It is difficult to describe the emotion felt by lesbian and women’s rights campaigners when Lord Hodge announced the outcome of For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers at the Supreme Court this morning. It was the culmination of a struggle for justice which has lasted years and during which we have been vilified as bigots and threatened with death and sexual violence. Some of us have lost jobs, positions and career prospects as a result of standing up for what we knew was right.
No less a person than Scotland’s former first minister Nicola Sturgeon called us bigots, transphobes, racists and homophobes. She said that our concerns were ‘not valid’. The highest court in the land has told her she was wrong. An apology to the women of Scotland is in order.
Now we have clarity that the terms ‘man’, ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act refer to biological sex. Men who identify as women do not become women for the purposes of equality law, not even if they have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). As Sex Matters put it: the protected characteristic of sex – male and female – refers to reality, not to paperwork.
And so far as lesbians are concerned, the law is now clear that we are biological women attracted to other biological women. We are never men. We don’t have penises. We aren’t attracted to men just because they have a certificate saying that they are a woman, and we must be allowed to gather together in places where men are not present.
The era of self-identification is well and truly over
For Women Scotland, the appellants who won the case, will go down in history for their tenacity in securing this judgement. Grassroots campaigners, they fought the might of the state, and they won. The Lesbian interveners – Scottish Lesbians, LGB Alliance and the Lesbian Project – can also be proud that our arguments about the rights of lesbians played such a central part in the judgment. The indomitable duo that is Maya Forstater and Helen Joyce and their sisters at Sex Matters also played a pivotal role with their intervention.
This decision should herald a sea change in public policy across the United Kingdom. Governments, political parties, unions, the NHS, prisons, the police and educational facilities have all got the law wrong and need to revisit their policies. It should also herald a sea change in how we do politics, for it has shown that ‘no debate’ and a lack of proper scrutiny leads to bad law and bad policies. And what of the politicians, former politicians and lobbyists who are seeking to whip up a moral panic and to suggest that trans rights are under attack? They need to read the judgment, act responsibly and stop spreading disinformation.
The Supreme Court was at pains to emphasise that the Equality Act protects those who identify as trans from harassment and discrimination under the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. That will not change. Nor should it. What has changed is that the era of self-ID is well and truly over. Where services and spaces are provided for women only, men do not have the right to demand entry, even if those men identify as women and have a piece of paper saying that they are a woman.
The law will now protect everyone’s human rights which is as it should be. Now those in positions of power need to make sure that everyone understands and respects the law.
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