Judges on the UK’s Supreme Court will decide the legal definition of a woman, in a landmark case which could have wide-ranging implications for transgender and non-binary people.
The case has been brought by gender-critical group For Women Scotland (FWS) against the Scottish government and will ask five justices – Lord Reed, Lord Hodge, Lord Lloyd-Jones, Lady Rose and Lady Simler – to consider: “Is a person with a full Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) which recognises that their gender is female, a ‘woman’ for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act?”
In essence, the judges have to decree if the protected category of sex is based solely on the reproductive organs and chromosomes with which a person is born, or something that can change based on gender identity and the gender-recognition process.
FWS, who have been publicly supported by author JK Rowling, describes itself as a “grassroots women’s group” founded at a time of “growing …