Legal Definition of Woman Is Based On Biological Sex At Time of Birth, Rules UK Supreme Court

London: The UK Supreme Court has passed an order ruling that a legal definition of a woman will be based on biological sex at the time of birth.

The court in order said that the definition of sex in the Equality Act 2010 makes it clear that the concept of sex is binary, a person is either a woman or a man. Persons who share that protected characteristics for the purposes of the group-based rights and protections are persons of the same sex and provisions that refer to protection for women necessarily exclude men.

The matter was first brought to the court when the Scottish government included transgender woman in reservation to ensure gender balance in public sector boards.

However, a women group challenged definition of woman in the Act following which there had been multiple hearings in the court.

In 2022 hearing, Justice Haldane ruled that a definition of sex was not limited to biological or birth sex.

However, the Scottish government argued said that the transgender people with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) were entitled to sex based protections under the equality act.

This means that transgender women with Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) were entitled to be included in quotas in public sector board ensuring gender equality.

Supporting Scottish government’s stand, transgender argued that Women Scotland group that had challenged Scottish government case would threaten guarantees or protections they have against their reassigned gender.