 "An activist holds a placard reading \"Women are born, not some bloke with a form\" outside the Supreme Court in London, following the court's ruling on how to define a 'woman'. Britain's Supreme Court said the legal definition of a \"woman\" is based on a person's sex at birth, a landmark ruling with far-reaching implications to the bitter debate over trans rights. AFP")
‘What is a woman?’
In the recent past, this has become a contentious question with different groups of individuals providing different answers. However, on Wednesday (April 17), the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.
The court’s decision clarified that the term “sex” in Britain’s 2010 Equality Act only applies to “biological women” or “biological sex.” This effectively excludes transgender women from the Equality Act, which comes as a huge blow for transgender campaigners.
Following the judgment, dozens of members from the For Women Scotland (FWS) — which launched the appeal to the Supreme Court — and other gender-critical campaigners cheered the ruling, hugging and crying outside the court.
“This has been a really, really long ride,” said Susan Smith, co-director of For Women Scotland. “Today, the judges have said what we always believed to be the case: that women are protected by their biological sex,” she said. “Women can now feel safe that services and spaces designated for women are for women.”
Does this ruling confuse you? Are you left scratching your head about it? Don’t know who will be affected by it and how? Read on to get all your answers.
UK Supreme Court ruling explained
The UK Supreme Court was tasked with delivering a ruling on what constitutes the legal definition of a woman under the UK’s Equality Act and whether it includes transgender women possessing a gender recognition certificate (GRC) in it.
The entire matter stems from a 2018 law passed by the Scottish Parliament calling for 50 per cent female representation on the boards of Scottish public bodies. Its definition of women included trans women whose gender is legally affirmed with a Gender Recognition Certificate. This resulted in a campaign group named For Women Scotland to challenge it in court, saying the Scottish government had overstepped its powers by effectively redefining the meaning of “woman”.
While they lost the case in 2022 in a Scottish court, they were later granted to take up the matter with the Supreme Court.
And on Wednesday, the five judges of the UK’s top court gave a unanimous decision — “woman” in equality law refers to biological women . This essentially means holders of gender recognition certificates are not women in the eyes of the law.
Lord Hodge said the “central question” is how the words “woman” and “sex” are defined in the 2019 Equality Act. He continued: “The terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.”
In their 88-page judgment, the five judges wrote, “In the law, the words ‘sex,’ ‘woman’ and ‘man’ … mean (and were always intended to mean) biological sex, biological woman and biological man.”
The judges argued that a broader definition that includes transgender people would make the Equality Act “incoherent and unworkable.” “We can identify no good reason why the legislature should have intended that sex-based rights and protections under the (Equality Act) should apply to these complex, heterogenous groupings, rather than to the distinct group of (biological) women and girls (or men and boys) with their shared biology leading to shared disadvantage and discrimination faced by them as a distinct group,” they wrote.
Happy tears for some, sad for others
The UK Supreme Court’s verdict was a moment of jubilation for the For Women Scotland group as well as other trans critics. Sex Matters, a women’s rights group, said: “We are delighted that For Women Scotland has been successful in its appeal to the Supreme Court, and that the position of the Scottish Government has been rejected.
“The court has given the right answer: the protected characteristic of sex – male and female – refers to reality, not paperwork.”
Harry Potter author JK Rowling , a prominent supporter of the group, said the court victory had “protected the rights of women and girls across the UK”.
Kemi Badenoch , the Tory leader, also expressed her joy at the ruling, adding that it meant that the “era of Keir Starmer telling us women can have penises has come to an end”.
However, trans rights campaigners expressed their dismay, stating that the UK court’s decision was troubling for the trans community. LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall said there is “deep concern” surrounding the ruling’s consequences.
Amnesty International UK described the ruling as “disappointing” with “potentially concerning consequences for trans people”.
There’s also concern that the court’s decision could have a broader impact on the trans movement across the world. Imara Jones, CEO of TransLash Media, a news organisation whose coverage focuses on transgender people, was quoted as telling TIME, “By ruling that the UK’s Equality Act’s definition of woman excludes trans women, the decision will likely boost American efforts to narrow legal concepts of gender — both legally and through regulations. No doubt we will see the U.K. ruling cited in court cases and state legislatures in the United States and ultimately before the Supreme Court.”
Seismic changes await trans women
The UK Supreme Court judges stressed that their ruling should not be seen as an attack on transgender people. They said it “does not remove or diminish the important protections… for trans people” under the Equality Act, which bans discrimination against transgender people.
However, the verdict will bring about near-immediate changes in the real world for trans women. It is expected that the court’s decision will have huge consequences for how single-sex spaces and services operate across the UK.
This is because the court ruled that trans women with a gender recognition certificate can be excluded from single-sex spaces if ‘proportionate’. This means that men and those who have ‘transitioned into being women’ would be excluded from using women’s toilets and changing rooms.
Additionally, the ruling also paves the way for trans women to be excluded from women’s sports provided there is a reason for doing so, such as men having a physical advantage. Speaking on the same issue, the judges said that sport is a “gender-affected activity”, which “depends on a determination of whether the physical strength, stamina or physique of average persons of one sex would put them at a disadvantage as competitors in a particular sport when compared to average persons of the other sex”.
The court gave the example of boxing, in which it is “obvious” that women are at a disadvantage against men, adding that by defining sex as biological sex it means “that a women’s boxing competition organiser could refuse to admit all men, including trans women, regardless of their GRC status”.
The verdict also explicitly who can enter single-sex spaces like sports clubs, hospital wards and prisons across Britain. For instance, a row had erupted earlier for a double rapist being housed in a women’s prison.
The ruling is also definitive on the matter of single-sex support groups such as women-only rape counselling or refuges. The Supreme Court judges highlighted the inconsistency in allowing an “inclusive” service, saying that “if as a matter of law, a service-provider is required to provide services previously limited to women also to trans women with a GRC even if they present as biological men, it is difficult to see how they can then justify refusing to provide those services also to biological men and who also look like biological men.”
They said that if trans women were allowed to join just because they had a GRC it would make it “impossible” to run a service such as a support association for women who are victims of male sexual violence.
Only time will tell what will be the true practical impact of the UK Supreme Court’s new verdict.
With inputs from agencies