Sanity prevails on sex

After months of deliberation, the Supreme Court has finally answered “the woman question”: being female isn’t about paperwork or vibes. It’s biology — and yes, your sex still matters in law. Unlike on social media, emotional blackmail or cries of “you’re erasing my existence” don’t stand-up as arguments in courtrooms.

Reading the ruling, Lord Hodge confirmed: “The terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.” He added that this shouldn’t be seen as a win for one side — but the cheers from women’s rights groups and the anguished howls from trans activists said it all.

The case was brought by grassroots group For Women Scotland, who challenged Scottish Government guidance treating men with Gender Recognition Certificates (GRCs) as “women” under the Equality Act. It was a necessary intervention. For over a decade, Scottish politicians — often in cahoots with publicly funded trans lobby groups — have allowed a de facto system of gender self-ID to quietly colonise public life. This has led to trans identifying men like Mridul Wadhwa heading a rape crisis centre, and rapists like Adam Graham/Isla Bryson being placed in women’s prisons. Anyone who objected was smeared as bigoted and backward, and considered legitimate targets for abuse. Some were reported to the police.

Kate Barker, CEO of the LGB Alliance, which intervened in the case, called the ruling “a profound relief” and a turning point in the fight against the erasure of same-sex attraction. “It is especially important to lesbians,” she said, “because the definition of lesbian is directly linked to the definition of woman.”

Alongside the Lesbian Project and Scottish Lesbians, the “Lesbian Interveners” made it clear: if “woman” is redefined to include anyone with the right documents, then lesbianism — defined by same-sex attraction — is rendered meaningless.

The absurdity of the Scottish Government’s position was laid bare in court. During the hearing Ruth Crawford KC argued that a heterosexual man with a GRC could be considered a lesbian. The justices looked baffled. Karon Monaghan KC, for FWS, pointed out the obvious: lesbians are attracted to female bodies — not men with paperwork.

This is a huge win for women’s rights

The ruling has wide-ranging implications. Single-sex services — rape crisis centres, hospital wards, changing rooms — are now legally protected as female-only spaces. It will also influence live cases like those of the Darlington nurses and Sandie Peggie. This is a huge win for women’s rights — particularly those of lesbians, whose gatherings and dating apps have been overrun by men who see them as a porn category.

Of course, the news has made the trans activists huff and puff. Croaking from what is looking increasingly like the wrong side of history, Stonewall CEO Simon Blake called the ruling “incredibly worrying for the trans community.”

Meanwhile, Jolyon Maugham told his fellow gender warriors on BlueSky that he was stunned by the ruling as KCs he’d spoken to had told him FWS’s case “was not even arguable.”

In an increasingly unhinged rant, Maugham claimed that Supreme Court justices were either transphobic or too arrogant to analyse “trans lives” properly. A bold accusation from someone whose own legal instincts were so badly off the mark.

But let’s be clear: this ruling doesn’t strip anyone of rights. Trans-identifying people are still protected under the law. What it does is reaffirm that women’s rights — based on biological sex — matter too. And that the wider public cannot be forced to pretend otherwise.

If Scotland’s government and public institutions have any sense left, they’ll stop pandering to the perpetually offended and start reckoning with reality.

Because make no mistake: had this ruling gone the other way, women’s rights — our spaces, our protections, even the language to describe ourselves — would have been signed away with the stroke of a pen. That it took a Supreme Court decision to stop this ideological takeover of civil society should be a salutary reminder that we should never take our rights for granted.