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00:00A unanimous 5-0 ruling for the UK's Supreme Court that a woman is someone born biologically female.
00:08It sparked from a complaint against Scotland's Equality Act.
00:12The ruling means transgender women can be excluded from some groups in single-sex spaces, such as changing rooms.
00:22It's a long-awaited decision that defines how equality laws are applied and who they apply to.
00:27The Supreme Court has ruled that the 2010 Equality Act defines a woman as someone born biologically female.
00:34It means the law won't apply to transgender women with a gender recognition certificate in the same way it applies to cisgender women.
00:41The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.
00:54But we counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another.
01:04It is not.
01:05The judge stressed that the law still gives transgender people protection against discrimination in a separate part of the Equality Act.
01:12What it won't do, though, is define trans women as women in representation on public sector boards, for example, which is what prompted the long-running legal dispute in the first place.
01:23Lobby group For Women Scotland complained that ministers had included trans people as part of the quotas in that law and brought the challenge against the Scottish government in 2018.
01:32They see the ruling as a huge victory.
01:34Today, the judges have said what we always believe to be the case, that women are protected by their biological sex, that sex is real, and that women can now feel safe, that services and spaces designated for women are for women.
01:53The case may have started in Scotland, but the decision adds to a particularly polarising debate over transgender rights across the UK,
01:59and could be used by campaigners to press the government over its wider policies.
02:04And for more, let's cross to Kevin Guyon, who is Chancellor Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and Director of its Gender and Sexuality Data Lab.
02:18Thank you for speaking to us from the Scottish capital.
02:23Hello.
02:24First off, just to make it clear, if we understand this ruling correctly, it does not strike down the Equality Act.
02:30No, what the law, the kind of judges were asked to provide a ruling on was their interpretation of words like man, women and sex in the Equality Act, but nothing about the act has changed.
02:47What have been the reactions to this ruling?
02:49We saw those, obviously, who were in favour in that report, but generally the people you've been speaking to, is it unanimous?
02:56Is it split?
02:59The result has come as a big surprise for many in Scotland and the UK, particularly trans communities and the wider LGBTQ plus community.
03:09It does symbolise a kind of a reinterpretation of key pieces of legislation, including the Gender Recognition Act,
03:18which is over 20 years old now, dating back to 2004, as well as the 2010 Equality Act.
03:24So although the kind of ruling doesn't change anything about the law as it stands, how it's interpreted and how it kind of trickles down into how policy, service provision, wider equality initiatives,
03:37there is a potential for quite widespread effects.
03:41Such as?
03:41For one example, I mean, most people are not kind of expert in the details of differences between gender, sex and questions around biological sex, legal sex.
03:55There is a risk that the optics of this court case might lead policymakers, decision makers to think that a biology first approach to sex is the most important in all situations.
04:07Now, while questions around biological sex are important in some situations, many gender equality issues are not kind of primarily around a person's biology.
04:21So there is a risk in broader questions around data, around policy, around service provision, that today's ruling might impact how trans people are recognised.
04:30Give us examples of where, because within those people who advocate for LGBTQ rights, is there agreement when it comes to those nuances that you spell out there?
04:47Give us examples of areas where there should be access for trans people and others where there should not.
04:55So the kind of areas which often come up in discussion are around places like changing rooms, around toilets and bathrooms, swimming pools and hospital wards.
05:07Many of these spaces adopt contextual approaches in terms of who uses these spaces and who's not allowed to use these spaces.
05:14A blanket approach, purely kind of determined by a person's biology, a person's biology at birth, is quite a crude approach to quite complex contextual situations.
05:26Because in some instances people are comfortable with it and others they're not.
05:31Yes, and people's kind of questions around safety, around their biology, around who they are can differ from place to place.
05:39So a kind of catch-all universal approach, as kind of ruled in the kind of judgment day, will mean that many people find themselves potentially in situations that don't fit their needs at that time and place.
05:53This case originated from a bill that was passed in Scotland.
05:59Tell us the specificity of the argument.
06:03What's the context when it comes to Scotland?
06:05Yes, yes, as you said, I'm joining today from Edinburgh, Scotland, and this is where this kind of legal issue started.
06:14So this was a piece of legislation introduced by the Scottish government, a really kind of well-intentioned piece of a bill that aimed to increase the number of women on public boards.
06:27So things like kind of creative agencies, national bodies, to try and increase representation at that governance level.
06:35The campaign group for women in Scotland took issue with the definition of women included in this piece of legislation because it was inclusive of trans women.
06:47So this kind of legal saga, which has continued for many years now, basically is in response to this issue about the counting and inclusion of trans women.
06:56But I think it's really important with today's kind of issue and the wider debate around this to be really specific about who we're talking about.
07:05The Scotland Hyatt census a couple of years ago, and we know that in Scotland there are just over 3,000 trans women, so a very numerically small population.
07:15So I think it's really important for us to remember who is being negatively impacted by today's decision.
07:22And remember, this is a community that's numerically small and often already marginalised in a variety of ways.
07:28So, again, remembering who's kind of most negatively impacted by the introduction of more rigid, more crude and more exclusionary rules around who is recognised as who they wish to be.
07:39The data is a little bit fuzzy when it comes to how many people are actually trans, Kevin Goyan.
07:47Surveys that I saw and researching, most of them talk about less than 1% of the world's population.
07:53But 1% of the world's population is a lot of people.
07:56It depends on the context and situation.
08:02So if we're talking about kind of senior governance positions, senior leaders, we know that there is an underrepresentation of trans people in these spaces.
08:11So, again, one of the potential side effects of today's ruling is that actually everyone might lose out.
08:18In that companies, organisations, public bodies might be more reluctant to introduce equality initiatives, diversity interventions to try and improve representation because they feel at risk of falling foul of this law.
08:32The Trump administration suing the state of Maine over transgender athletes allowed to participate in sporting events.
08:42Donald Trump, who's been doubling down on the sports argument when it comes to arguing for a woman, is defined by her biological birth.
08:56Do you feel as though that argument is winning the day on this side of the Atlantic?
09:02So it is interesting, this kind of commonalities between what's happening in the US, particularly since Trump's return to power in January, and some of the arguments we've seen in the UK.
09:16So this kind of anti-trans rhetoric dialogue around trans people is not new to the UK by any stretch.
09:23And we've seen this across a range of different spaces, whether it's around sport, whether it's around access to changing rooms, whether it's around data and things like the census, or in today's ruling around the law.
09:35So I think it is really important for us to kind of reflect on the kind of similarities between the language coming out from Trump and the White House around biological sex, around binary sex, around protecting women,
09:48and the language we hear around by the campaign group for women in Scotland, who are using a very similar playbook to talk about a similar issue.
09:58And what about the language of the court?
10:02The court in this regard has clarified its interpretation of sex in the Equality Act.
10:09But we need to remember that there's many facets to a person's identity, their experience in life, biological sex being one of them, but many other factors that shape how people live and experience their lives.
10:22So my hope is that even though the ruling today has been very clear in some respects, people designing diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives continue to remember that many factors impact people's experiences,
10:36whether it's in work, whether it's in education, in housing, and we need to take that broader, more contextual view when thinking about gender and sex.
10:44Kevin Yeon, many thanks for joining us from Edinburgh.
10:49Stay with us. There's much more to come here on France 24.
10:52More news plus the day's business and sports.