We should all be able to live freely as our true selves.

More than twenty years ago, a trans woman named Christine Goodwin took the UK Government all the way to the European Court of Human Rights because she was unable to update the sex on her birth certificate from male to female or to be recognised in law as a woman. This meant she felt unable to apply for her winter fuel payment or report having £200 stolen from her to the Police, as she would have to out herself as trans when doing so by showing documents with an ‘M’ on them. It also meant that she couldn’t marry a man (this was in the days before Equal Marriage), or claim her pension at the same age as other women. The Court ruled that being unable to change her birth certificate and having no route to be recognised in law as a woman breached her human rights. The ruling meant that the UK Government had to introduce a law to legally recognise trans women and trans men as who they truly are.

That’s why in 2004 they passed the Gender Recognition Act. It allows trans men and women to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate, update the sex recorded on their birth certificate, and be recognised in the law.

The explanatory notes of the Gender Recognition Act say that getting a Gender Recognition certificate means:

“the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender, so that an applicant who was born a male would, in law, become a woman for all purposes. She would, for example, be entitled to protection as a woman under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975”

It has now been in effect across the UK for twenty years.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will be issuing its judgement in a case taken by For Women Scotland against the Scottish Government. For Women Scotland are arguing that getting a Gender Recognition Certificate does not change your sex in law for the Equality Act 2010 (which is the law that now includes and builds on all the protections afforded in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975).

They have already lost the case twice in the Court of Session in Scotland (and you can read what we said about the last time the case was heard here).

We are of course waiting to see what the court decides with close interest. We think it’s important not to make any predictions, or to try to explain what one or the other outcome might mean. That is likely to very much come down to the details.