WOMEN'S BATTLE FOR SAFE SPACES GOES ON

Now campaigners fight to have landmark ruling on biological sex enforced as trans former judge plots a court challenge and doctors voice opposition

- By Giles Sheldrick Chief Reporter

CAMPAIGNERS say the fight for the safety and protection of women continues after a legal challenge was launched against the Supreme Court's historic ruling.

Transgender former judge Victoria McCloud has been described as “a moron” for plotting to overturn the landmark decision, made a fortnight ago.

She is poised to apply to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming the judgment violated her civil liberties.

Dr McCloud, 55, says it leaves her “contained and segregated” and the Supreme Court failed to consider trans arguments.

She has been joined in her opposition by the doctors' union, which claims the ruling is “scientifically illiterate” and will cause “real-world harm” to trans, non-binary and intersex communities.

But academic Kathleen Stock, a gender critical campaigner, blasted Dr McCloud, saying: “If you think the Supreme Court should have 'consulted trans people' about their 'lived experience' while interpreting existing law YOU ARE A MORON, this is not what courts do and for good reason how would it be workably scaled up?"

The Supreme Court declared the terms "woman" and "sex" in the Equality Act referred to a biological woman and to biological sex.

Subsequent guidance from the equality watchdog amounts to a ban on trans people using toilets and other services.

But Dr McCloud, Britain's first transgender judge, claims it leaves her in the legal limbo of being "two sexes at once".

Her application, a claim against the UK, hinges on whether rights protected under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights which guarantee the right to a fair trial in both criminal and civil matters were infringed.

But campaigner Fiona McAnena of charity Sex Matters hit back: "Men who identify as women never had the right to use femaleonly spaces and services, even if they thought they did.