Five judges. Zero dissenting opinions. This is how the UK Supreme Court ruled on April 16, 2025.
It all began in Scotland, with a 2018 law on quotas for women on public boards. For Women Scotland challenged the inclusion there of trans women with a Gender Recognition Certificate, and the case escalated to London.
The result: the terms ‘woman,’ ‘man’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 refer, according to the highest court, to the sex assigned at birth. Having that certificate does not change a person’s legal sex for the purposes of that specific law.
The court itself clarified something few people repeat: it did not change the law, it only interpreted it. And trans people retain legal protection against discrimination under another provision of the same law. Even so, the ruling now allows sports clubs, shelters and single-sex spaces to apply that biological definition.
