UK High Court Declares ‘Trans Women’ Are Not Women Under Legislative Definition

The Supreme Court in Britain ruled Wednesday that men identifying as trans women are not legally regarded as women under the nation’s equality legislation.

The judgment comes after a long legal battle over whether men identifying as trans women can be considered female under the nation’s Equality Act 2010, which seeks to prohibit discrimination based on gender, sexuality, race, and other protected attributes. The ruling was greatly awaited due to its potential to significantly impact the application of laws concerning single-sex spaces, maternity policies and the categorization of rights for transgender-identifying people in Britain.

“The unanimous decision of this court is that ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological women and biological sex,” the deputy president of the court Lord Hodge said, according to the New York Times.

“Trans people are protected from discrimination on the ground of gender reassignment,” the press summary of the ruling reads. “They are also able to invoke the provisions on direct discrimination and harassment, and indirect discrimination on the basis of sex. In the light of case law interpreting the relevant provisions, a trans woman can claim sex discrimination because she is perceived to be a woman.”

“Saying ‘trans women are women’ was never true in fact and now isn’t true in law, either,” Member of Parliament Kemi Badenoch wrote on X on Wednesday. “A victory for all of the women who faced personal abuse or lost their jobs for stating the obvious. Women are women and men are men: you cannot change your biological sex.”

The British embassy did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.