Middle-aged women are expected to fade into the background, to be apologetic for their existence, to quietly accept their lot. They’re not supposed to stick up for themselves, to enforce their boundaries, to say no. As a woman, these societal expectations have been drummed into me from day one. But still. The swell of anger and disgust that rose in response to the supreme court judgment last week that made clear women’s rights are not for dismantling – rights already won, that were supposed to be ours all along – has taken my breath away.
I was in court last Wednesday to hear Lord Hodge confirm that the Equality Act’s legal protections that were always intended for women are, indeed, reserved for women. He reiterated that trans people continue to have the same robust legal protections against discrimination and harassment as any other protected group, something I’ve always emphasised in my own writing. But men who identify as female – whether or not they have a legal certificate – are not to be treated as though female for the purposes of equalities law.
This is a hugely consequential clarification because for the past 10 years lobby groups such as Stonewall have misrepresented the law, telling public sector organisations, charities and companies that they must treat trans women as women.
Now the supreme court has made it clear: female-only services, spaces and sports cannot admit males, however they identify. Workplaces and schools must offer single-sex facilities; service providers do not always have to, though it may be unlawful sex discrimination for them not to do so.
This means it is never lawful to expect a female nurse to share changing facilities with a male colleague. It’s not lawful to tell a distressed female patient that the obviously male patient next to her in the female-only ward is, in fact, a woman and she is transphobic to question it. It’s not lawful to expect a female rape victim to take or leave a female-only support group that includes men. It’s not lawful to tell a woman required to undergo a strip-search that the male police officer doing it is actually female. It’s not lawful to expect teenage girls to play women’s football on a team with male players, or female boxers to box against men. Lesbians can have their own groups and associations without being bullied into admitting straight male members who – in an act of gross homophobia – self-identify as “lesbian”.
Why does this matter? Because this unlawful activity has all been happening in recent years, to the detriment not just of women’s safety, but our privacy and dignity. The judgment could not be clearer on the above, though that has not stopped a former supreme court justice, Jonathan Sumption, and a former cabinet minister, Harriet Harman, from taking to the airwaves to interpret the law incorrectly.
In his remarks, Hodge cautioned against reading the judgment as a triumph of one group over another. That is entirely correct: the Equality Act balances conflicting rights, and the supreme court has simply restored the balance to where the law said it was supposed to be. Trans people have their protections, but now women’s protections, too, have been clearly ringfenced on the same basis – all that leftwing feminists ever asked for.
But many pundits have misinterpreted this as meaning women should not celebrate a landmark legal victory in a case it was a travesty they ever had to fight. It’s a product of the rank misogyny embedded everywhere, from right to left. Can you imagine angry leftwing men railing against any other group that’s managed to secure their rights? Chastising them for not being gracious enough in victory? Me neither. The reaction to the judgment serves as an important reminder that, while the law is the law, our culture remains dead-set against women who say no to men. It’s how women’s and lesbians’ rights were so rapidly eroded by Stonewall and its allies in the first place, and why women have been bullied, hounded and sacked simply for trying to assert their legal protections.
The same people are ignoring the supreme court’s emphasis that none of this takes away from trans people’s existing rights, and are scaremongering and infantilising trans people as victims. Lloyds Bank wrote to all its employees to say it “stood by” and “cherished” all its trans employees. Several unions have organised an emergency demo in support of trans rights, giving the impression they are being rolled back. It’s easy to forget that all that has happened is that the supreme court has been clear that a male desire for validation does not trump women’s rights to single-sex spaces and services. That if you are a male police officer or nurse demanding to strip-search or carry out a smear test on a woman, the answer is no. Part of being a grownup is understanding that the world cannot always be structured around your own wants and needs. It’s not kind, compassionate or healthy to indulge a failure to accept that.
The judgment means trans rights activists are at a crossroads. Do they double down and try to argue that MPs must respond by dismantling women’s legal protections? Or do they put a stop to an ideological crusade that’s harmed not just women and lesbians, but the many trans people who aren’t dogmatic about gender ideology, and instead advocate for gender-neutral third spaces, open and female categories in sports, and specialist services for trans people, and against discrimination based on gender non-conformity? If they pick the latter path, they’ll find willing allies in women like me.
And finally, to the countless women who lost so much in fighting to re-establish what was supposed to be ours all along, there could be no happier way for me to round off my last regular column for the Observer than by saying: you are heroes. Pop those champagne corks. Celebrate as hard as you like. You deserve it.
• Sonia Sodha is an Observer columnist
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