17 April 2025 - Supreme Court Rules That Legal Definition of 'Woman' Is Based on Biological Sex
UK’s top court says definition of a woman is based on biological sex and excludes transgender people
Sylvia Hui, Brian Melley and Jill Lawless (AP News, 16/04/2025)
The U.K. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a woman is someone born biologically female, excluding transgender people from the legal definition in a long-running dispute between a feminist group and the Scottish government. The court said the unanimous ruling shouldn’t be seen as victory by one side, but several women’s groups that supported the appeal celebrated outside court and hailed it as a major win in their effort to protect spaces designated for women. “Everyone knows what sex is and you can’t change it,” said Susan Smith, co-director of For Women Scotland, which brought the case. “It’s common sense, basic common sense, and the fact that we have been down a rabbit hole where people have tried to deny science and to deny reality, and hopefully this will now see us back to reality.”
UK Supreme Court says legal definition of ‘woman’ excludes trans women, in landmark ruling
Sana Noor Haq (CNN News, 16/04/2025)
The United Kingdom’s highest court ruled that the legal definition of “woman” excludes trans women, in a case with sweeping consequences for how equality laws are applied. Britain’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the definition of a woman in equality legislation refers to “a biological woman and biological sex,” sparking celebrations outside court among gender-critical campaigners but warnings it was a “worrying” development for transgender people.
What does the UK Supreme Court ruling mean for transgender women?
Holly Evans (Independent, 16/04/2025)
The UK’s Supreme Court handed down a judgment on Wednesday which has found that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex. With potential long-lasting ramifications on how Britain treats its equalities policy, the dispute centres on whether or not somebody with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) recognising their gender as female should be treated as a woman under the 2010 Equality Act. The ruling follows a series of legal challenges brought by the campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS), backed by Harry Potter author JK Rowling, over the definition of a “woman”.
What a landmark supreme court ruling on biological sex does – and doesn’t – mean
Archie Bland (The Guardian, 17/04/2025)
Good morning. The supreme court’s judgment was 88 pages long, but in much of the coverage today it has been boiled down to a very blunt conclusion: “The concept of sex is binary”, and as far as equality legislation is concerned, trans women are not women.That is an oversimplification of a complex ruling yesterday that was careful to say it did not seek to delegitimise the existence of trans people, and insisted it did not represent the triumph of one group over another. Whatever the court says, though, gender-critical campaigners and many newspaper front pages were clear: this constituted “victory”. Marion Calder, a director of For Women Scotland, said: “If there is a female sign on the door, that is now a single-sex space. That is crystal clear as a result of today’s ruling.”
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