Good morning. The supreme court’s judgment was 88 pages long, but in much of the coverage today it has been boiled down to a very blunt conclusion: “The concept of sex is binary”, and as far as equality legislation is concerned, trans women are not women.
That is an oversimplification of a complex ruling yesterday that was careful to say it did not seek to delegitimise the existence of trans people, and insisted it did not represent the triumph of one group over another.
Whatever the court says, though, gender-critical campaigners and many newspaper front pages were clear: this constituted “victory”. Marion Calder, a director of For Women Scotland, said: “If there is a female sign on the door, that is now a single-sex space. That is crystal clear as a result of today’s ruling.”
The decision was meanwhile greeted with deep trepidation and dismay by many trans people, who wondered how such a verdict had been reached without the evidence of a single trans woman being heard by the court.
There have been sensible warnings against over-interpreting the ruling – but there is little doubt that it will have lasting consequences. Today’s newsletter explains what the case was about, what the court did and didn’t say, and what it all means in practice. Here are the headlines.
Five big stories
Trade policy | UK officials are tightening security when handling sensitive trade documents to prevent them from falling into US hands amid Donald Trump’s tariff war, the Guardian can reveal. While trade documents were previously marked as “sensitive”, some are now being designated as “secret” and “top secret”, changing the rules on how they can be shared, sources said.
Gaza | Members of the Board of Deputies, the largest body representing British Jews, have said they can no longer “turn a blind eye or remain silent” over the war in Gaza. In a significant break with customary support for the Israeli government, an open letter with 36 signatories – about one in eight of the board’s members - says “Israel’s soul is being ripped out”.
Health | GPs in England will be paid £20 each time they decide not to send a patient to hospital under a government scheme to help reduce the NHS waiting list. Family doctors will be able to claim the money if they instead refer patients for tests and treatment in an out-of-hospital setting, such as a health clinic, or to see a community-based specialist.
Nature | Toby Carvery has been threatened with legal action by a council over the felling of an ancient oak in a park in north London. The restaurant chain is facing national outrage after its decision to fell the up to 500-year-old tree without warning on 3 April.
Extraterrestrial life | A giant planet 124 light years from Earth has yielded the strongest evidence yet of potential life beyond our solar system, astronomers claim. Observations of a planet called K2-18 b appear to reveal the chemical fingerprints of two compounds that, on Earth, are only known to be produced by life.
In depth: ‘We counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph’
The case that ended at the supreme court yesterday started as a question, posed by the gender critical group For Women Scotland, about whether trans women should be covered by Scottish legislation seeking to improve gender balance on public sector boards. But the ramifications are much wider, because it turned into a more fundamental question about whether the protections for women in the 2010 Equality Act cover trans women with a gender recognition certificate.
That means the decision’s impact will be felt across England, Scotland and Wales (although not Northern Ireland, where the Equality Act does not apply). Libby Brooks has an excellent primer on the history of the case, and Jessica Murray has some of the reaction from both sides of the debate. Here’s what you need to know about the court’s reasoning and the practical consequences.
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What the judgment says
In 2004, the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) of the British parliament said that trans people should be treated according to their “acquired” gender for all purposes, and created the gender recognition certificate (GRC) as a way to affirm that protection.
But the GRA also said this rule could be disapplied by specific reference in subsequent legislation, or if that legislation would be obviously unworkable. The 2010 Equality Act doesn’t deal with that point explicitly. To reach a decision on this case, the supreme court therefore had to rule on whether, if applied to trans women with a GRC, the protections against sex discrimination in the Equality Act would cease to function properly.
The court’s unanimous decision was that they would. The judgment said that “interpreting ‘sex’ as certificated sex would cut across the definitions of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ and thus the protected characteristic of sex”. And it said that “as a matter of ordinary language” the provisions of the Equality Act relating to sex discrimination against women “can only be interpreted as referring to biological sex”.
The court also said that using the GRC to define whether a trans woman should be granted the full protections of the act was impractical, given that service providers are not supposed to ask to see the document. And it said that from lesbian-only associations to changing rooms and single sex halls of residence, “a biological interpretation of ‘sex’ [is necessary] in order to function coherently”.
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What it doesn’t say
One repeated claim in the aftermath of the verdict was that the court had upheld, and bestowed its authority upon, the contention that trans women are not women. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, said that it showed “the era of Keir Starmer telling us women can have penises has come to an end”. The biologist Richard Dawkins said that “the science was settled in the Precambrian [era]. Nice that the law has finally caught up.” One campaigner celebrating outside the supreme court held up a banner that read “Women are born, not some bloke with a form”. The Daily Telegraph’s splash headline today says bluntly: “Trans women are not women.”
But the court itself was emphatic that the judgment had no such grand ambitions; it added that the decision “does not remove protection from trans people, with or without a GRC”, because they are protected elsewhere in the Equality Act. Lord Hodge, deputy president of the court, said that trans people were a “vulnerable and often harassed minority” and added: “We counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another, it is not.”
Instead, the issue in question was strictly “statutory interpretation”: the intended meaning of the Equality Act. As the judgment makes clear, if the Equality Act had explicitly said that trans women were covered by the protections it set out for women, the case would have failed.
It therefore follows that it would be possible for the government to change the law in response to the decision if it wanted to. More on the slim prospects of that outcome below.
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Limits on the ruling’s impact
After the judgment landed, trans rights charity Scottish Trans urged people “not to panic – there will be lots of commentary coming out quickly that is likely to deliberately overstate the impact that this decision is going to have on all trans people’s lives”.
Trans women are still protected against discrimination on the basis of their being perceived as women, or as trans. The employment and discrimination barrister Robin White pointed out on BBC Radio 4’s PM that because excluding trans people is still only allowed if it is “a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim”, we are not likely to suddenly see security guards assessing people at the entrance to public toilets, to take one extreme example.
Another, bleaker gloss came from the writer Shon Faye, who noted: “Practically very little will change for most trans women, who have been dealing with a hostile environment in this country for many years.”
About 8,500 people have ever obtained a GRC in the UK, against a total current trans population, according to the Office of National Statistics and the Scottish census, of about 116,000 people. So a change applying to people with a GRC will not have a direct impact for the vast majority. Meanwhile, the domestic violence charity Refuge put out a statement saying that it remained “firmly committed to supporting all survivors of domestic abuse, including trans women”.
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What is likely to change
It is also clear that the decision will ultimately have significant consequences. It offers clearer legal protection to any service for women wishing to exclude trans women, provided that it meets that test of proportionality – although, as the barrister Sam Fowles points out in this piece, such exclusions were already permitted. The Equality and Human Rights Commission is expected to issue new guidance before the summer. NHS England said that the judgment would affect its guidance on same-sex hospital wards; similar impacts are likely in some social groups, sport, and prisons. In each case, the same principle will govern the treatment of trans men.
Another practical consequence of the ruling: the judgment said that a problem with using the GRC as a way to define trans women covered by the Equality Act was that it would “give trans persons who possess a GRC greater rights than those who do not”. But in practice, what that meant was many trans women without a GRC were protected anyway, and it is still likely to be viewed as potentially discriminatory to ask for one. In some situations, the distinction now will be whether a trans woman can “pass” or not.
The court was also explicit about a further striking anomaly. Using the example of group counselling for female victims of sexual assault, it said that trans women can reasonably be excluded; but it also said that trans men can be excluded “because the gender reassignment process has given them a masculine appearance”.
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What happens next
Some experts had suggested before the ruling was handed down that the court might punt the decision back to parliament. That would have been deeply unwelcome for Keir Starmer, with Labour viewing the issue as one where the Conservatives and Reform are able to paint the government as captive to the alleged woke mob, as with the long history of asinine gotcha questions about whether women can have a penis.
So the decision comes as a huge relief for the government – not that in practice it has done much to justify its characterisation as a staunch ally of trans people anyway. One government source told the Daily Telegraph: “This just shows why it was so important that Keir hauled the Labour party back to the common sense position the public take on these sorts of issues.”
That line, and the government’s welcome of the decision on the record, suggests that any idea the Equality Act might be updated to provide more robust protections for trans women is pie in the sky. Indeed, in February, Labour quietly shelved plans to make it easier for people to legally change their gender “amid concerns about the rising popularity of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK”.
In Scotland, meanwhile, the embattled Holyrood government is also unlikely to want to return to gender reform legislation. Once, the SNP proclaimed its position as a progressive beacon for the rest of the UK. Now, the political tides appear to have decisively shifted. Peter Walker and Severin Carrell have more on that here.
That gets at a possible wider consequence of the decision. Whatever the qualifications spelled out by the court, it is already being proclaimed as the day that trans women were declared not to be women. The wider social and political fallout from that interpretation may extend well beyond the narrow provisions of the law.
What else we’ve been reading
You may look across the Atlantic and see rightwing book censorship as an authoritarian abhorrence that could never happen here – but librarian Alison Hicks writes that it already is. Charlie Lindlar, acting deputy editor, newsletters
Liz Truss is threatening to launch an “uncensored and uncancellable” social media platform. Why, asks Zoe Williams, are so many on the right preoccupied with such wheezes when on X and beyond, they already dominate the discourse? Archie
Caffeine fiend Sasha Muller must have been seeing through time and space itself after testing a dozen espresso machines for the Filter, to find the best options at any price point. Thank him later for his excellent list. Charlie
Martin Kettle effectively punctures the idea that a trade deal with the US will be a panacea for the UK’s economic ills: gains of “mere fractions of a single percentage point over a decade” could seem trivial if they come at the cost of better relations with the EU. Archie
Tuesday marked Jackie Robinson Day, when Major League Baseball honours the man who broke the colour barrier in baseball. However, Lex Pryor writes in The Ringer, the league is dishonouring the legacy of the icon by cosying up to America’s anti-diversity president. Charlie
Sport
Football | Gabriel Martinelli’s injury-time goal earned Arsenal a 2-1 win at Real Madrid and a 5-1 aggregate triumph in the Champions League quarter-final, second leg. In the night’s other tie, Inter drew 2-2 with Bayern to progress 4-3 on aggregate.
Football | An own goal from Marc Guéhi along with strikes from Jacob Murphy, Harvey Barnes, Fabian Schär and Alexander Isak saw Newcastle dominate Crystal Palace 5-0.
Athletics | Seven countries have expressed interest in hosting future Commonwealth Games. Five of those, including Canada, India and Nigeria are focused on staging the centenary 2030 Games while two are looking at editions of the multi-sport event beyond that, Commonwealth Sport has announced.
The front pages
“Legal definition of woman ‘is based on biological sex’” is the Guardian’s lead story headline, while the Express says it’s a “Victory” and the Times says “Equality policies in chaos as court defines a woman”. To the Daily Mail it’s a “Historic victory for women … and common sense” while the Telegraph says bluntly “Trans women are not women” and the Metro’s headline is similarly “Trans women ‘not women’”.
The top story in the i is “Electric cars with Chinese parts banned from UK military sites, amid spying fears”. “I forgive cops who killed my son” – that’s the mother of Jean Charles de Menezes, 20 years later, on the front of the Mirror. “Tech stocks sink after Nvidia reveals $5.5bn hit from curbs on China sales” – no prizes for guessing that’s the Financial Times.
Today in Focus
Trump’s trade war: the view from China
As the Washington-Beijing trade war grows deeper, who will blink first? Amy Hawkins reports
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Thomas Hobbs was four when his father died suddenly aged just 37. When his mum unearthed his dad’s old gaming console from the 1990s, a Nintendo Entertainment System, Thomas couldn’t believe it when he managed to clean it up and get the NES working again.
His earliest memories were of watching his parents playing Super Mario Bros, so spending the last few weeks replaying old games has ignited a profound healing journey for him.
Thomas recommends finding your old consoles in the loft and playing on them if you can. “It might just help you to grieve, or relive a special memory that otherwise could easily have been lost. When I hear the opening chords of the Super Mario Bros theme song, I’m instantly back on that sofa with my mum and dad, smiling, assured that everything is going to be OK.”
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.
