Supreme Court Ruling on Sex in the Equality Act

On April 16th 2025, the UK Supreme Court published their judgment in the case of For Women Scotland vs. Scottish Ministers. You can read the judgement in full here.

It dealt with the meaning of the words “sex”, “man” and “woman” for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010. The Supreme Court decided that in the Equality Act, all of those words have a “biological” meaning (although they did not really define what that means).

As far as we can tell, this ruling has had two main effects:

• It removes legal gender recognition from trans women and trans men who have gender recognition certificates (GRCs), for the purposes of equality law. Previously, governments across the UK, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said that getting a GRC meant you were recognised under the Equality Act 2010 as the sex you’d transitioned to. Indeed it seems very clear that the intention of Parliament was that this would be one of the effects of getting a GRC.
• It has created significant uncertainty about how all trans people, whether they have a GRC or not, should be treated in a huge range of services and spaces – all of the ones that are provided separately for women and men. Currently, there is a great deal of disagreement about how trans people can and should be able to use these, as a result of the ruling.

It is still too soon to know exactly what the full meaning and impact of this will be, but we do know that it has caused great anxiety and uncertainty for trans and non-binary people across the UK. We are doing all we can to try and understand what the ruling means and to minimise the impacts it will have on our community’s ability to use services and participate in public life.

We will update this page with any information we have about the ruling itself, what it means, and how you can help support trans and non-binary people at this difficult time.

EHRC Consultation on Draft Code of Practice

Update 1st July 2025: The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) consultation on their draft Code of Practice (new tab) has now closed. You can read our full response to the consultation here (new tab).

The EHRC will now consider the responses they have recieved, and may use these to make changes to the Code.

As the draft Code was focused almost exclusively on how trans people can be excluded and segregated from services and spaces, we don’t expect any positive changes to be made to provide clarity on how we can be included. Because of this, it’s vital that we continue to raise awareness about the ways that this Code is confusing and contradictory for service providers, and fundamentally impacts the privacy, dignity, and human rights of trans people.

Once the EHRC have made any changes they will submit the new Code of Practice to the UK Minister for Women and Equalities. The Minister will then consider the new Code, and whether it needs any further changes from the EHRC. If she decides that it doesn’t, she will approve it and lay it before UK Parliament.

This is why even though the consultation has now closed, we strongly encourage you to email your MP and the Minister for Equalities and tell them why this Code of Practice won’t work for our community.

As it is the Minister’s job to decide whether or not the Code should be approved or if it needs further work from the EHRC, it’s crucial that you get in touch with her and share your concerns about how this will impact your life or the lives of your loved ones. Letting your MP know what you think, and asking them to raise your concerns with the Minister, is another important way of ensuring she understands that many people are worried about these potential changes.

We’ve set up an email tool to help you easily contact them, and provided suggested text to tell them how you feel about the draft Code, the implications it might have on trans people’s access to services, and what they can do to make it right.

• If you are a trans person, you can email your MP and the Minister for Equalities here.
• If you are an ally, you can email your MP and the Minister for Equalities here

If you used our tool to email your MP before the 2nd June 2025 you can still use these links, as the template text for these emails focuses specifically on the EHRC consultation.

Where can I find out more information?

Below you can see all of our pages about the Supreme Court judgement. We’ll continue to update this page when we have new information or resources, but make sure you follow Scottish Trans on social media (Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky) to keep up to date with the latest developments.

Here is a list of some organisations also providing important coverage and information about the judgement:

• TransActual 
• Good Law Project
• Trans Safety Network
• Trans Advocacy and Complaints Collective
• Trans Legal Project
• Trans Legal Clinic

This isn’t a complete list, and we’re incredibly grateful to everyone who’s given their time and energy responding to the ruling and helping others understand what it means.