Only four people in the UK have formally complained about a trans woman entering a “single-sex” facility, an eye-opening report has revealed.

A report published by advocacy group TransLucent found that only four official complaints were documented across 382 public bodies since 2022.

Between 2022 and 2024, the group’s members submitted hundreds of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests across multiple investigations to local councils, NHS hospitals, domestic abuse refuges, and other major public authorities in England.

Its first investigation examining council-owned buildings such as swimming pools and leisure centres found that 35 of the 40 responses reported zero complaints about trans people using toilets, changing rooms, and other facilities, while the remaining five held no relevant records.

One council did cite a single complaint, but it was about a cisgender person in the “wrong” facility, not a trans person.

Its follow-up investigation, which examined public bodies in an area covering over 16.5 million people, found just two complaints – one about policy and another which Translucent said was about “perception rather than confirmed identity”.

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The findings contradict spurious claims that trans people must be excluded from so-called “single-sex” spaces for the safety of cisgender women and girls.

While there is no evidence backing up the claim, ‘gender-critical’ groups and governmental institutions routinely cite the “safety” of women and girls in justifying anti-trans rhetoric and policy.

Research, including the 2023 Femicide Census, regularly proves that the biggest threat to women’s safety is cisgender men. On average, one woman is killed by a man in the UK every three days.

‘Gender-critical’ groups typically try to use these statistics to proliferate transphobia by falsely claiming trans women are men, and thus are culpable in that violence.

TransLucent wrote in its report that media coverage is often responsible for much of the disconnect between rhetoric and reality.

It argued that anti-trans outlets often create a “perception of widespread problems where none exist” by conflating hypothetical concerns with actual incidents.

As a result, it continued, organisations have felt compelled to implement restrictive bathroom policies based on fear of complaints rather than actual data.

“The term ‘single-sex spaces’ (for which there is no legal definition) has become politically charged, with its meaning shifting from practical safety considerations to ideological positioning,” they wrote. 

“Our FOI data addresses this by focusing on recorded complaints – formal objections that organisations must document and investigate – rather than informal expressions of discomfort or political opposition to trans inclusion.”

TransLucent urged organisations to use the research as a foundation for policies “grounded in empirical risk data rather than hypothetical scenarios”.

“Behind the statistics are real people navigating daily life. Trans women using public toilets, accessing healthcare, or seeking refuge from domestic abuse are not engaged in political protest; they are simply trying to live safely and with dignity.”