Nigel Farage has reacted with glee to yesterday’s landmark ruling at the UK’s Supreme Court that a woman is someone born biologically female. The decision, which excludes transgender women from the legal definition, has been welcomed by some feminists who have campaigned to safeguard rights for women on the basis of biological sex. In a brief clip shared on X, the Reform UK leader said in a seven word verdict it was a “outbreak of common sense from our judiciary.”
He said: “At last the leaders see is over the Supreme Court have declared that a woman is somebody who was biologically born a woman. An outbreak of common sense from our judiciary, and something I think nearly the whole population will agree with.”
The court was asked to determine the definition of a woman under Britain’s 2010 Equality Act, which sets out protections against discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, race, religion and other traits.
The case stems from a 2018 law passed by the Scottish Parliament calling for 50-50 balance of men and women on the boards of Scottish public bodies. Its definition of women included trans women whose gender is legally affirmed with a Gender Recognition Certificate.
A feminist group, For Women Scotland, challenged that in court, saying the Scottish government had overstepped its powers by effectively redefining the meaning of “woman.”
The group lost a ruling in a Scottish court in 2022 but was later granted permission to take its case to the Supreme Court, which held hearings in November.
Justice Patrick Hodge said he and four other judges ruled unanimously that “the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman.”
In the law, “the words ‘sex,’ ‘woman’ and ‘man’ … mean (and were always intended to mean) biological sex, biological woman and biological man,” the judges wrote.
The judges argued that a broader definition that includes transgender people would make the Equality Act “incoherent and unworkable.”
They wrote: “We can identify no good reason why the legislature should have intended that sex-based rights and protections under the (Equality Act) should apply to these complex, heterogenous groupings, rather than to the distinct group of (biological) women and girls (or men and boys) with their shared biology leading to shared disadvantage and discrimination faced by them as a distinct group.”
The announcement was also welcome by Harry Potter author JW Rowling, who posted on X: “It took three extraordinary, tenacious Scottish women with an army behind them to get this case heard by the Supreme Court,” adding: “I’m so proud to know you.”
