UK SUPREME COURT SAYS ‘WOMAN’ REFERS TO BIOLOGICAL SEX – Women are legally women under equality legislation
The United Kingdom’s top court 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.
Campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) had argued that 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 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.
Five judges at the highest civil court in the land were unanimous: the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.
It essentially means holders of gender recognition certificates are not women in the eyes of the law…Employers may have to rethink their policy towards single-sex spaces in the workplace, such as bathrooms and changing rooms, and ensure that all individuals have a suitable space that they feel comfortable in when needing to use those facilities.
