UK Supreme Court rules legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex
2921 Min Read
The United Kingdom’s top court on Wednesday upheld an appeal by a campaign group on whether transgender women are legally women under equality legislation, ruling that the law referred to a “biological woman and biological sex”.
The Supreme Court’s judgment related to whether a trans woman with a gender recognition certificate (GRC), a formal document which gives legal recognition of someone’s new gender, is protected from discrimination as a woman under Britain’s Equality Act.
The Reuters Tariff Watch newsletter is your daily guide to the latest global trade and tariff news. Sign up here.
Campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) had argued those rights should only apply based on a person’s biological sex, and had challenged guidance issued by the devolved Scottish government over a 2018 law that was designed to increase the proportion of women on public sector boards.
Scottish ministers’ guidance on that law stated that a trans woman with a full GRC was legally a woman.
“The terms women and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex, but we counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph for one or more groups in our society at the expense of another – it is not,” Patrick Hodge, Deputy President of the Supreme Court.
