The United Kingdom Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Wednesday that a woman is a biological woman born, a measure that now excludes transgender women from the legal definition of a woman.
Trans women can be excluded from some spaces and groups of a single sex under the United Kingdom equality law, the five judges of the Superior Court ruled. These spaces and groups include changing rooms, shelters for homeless people, swimming areas and medical or advisory services provided only to women.
The ruling means that even a transgender person with a certificate that recognizes them as a woman should not be considered a woman for equal purposes.
But Judge Patrick Hodge said his ruling “does not eliminate the protection of trans people,” who are “protected from gender reallocation discrimination.”
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Women’s rights activists celebrate the ruling outside the Supreme Court of London on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
“Interpreting ‘sex’ as a certified sex crosses the definitions of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ … and, therefore, the characteristic protected from sex in an unreprehential way,” said Hodge. “I would create heterogeneous crops.”
Women’s rights groups celebrated the ruling outside the court.
The United Kingdom Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Wednesday that a woman is someone biological. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
“Everyone knows what sex is and you can’t change it,” said Susan Smith, co -director of For Women Scotland, who brought the case. “It is common sense, basic common sense and the fact that we have bone in a rabbit burrow where people have tried to deny science and deny reality and, hopefully, this will now see us back to reality.”
Women’s rights activists have signs outside the Supreme Court in the midst of a challenge to gender recognition laws in London on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
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Hannah Ford, an employment lawyer, said that while the sentence will provide clarity on the controversial issue in the United Kingdom, it would be a setback for transgender rights and there would be “a uphill battle” to ensure that workplaces are welcoming places.
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“This will really hurt for the trans community,” Ford told Sky News.
Associated Press contributed to this report.