Legal definition of woman 'is based on biological sex'

Supreme court ruling may have far-reaching impact on trans rights

- Severin Carrell

The supreme court issued a historic and definitive ruling yesterday that the terms "woman" and "sex" in the Equality Act referred only to a biological woman and biological sex.

In a decision that delighted gender-critical activists, five judges ruled unanimously that the legal definition of a woman in the 2010 legislation did not include transgender women who held gender recognition certificates (GRCs).

The judgment could have far-reaching ramifications and lead to greater restrictions on the access for trans women to services and spaces reserved for women. It prompted calls for the UK's laws on gender recognition to be rewritten.

The UK government said the ruling brought "clarity and confidence" for women and those who ran hospitals, sports clubs and women's refuges.

A spokesperson said: "We have always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex. Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by this government."

The case was brought to court by the gender-critical campaign group For Women Scotland, which is backed financially by JK Rowling, after two Scottish courts rejected its arguments that the Equality Act's definition of a woman was limited to people born biologically female.

Lord Hodge, the deputy president of the court, said the Equality Act was very clear that its provisions dealt with biological sex at birth, and not with a person's acquired gender, regardless of whether they held a gender recognition certificate.

That affected policymaking on gender in sports and the armed services, hospitals, as well as women-only charities, and access to changing rooms and women-only spaces, he said.

However, the judgment said trans women still had equal pay rights as women and could enjoy rights to be treated as women in some situations.