UK Supreme Court rules transgender women do not fit legal term ‘woman’ in landmark decision
The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled Wednesday that transgender women do not fit the legal definition of a “woman” — which is reserved for those born biologically female.
The court’s five judges agreed in the landmark ruling that “the terms ‘woman’ and ‘sex’” under the country’s 2010 Equality Act “refer to a biological woman and biological sex,” Justice Patrick Hodge said.
The ruling “does not remove protection from trans people,” who are “protected from discrimination on the ground of gender reassignment,” the court confirmed — but a transgender person with documentation recognizing them as female should not be considered a woman for equality purposes.
The definition was challenged in 2018 after the Scottish Parliament passed a law stating that women should make up 50% of the representatives on Scottish public boards.
Scottish officials later said female representation included trans women with a Gender Recognition Certificate, which offers legal recognition of someone’s female sex under the Equality Act, to meet the quota.
Women Scotland (FWS), the women’s rights group that brought the legal challenge, argued the Scottish officials’ redefinition of women went beyond Parliament’s powers.
“Not tying the definition of sex to its ordinary meaning means that public boards could conceivably comprise 50% men, and 50% men with certificates, yet still lawfully meet the targets for female representation,” the group’s director, Trina Budge, had previously said.
The landmark decision could impact sex-based rights and single-sex facilities across the UK, the group, which counted “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling among its biggest supporters, has said.
FWS argued that under the Equality Act, “sex” should refer to biological sex as it’s understood “in ordinary, everyday language.”
“Our position is your sex, whether you are a man or a woman or a girl or a boy, is determined from conception in utero, even before one’s birth, by one’s body,” FWS attorney Aidan O’Neill said.
“It is an expression of one’s bodily reality. It is an immutable biological state.”
The legal challenge was initially rejected in 2022, but the FWS was permitted to take its case to the country’s top court last year.
With Post wires
