Labour was under intense pressure to protect single-sex spaces last night following a landmark ruling that transgender women are not legally women.
Women’s rights groups and MPs celebrated the ‘victory for common sense’ and called on the Government to ensure that activist managers and civil servants abided by the ruling.
It is hoped the Supreme Court judgment will lead to a pulping of pro-trans guidance in the likes of the NHS, police and women’s prisons.
The ruling has sweeping implications for public bodies and businesses as the Equality and Human Rights Commission last night said it will ‘work at pace’ to amend workplace guidance.
Governing sports bodies, including the Football Association and England and Wales Cricket Board, have also been warned the judgment opens the door to potential lawsuits from female athletes who have found themselves playing against competitors born male.
The NHS was one of the first organisations to acknowledge the judgment last night, saying it would reconsider its same-sex ward policies, which currently allow self-identifying trans women to stay on single-sex female wards.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch welcomed the ‘victory for women’ but warned that Labour has ‘bent the knee’ to gender ideology.
‘Saying ‘trans women are women’ was never true in fact, and now isn’t true in law either,’ she said, adding: ‘The era of Keir Starmer telling us women can have penises has come to an end.’
The Supreme Court has announced that the definition of a woman is based on biological sex in a landmark ruling. Pictured: Campaign group For Women Scotland celebrating the judgement
For Women Scotland directors Susan Smith (left) and Marion Calder (right) celebrate the landmark ruling
Former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies led calls from athletes demanding that women’s sports are for women only, saying: ‘Give back our women’s sport, free from any and all males.’
Harry Potter author J K Rowling, who donated to the seven-year court fight by gender-critical campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS), added: ‘Spare a thought today for the UK employers, government departments, health boards, academic institutions and sporting bodies who’ve been breaking equality law to appease activist groups. So many HR manuals to pulp. So many out-of-court settlements to pay.’
In an 88-page ruling yesterday, the justices said: ‘The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological woman and biological sex.’
The judgment added that the definition of woman ‘makes clear that the concept of sex is binary – a person is either a woman or a man’ and that any other interpretation would be ‘incoherent and impracticable’.
The decision is the culmination of FWS’s battle against the Scottish government over whether trans women can be regarded as female for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010.
The case tested whether somebody with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), recognising their gender as female, should be legally treated as a woman.
With its ruling, the UK’s highest court decided that the process of awarding a GRC does not turn a man into a woman for ‘all purposes’, meaning they do not also get specific protections for biological women contained in the Equality Act.
Maya Forstater, chief executive of charity Sex Matters, which provided evidence in the case, said the ruling gave a powerful legal signal that policymakers and organisations need to recognise that sex was real and immutable. ‘Every employer, government body, service provider, police force, NHS trust, school and university that has adopted policies based on gender self-ID should spend the Easter holidays throwing them away,’ she said.
The judgement was celebrated by women’s rights groups who opened a bottle of champagne. Pictured: Susan Smith (centre left), Marion Calder (centre right) and Helen Joyce (right)
Lord Hodge said that five Supreme Court justices had unanimously decided that ‘the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act refer to a ‘biological woman and biological sex’
Campaigners Helen Joyce (left) and Maya Forstater of Sex Matters smile outside court after the landmark ruling
Crowds of people cheered and broke into song after the ruling was handed down
The case centred on whether somebody with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) recognising their gender as female should be treated as a woman under the 2010 Equality Act
Activists celebrate after hearing the outcome of the Supreme Court’s ruling on how to define a ‘woman’
Women celebrate the verdict and hug one another. A placard reads: ‘I will not call the man who raped me ‘she’ your honour
‘Single-sex services, from toilets and changing rooms to women’s refuges and groups such as the Girl Guides, can and should be provided based on the everyday understanding of male and female.
‘The Government and the Equality and Human Rights Commission should step up and issue straightforward back-of-a-postcard guidance so that all organisations follow the law and provide genuinely single-sex spaces and services.’
Outside the court, Susan Smith of FWS welcomed the result as a ‘really concrete basis for going forward’ but warned that ‘there is going to be an ongoing fight’.
‘What our politicians need to get their heads around is this is the law,’ she said.
‘They need to stop putting faulty guidance into schools and hospitals.’
Her comments were echoed by Ceri Williams, from Labour Women’s Declaration, who called on her party to stand by its manifesto commitment to protect single-sex exceptions for biological women.
However, Labour’s uphill battle was immediately clear last night as domestic abuse charity Refuge was the first to state that the ruling ‘will not change the way Refuge operates’.
Chief executive Gemma Sherrington said: ‘We remain firmly committed to supporting all survivors of domestic abuse, including trans women.’
A government spokeman said: ‘We have always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex. This ruling brings clarity and confidence.’
