them.
It should always have been obvious to everyone involved in education that boys and girls are sex-based terms, and that this matters in the school environment. But all possible doubt was removed by the Supreme Court judgment of April 2025, which ruled that “male”, “female”, “man”, “woman”, “boy” and “girl” in the Equality Act mean sex, not gender identity. Schools can therefore lawfully provide toilets and changing rooms separately for boys and girls based on sex. In fact, as confirmed by two further judgments since the Supreme Court judgment, Hurley v Scottish Borders Council and DE and FG v West Lothian Council, school-premises regulations require them to do this.
Flawed guidance made worse
We had already complained about the NSPCC’s previous version of this guidance, published in 2024. It used the word “gender” instead of “sex” throughout, referred to “gendered changing rooms” and told schools that they “should consider how to support transgender and non-binary young people to use the changing rooms that they feel comfortable with”. It was already beyond doubt that this advice was wrong in law.
In August 2026, the NSPCC updated its guidance. It removed some of the worst parts, but instead of taking the opportunity to fix it completely, the NSPCC made its advice vague and evasive, leaving decision-makers in schools without the clear, simple, lawful advice they need.
The previous version of the guidance said: “Where possible, the adults who are supervising children getting changed should be of the same gender as them.” This should have said “sex”, not gender, but at least it gave schools a clear rule. The new version has dropped this advice completely, and now gives schools no guidance at all on who should supervise children while they change.
The old guidance used the phrase “mixed gender changing areas”. The obvious fix was to change “gender” to “sex”. Instead, the new guidance says “mixed changing areas”, which could mean mixed by age, mixed with visiting adults or mixed by gender identity. Before, school-premises rules on toilets and changing facilities were summarised under the heading “Separating children of different genders”. This has been changed to “Guidance and legislation around toilets and changing facilities in schools”, a heading that conveys nothing.
At least the passage in the previous version about supporting transgender and non-binary pupils to use whichever changing room they feel comfortable with, which we had complained about, has been removed. But instead of stating plainly that this advice was wrong and must not be followed, the update points schools towards a consultation document from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, with no further explanation. Schools looking for straight answers will not find them here.
Changing rooms exist to protect all children’s privacy and dignity while they are partly or completely undressed. This matters most for female pupils, since sexual harassment and assault are crimes largely committed by boys and men against girls and women. A boy entering or trying to change in a girls’ changing room is behaving inappropriately. Calling him transgender or non-binary does not change that.
Any school that lets boys who identify as trans use girls’ changing rooms is breaching fundamental principles of safeguarding and risk assessment, which require complete clarity about the sex of all children and every adult supervising them. It is encouraging inappropriate behaviour and putting girls at risk of sexual harassment.
Ambiguity harms everyone
Guidance that dodges the word “sex” gives staff nothing solid to work with. It leaves them unsure whether they can lawfully ask a boy who identifies as a girl to use the boys’ changing room, when the answer is straightforwardly Yes.
Gender-confused children are particularly poorly served by ambiguity in rules and vagueness from the adults around them. A child who is distressed about their body or their sex needs consistent boundaries and calm, honest explanations from staff who understand the rules. Treating a child differently from other children of their own sex because they have a protected characteristic is not necessarily a favour to that child. We think that treating gender-questioning children differently from other children of their sex, such as affirming the idea that they should be excluded from changing rooms for their own sex, exposes the school to legal risk.
The NSPCC still records its own trustees, staff and volunteers as “male (including transgender men)” and “female (including transgender women)”. This gets the law, and reality, backwards. A woman who identifies as a transgender man remains female, and a man who identifies as a transgender woman remains male. An organisation that will not use the word “sex” clearly, in its own guidance or its own records, cannot expect schools to do so either.
Sex Matters has written to the NSPCC explaining these points, and asking for this guidance to be withdrawn and replaced with advice that says plainly what the law requires: separate-sex changing facilities and same-sex supervision, based on sex, not gender identity. We have asked the NSPCC to treat our letter as a formal complaint.
Schools deserve guidance they can actually follow. And all children deserve to be kept safe by people who are prepared to say what they mean.
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I was at a day course at Ilkley Grammar school during the summer. Boys and girls use the same toilets - a line of cubicles facing the wash basins. There was no privacy. We were a mixed sex group and many, particularly the older men, found queuing for the toilet embarrassing - and inconvenient.