Trans women claim ruling excludes them from society

Legal definition of women based on biological sex, says court

- MILLIE COOKE

Trans women are not legally women under the Equality Act, the Supreme Court ruled in a landmark judgment yesterday.

Campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) brought a series of challenges – including to the UK’s highest court – over the definition of “woman” in Scottish legislation mandating 50 per cent female representation on public boards.

Yesterday, five judges from the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex, in a decision that could have wide-ranging ramifications for trans women’s rights to use services and spaces reserved for women.

It means that transgender women with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) can be excluded from single-sex spaces if “proportionate”.

Gender critical rights campaigners have hailed the ruling as a victory for biological women that will protect single-sex spaces, with FWS saying they were “absolutely jubilant” about the result. But trans rights groups have reacted with dismay, warning that it will “exclude trans people wholesale from participating in UK society”.

jane fae, director of trans campaign group TransActual, argued society will “divide more sharply into queer-friendly and queer-hostile spaces” as a result of the ruling, adding that it will “be the poorer for it”.

“The entire trans community is devastated,” the campaigner told The Independent. “Irrespective of the small print on this ruling, the intent seems clear: to exclude trans people wholesale from participating in UK society. This morning, we are feeling very alone. That, though, is today. We have come through worse before and trans people are not going away. Whatever the nontrans world throws at us, we will be back, each time, stronger than before.”