Supreme Court issues ruling on legal definition of a woman The matter has been resolved after first coming to court in 2022 Campaigners from For Women Scotland (FWS) outside the Supreme Court in London. (Image: Lucy North/PA Wire ) The UK Supreme Court has issued a new ruling on the legal definition of a woman. The ruling follows a series of challenges brought about by the campaign group, For Women Scotland (FWS), over the definition of "woman" in Scottish legislation mandating 50% female representation on public boards. ‌ Article continues below The dispute centres on whether someone with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) recognising their gender as female should be treated as a woman under the UK 2010 Equality Act. The group argued that not tying the definition of sex to its “ordinary meaning” could have far-reaching consequences for sex-based rights, as well as “everyday single-sex services” like toilets and hospital wards. The appeal first came to court in 2022, when FWS successfully challenged the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 over its inclusion of trans women in its definition of women. ‌ The Court of Session, however, ruled that changing the definition of a woman in the act was unlawful, as it dealt with matters falling outside the Scottish Parliament’s legal competence. Following that ruling, the Scottish Government dropped the definition from the act and issued revised statutory guidance – essentially, advice on how to comply with the law. This stated that under the 2018 Act the definition of a woman was the same as that set out in the Equality Act 2010, and also that a person with a GRC recognising their gender as female had the sex of a woman. ‌ FWS challenged this revised guidance on the grounds that sex under the Equality Act referred to its biological meaning, and the Government was overstepping its powers by effectively redefining the meaning of “woman”. That challenge was rejected in December, 2022, by the Court of Session’s Outer House. The Inner House upheld that decision on November 1 2023 – but did grant FWS permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court. ‌ Supreme Court front elevation (Image: Aaron Chown/PA ) On Wednesday, the Supreme Court determined that the definition of a woman and sex in the Equality Act relates to “a biological woman and biological sex”, unanimously ruling in favour of the campaign group. Lord Hodge, sitting with Lords Reed and Lloyd-Jones alongside Ladies Rose and Simler, said: “The terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.” ‌ In an 88-page judgment, the justices said that while the word “biological” does not appear in the definition of man or woman in the Equality Act, “the ordinary meaning of those plain and unambiguous words corresponds with the biological characteristics that make an individual a man or a woman”. They added that interpreting biological sex with GRCs would “cut across the definition of the protected characteristic of sex in an incoherent way”. They continued: “We can identify no good reason why the legislature should have intended that sex-based rights and protections under the EA 2010 should apply to these complex, heterogenous groupings, rather than to the distinct group of, biological, women and girls, or men and boys, with their shared biology leading to shared disadvantage and discrimination faced by them as a distinct group.” Article continues below The court was also told that since the Gender Recognition Act was passed in 2004, 8,464 people in the UK had obtained a GRC which requires a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, living in the acquired gender for at least two years and an intention to live in that gender for the rest of the applicant’s life.