Supreme Court to issue ruling in dispute over definition of a woman
The judgment follows a series of legal challenges brought by the campaign group For Women Scotland.
The UK Supreme Court is set to rule on the legal definition of a woman, following a challenge brought by women’s rights campaigners.
The ruling follows a series of challenges brought by the campaign group, For Women Scotland (FWS), over the definition of “woman” in Scottish legislation mandating 50% female representation on public boards.
The dispute centres on whether or not somebody with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) recognising their gender as female should be treated as a woman under the 2010 Equality Act.
FWS previously said 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 matter 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 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.
