Statement on Supreme Court judgment on the meaning of ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010
To sign the statement on behalf of your centre/network/group, please use this form.
We are leaders of centres, research groups and networks, of scholarship, teaching, learning, and expertise in gender, feminist, women’s and sexuality studies across the UK. We are dismayed by the recent Supreme Court judgment on the meaning of ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010.
This judgment, which states that ‘sex’ for the purposes of the Act refers to the ‘sex of a person at birth’, was handed down after a refusal to hear any testimony from legal experts on gender reassignment or from trans, nonbinary, or intersex people. We do not believe it provides more legal clarity on the relationship between gender and sex. Instead, it adds more confusion and gives more potential for transphobic opportunism and harm in an already fraught area.
We are also deeply concerned by responses to the judgment by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and organisations such as the British Transport Police. These responses have already used the judgment to declare the exclusion of trans people from facilities and services, and to align policies with ‘biological sex’. Such responses will expose trans, nonbinary/gender-nonconforming, and intersex people to forced outing, deny their lived realities, and limit their ability to participate in society.
We reject the framing in the media and in public discourse that puts women, and/or feminists, at odds with trans people. This is especially the case in relation to the inclusion of trans women in women’s spaces. Womanhood is lived; it is not biologically given or legally bestowed. The rights of trans people and the rights of cisgender women are inherently connected. As academic experts on sex and gender, we do not agree that biological sex is ‘self-explanatory.’ As feminists, we see the weaponisation of ‘women’s safety’ to vilify and exclude trans people as shameful.
We view this judgment and the damaging responses to it as part of a broader trend of backsliding on equality, which will harm all marginalised groups and expose all gender nonconforming people to exclusionary violence, including cisgender-nonconforming women. Discrimination does not exist in isolation and the stripping away of legal protections threatens us all. Everyone’s bodily autonomy is put at risk by the anti-scientific elevation of ‘biological sex’ as a self-evident category, which will ultimately be policed by intensified regulation of the borders of gender expression.
Our support for trans rights, and in particular for trans women’s inclusion in women’s spaces, and the rights of trans, intersex and gender-nonconforming people to access safe and inclusive healthcare and sanitary facilities, is steadfast. We are proudly trans-inclusive and will remain so.
- Centre for Women’s Studies, University of York
- Gender Research Group, Newcastle University
- Centre for Transforming Sexuality & Gender, University of Brighton
- Sussex Centre for Human Rights Research, University of Sussex
- Gender Inequality in Education group, University of York
- Centre for Gender Studies, Lancaster University
- Feminist Media and Cultural Studies Research Group, Lancaster University
- Queer Disability Studies Network
- Abolition Feminism for Ending Sexual Violence collective, Newcastle University
- Centre for the Study of Sexuality and Culture, University of Manchester
- BiGS (Birkbeck Gender and Sexuality) Birkbeck, University of London
- qUCL research centre and network, University College London
- Gender and Feminisms Research Network, University College London
- Sex, Sexualities and Sexual Harm Research Group, Leeds Beckett University
- CLOCK, The Community Legal Outreach Collaboration, Keele University
- Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence, University of Sussex
- Queer Judgments Project Network
- Centre for Gender Studies, University of Sussex
- SexGen North Network
- Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, University of Leeds
- Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, University of Warwick
- Feminism, Gender and Sexuality Research Cluster, University of Warwick
- SunGen, Sunderland University
- Feminist Legal Research and Action Network, University of Liverpool
- UCL LGBTQ+ Equality Steering Group
- Out@UCL
- UCL Centre for Sociology of Education and Equity
- Gender Research Group, Nottingham Trent University
- Strathclyde Feminist Research Network, University of Strathclyde
- Gender and Sexualities Network, University of Stirling
- Centre for Intimate and Sexual Citizenship, University of Essex
- Feminist Gender Equality Network
- Gender Research Network, Coventry University
- Histories of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Identity research group, Manchester Metropolitan University
- LGBT+ Advisory Group, University of Oxford
- British Educational Research Association Sexualities and Gender Special Interest Group
- Centre for Gender in Politics, Queen’s University Belfast
- Pluralising Social Reproduction Approaches Network
- queer.ed, University of Edinburgh
- Intersex Research Network, University of Huddersfield
- LGBTQI+ Network, University of Lincoln