Status: 🔴 As Minister for Women and Equalities (2019–2022), appointed anti-trans EHRC chair Kishwer Falkner, excluded trans people from the conversion therapy ban, and abandoned Gender Recognition Act reform.
Mary Elizabeth Truss (born 26 July 1975) served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from September to October 2022 — the shortest premiership in British history. Critically, she also served as Minister for Women and Equalities from September 2019 to September 2022 under Boris Johnson, a role in which she set back trans rights in the UK significantly. She lost her South West Norfolk seat in the 2024 general election.
As Minister for Women and Equalities, Truss appointed Baroness Kishwer Falkner as Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission in December 2020. This appointment marked a decisive shift of the UK’s national human rights institution toward a gender-critical agenda. Falkner’s tenure saw the EHRC withdraw from Stonewall’s Diversity Champions scheme, intervene in the Forstater case to support gender-critical beliefs as protected, and push guidance excluding trans people from single-sex spaces.
In April 2022, Truss announced the UK government would ban conversion therapy practices — but explicitly excluded trans people. The ban would only cover sexual orientation, not gender identity. When challenged, Truss defended the exclusion, claiming it was necessary to “protect” clinicians who help children “explore their identity.” This drew widespread condemnation from human rights organizations, LGBT+ charities, and UN experts.
Under Truss’s leadership, the government abandoned plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004 to include self-identification, despite a public consultation showing overwhelming support. Instead, the government announced it would “simplify” the existing process but keep the medical gatekeeping model, breaking a manifesto commitment.
Truss oversaw the EHRC’s development of guidance restricting trans people from single-sex facilities consistent with their gender identity, laying the groundwork for the more aggressive 2025 guidance that followed.
Truss studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Merton College, Oxford, where she was president of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats. She later joined the Conservative Party and worked at Shell and Cable & Wireless. She was first elected as MP for South West Norfolk in 2010. She held multiple Cabinet positions under David Cameron, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson before becoming Prime Minister in September 2022, only to resign 50 days later following a financial crisis triggered by her mini-budget. She lost her seat in the 2024 general election.