UK Supreme Court upholds scientific fact over woke ideology, declares that only biological females are women, author JK Rowling celebrates
In a historic judgment passed on Tuesday (16th April), the UK Supreme Court dealt a major blow to the woke ideology by defining the term ‘woman’ in terms of biological sex under the Equality Act 2010. The verdict was unanimously passed by a panel of five judges, namely Lord Reed, Lord Hodge, Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lady Rose and Lady Simler in the matter of For Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v The Scottish Ministers (Respondent). Upholding women’s rights, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the terms ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a ‘biological woman’ and ‘biological sex’.
The Court clarified that the ruling should not be seen as “a triumph of one side over another,” noting that transgender individuals retain protections against discrimination, harassment, and indirect discrimination under the Act through the characteristic of gender reassignment.
The scene outside the UK Supreme Court on Tuesday, after the landmark verdict, was a sight to behold. Women curiously waiting outside the Supreme Court building burst into celebration as Susan Smith and Marion Calder from For Women Scotland came out of the court visibly exhilarated.
Susan Smith and Marion Calder (via AP)
Visuals from outside the UK Supreme Court (via New York Post)
Bestselling author JK Rowling, who has been supporting the Women Scotland and has been vocal about women’s rights issues, hailed the Supreme Court verdict and credited the women activists who approached the Court for protecting women’s rights. “It took three extraordinary, tenacious Scottish women with an army behind them to get this case heard by the Supreme Court, and in winning, they’ve protected the rights of women and girls across the UK,” Rowling wrote on X.
Rowling has constantly been at the target of woke liberals for her stance regarding the gender issues and their impact on women’s rights. She has been facing smear campaigns, abuses and threats for saying that women-only spaces like abuse shelters, washrooms, women’s prisons, participation in sporting events, and private areas, should not be accessible to biological males who only ‘identify themselves as women’.
JK Rowling has been unofficially associated with For Women Scotland through unspecified financial support and campaigns, and lending her voice to the group.
What was the case before the Supreme Court?
The judgment was delivered in an appeal filed by For Women Scotland, an organisation that campaigns and works to protect women’s and children’s rights in Scotland, challenging the Scottish government’s interpretation of the term ‘woman’ with respect to the Equality Act and the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018. The Scottish government passed the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 as an affirmative action measure in relation to the appointment of women to non-executive posts on the boards of certain public authorities. To ensure appropriate representation, the Act sets out that 50% of the non-executive members on the boards should be women. However, the Act included transgender women within the definition of women, thus counting their appointment to the public boards under the women’s quota. The Scottish government argued that transwomen holding Gender Recognition Certificated (GRCs) are entitled to the sex-based protections provided to born females which include access to women-only spaces and even positions reserved for women in public boards.
The word ‘woman’ does not include ‘trans-woman’ with a ‘certificate’
Descrining the terms ‘transwoman’ and ‘transman’, the Supreme Court said, “A person who is a biological man, ie. who was at birth of the male sex, but who has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment is described as a trans woman. Similarly, a person who is a biological woman, ie who was at birth of the female sex, but who has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, is described as a trans man. A person with a GRC in the female gender does not come within the definition of “woman” for the purposes of sex discrimination in section 11 of the Equality Act.”
“That in turn means that the definition of “woman” in section 2 of the 2018 Act, which Scottish Ministers accept must bear the same meaning as the term “woman” in section 11 and section 212 of the Equality Act 2010, is limited to biological women and does not include trans women with a GRC,” the Court held. Emphasising that the representation of trans people on public boards was important, the Supreme Court clarified that the judgment should not be interpreted as discouraging the appointment of trans people to public boards. However, it noted that the appointment of a trans woman who has a GRC will not count as the appointment of a woman towards achieving the goal of having 50% women non-executive members in public boards.
The Scottish government’s woke ideology-driven gender reforms
The woke ideology has plagued Western society by rejecting the scientific facts that determine the biological sex of an individual. In the name of protecting the ‘vulnerable’ sections of people who do not identify with and reject the gender binary, the woke ideology has been trampling on the rights of women and children, which were earned after prolonged struggle. Women and children in the West have been on the receiving end of discrimination, injustice and even abuses due to the emergence of this ideology that considers gender as a fluid concept, which can be changed as per one’s whims and fancies.
In January 2023, the Scottish government faced flak after a transwoman who was convicted for raping two women before transitioning was remanded in custody inside a women’s prison as per the government’s gender recognition reforms.
Last year in April, the Scottish government introduced legislation that purported to criminalise behaviour that ‘stirred up hatred’ against select age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations of sex characteristics. As per the controversial legislation called the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, even ‘misgendering’ an individual could attract a penalty. This would mean that if a person referred to a biological male dressing and identifying as a ‘woman’, as a male then it could constitute a crime under the law A similar controversial legislation was passed by the Canadian Parliament in 2016 that stifled free speech in the name of preventing discrimination based on gender identities. Bill C-16, introduced by the Justin Trudeau government, potentially criminalised the use of incorrect pronouns and the discussion of gender identity.
How Biden’s Supreme Court nominee had failed to define the word ‘woman’
The UK Supreme Court’s verdict is significant considering the lack of spine displayed by stakeholders in the West, including politicians and judges, in calling out the woke gender ideology for imposing distorted gender identities, not backed by science, on the general public. We all remember how Ketanji Brown Jackson, an associate Justice in the US Supreme Court, failed to describe the term ‘woman’ during her confirmation in the Senate.
When asked by Senator Marsha Blackburn if she could define the word ‘woman’, Jackson, the former US President Joe Biden’s nominee to the US Supreme Court, replied with a plain “No”. She evaded the question, saying, with a laugh, that she was not a biologist to be able to define the term ‘woman’.
The judgment of the UK Supreme Court provides the silver lining for the rights of women and children in Western societies, where political correctness on gender issues has taken over the scientific facts and the truth.
News