In what is likely the biggest development in the battle for women’s rights against men who say they are women, the Supreme Court has ruled that women are adult human females. Thanks to the remarkable courage and hard work of For Women Scotland, working with Sex Matters and the LGB Alliance among many others, the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) is essentially redundant. It is now confirmed that a person’s sex in law is fixed, cannot be changed, and should not be confused with the legal fiction created by the GRA. The Supreme Court ruling asserted that ‘the meaning of the terms “sex”, “man” and “woman” in the Equality Act (EA) 2010 is biological and not ‘certificated’ sex. Any other interpretation would render the EA 2010 incoherent and impracticable to operate.’
This has dominated the news and led to newspaper headlines that we probably could not have imagined just three years ago.
Any female single-sex space must now exclude men and boys pretending to be the opposite sex, or face legal consequences. This was a momentous day for women and scenes of joy on the day of the ruling were a beautiful sight. The media’s reaction
This was, predictably, to go into overdrive - both before and after the ruling - to promote the voices of the sorrowful transvestites and their allies on the subject. Sky News, for instance, gave a platform to the American TRA troll, Dylan Mulvaney, who is in the UK promoting his role in a West End musical. Dylan’s immense contribution was to say ‘me’ a lot and to claim that ‘gender is a beautiful thing’. BBC News was quick to ask how the ruling would affect the very vulnerable ‘transgender community’, but an hour later presenter Martine Croxall’s one-to-one encounter with ‘Heather’ Herbert may have peaked her.
In fact, it was the BBC that probably gave the best example of the media’s response. BBC Scotland News spoke to a couple of women who were pleased with the ruling, but their comments were buried in an article that instead was almost entirely about how upset cross-dressing men are about it. The focus of this story was the views of one 77-year-old Pride founder who said he is legally a woman and it would be “utterly ridiculous” for him not to use women’s toilets. Other people in them “don’t know whether I have got a gender recognition certificate or not,” he added. Even though the ruling means he is not legally a woman, and having a gender recognition certificate is irrelevant, the BBC still led with this misinformation. The BBC added into the article a vague disclaimer stating that what he was saying was incorrect. Later, this was amended to make it slightly clearer that he didn’t actually understand the ruling.
Channel 4 News wheeled out various cross-dressing men for their views. Charlie Craggs said he was looking forward to “lesbians getting hurt”. Samantha Kane was brought on to say what a woman is. He is a man who left his wife and children to become a ‘heterosexual woman’, but then decided to ‘detransition’ because ‘shopping was boring and female conversations dull’, so he became a ‘man’ again’. Thenhe went back to being a ‘woman’. He once said that “trans women have more claim to womanhood than biological women”. During the interview, he admitted that he hasn’t been honest with people he’s had sex with, which wasn’t challenged. However, Maya Forstater was interviewed at the same time, and her claim that “men who identify as trans women are a vulnerable group of men” was cut off and met with the response “I know many people would disagree with what you’ve just said,” by Cathy Newman.
The news broke at the start of James O’Brien’s LBC show, and he spent the next two hours angrily implying women celebrating the ruling were all Nazi-adjacent Trump supporters. He even credited Trump directly with For Women Scotland’s success. The majority of callers to his show were teary transvestites to whom O’Brien gave the utmost respect and didn’t silence or cut off as he routinely does with women. He even said that research shows that brain scans confirm that some men have lady brains.
The Guardian picked a trans activist to provide legal analysis of the ruling but as one KC pointed out, his article was riddled with ‘legal inaccuracies’. For instance, in one bizarre paragraph, Sam Fowles wrote that ‘there are now multiple legal classes of ‘woman’: Cis women, trans women with a GRC, trans women without a GRC.’ As Akua Reindorf KC states: ‘This is quite simply the opposite of the true position’.
The more sane media was better, but only relatively. The Daily Mail preempted the BBC and reported on what drag queens felt about the ruling (answer: sad), while GB News interviewed Peter Tatchell twice on judgement day. He claimed women, like Bev Jackson, who he refused to appear alongside, were making ‘a bit of a mountain out of a molehill’.
Probably the funniest tran-trum was on Talk TV, when ‘non-binary’ broadcaster Shivani Dave appeared in the studio. She read out a long and nonsensical word salad of a statement in which she said things like: “Women are beyond description and categorisation. Women are funny, knowledgeable, powerful, strong. Trans women are kind.” Julia Hartley-Brewer responded by asking her to clarify what that meant. Dave replied that the question made her feel unsafe and she might have a panic attack. She then stormed out of the studio.
Few mainstream media outlets thought to ask about women or how the ruling might affect the outcome of the Sandie Peggie v NHS Fife case and Dr Upton tribunal, in which a male doctor claimed to be a biological female with an automatic right to use women’s single-sex facilities. It’s thought NHS Fife may now have to concede the tribunal in light of the ruling, the implications of which simply cannot be overstated.
Aside from the media, several Labour, Green Party and Lib Dem MPs responded to the ruling by publicly expressing their support for transvestite men on social media, and typically refused to allow comments. The UK’s Special Envoy for Women and Girls, Harriet Harman, didn’t seem to understand the ruling, or what a single sex space is, saying from now on ‘single sex spaces for women can exclude trans women but only where necessary’. The Minister for Women and Equalities, Bridget Phillipson, who last year advised men to use women’s toilets, announced that ‘we have always supported the protection of single sex spaces based on biological sex’. Stella Creasy responded by ordering gender critical women to ‘clarify that they respect the existence of trans people’.Tell your story; Ask a question; Interpret generously http://storybythethroat.wordpress.com/tell-ask-listen/
Victoria Smith: Gender-critical women do not lack empathy
Thoughtful article from a feminist perspective, via nitter.poast.org/ForWomenScot which is worth checking out for info about this. I saw a thread somewhere, maybe there but I can't find it, where someone was tracking the sex of trans ppl interviewed on the TV in response to the ruling. I think the final count was around 13 males to 1 female, which speaks volumes. As the article describes, a lot of this has been about male entitlement and the desire to invade women-only spaces, or the very space of womanhood with their toxic fantasies & fetishes. Now that women have organised to impose a limit on the rights they are able to claim (most often by rolling back the rights of women) it's a real toys-out-of-the-pram moment, and despite the claimed victimhood and danger posed to trans ppl after the ruling, the real expressions of violent intent, and you have to presume likelihood of actual violence will, as ever, be towards women.
It’s time for some empathy — from trans activists and their allies Artillery Row
By Victoria Smith 21 April, 2025
On 16th April, the trans comedian Jordan Gray shared the following message on social media: “If I die of transphobia, just drop my body on the steps of parliament”. This followed the UK supreme court’s ruling that the definition of “woman” for the purposes of the Equality Act was to be restricted to those of us who are actually female.
Thanks to the ruling, achieved by the tireless work of grassroots organisation For Women Scotland, some of the UK’s most vulnerable women — rape survivors, those in refuges, female prisoners — have seen their entitlement to privacy and safety upheld. The ruling also means that all women can expect the bare bloody minimum — our own changing rooms, sports categories, sexual orientations, political movements, shortlists — in a world still largely framed around meeting the needs of men.
It is brilliant news, if long overdue. Female people — the sex that owns the least wealth, commits the least violence, performs the most unpaid labour, gestates all the new humans — matter enough to be legally recognised. It’s surprising, then, to see reactions such as Gray’s. Our rights are so upsetting — so scary, so devastating — that they might actually kill him!
I’m reminded of the passage in A Room of One’s Own where Virginia Woolf describes the impact on men of women ceasing to serve as looking-glasses “reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size”:
The looking-glass vision is of supreme importance because it charges the vitality; it stimulates the nervous system. Take it away and man may die, like the drug fiend deprived of his cocaine.
A century later, and women are rejecting similarly male-centric, regressive definitions of femaleness, such as trans writer Andrea Long Chu’s “any psychic operation in which the self is sacrificed to make room for the desires of another”. Oh no! Take that away, and Jordan Gray might literally expire! Or perhaps not. Perhaps women existing in their own right isn’t a plot to hurt trans women. Perhaps not everything revolves around male feelings, all the time.
To be fair to Gray, his has been a common response to the supreme court ruling. There has been widespread dismay from individuals and institutions who, for the past decade, have pandered to trans activist demands while ignoring the concerns of feminists, lesbians and indeed anyone with an ounce of compassion for women and girls who want spaces and resources of their own. The actor’s union Equity quickly put out a statement claiming that “while the victors pop champagne bottles outside the court, our trans members’ safety and dignity at work is now at yet greater risk”. How dare these women celebrate having the most basic, minimal rights affirmed when there are male people who might want to use their toilets! Can’t they at least look ashamed?
Former Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn responded by declaring himself “really saddened by the level of vitriol and hatred being directed toward the trans community”. “We are losing our common humanity,” he tweeted. “How hard is it to treat people with kindness and respect? Trans people are human beings – and they deserve to live in dignity.” The likes of UCU’s Jo Grady and Owen Jones have treated the ruling as hateful and regressive, calling for more kindness and compassion towards its supposed victims.
It is a measure of how much damage trans activism and gender ideology have done to women’s rights that a mere restatement that women exist as a definable group — a group that deserves resources, and the right to organise independently — has provoked such a response. There is a word for people who find a female “no” intolerable, and it is not “marginalised” or “victimised”. I find it grotesque that there is a call to shower even more pity and attention on people who hold such deeply entitled, misogynistic views that the prospect of having a noun — just one noun! — that remains exclusive to female humans is enough to prompt a week-long tantrum.
Even those who like to consider themselves “somewhere in the middle” on the trans debate have been guilty of this misplaced sympathising. In a piece for the Guardian, Gaby Hinsliff worries that “some gender-critical feminists who have endured years of death threats, ostracisation and attempts to get them fired […] are clearly in no mood to be magnanimous”, whereas “for trans people and those who love them, this is a frightening and uncertain time”. It’s an interesting play-off. Gender-critical feminists might have experienced years of the worst, most terrifying abuse but the main issue isn’t their lasting trauma. It’s that it might have made them less “magnanimous” towards those who perpetrated it, who are too busy being “frightened” by women having basic rights to give a second thought to how the women they harmed might be coping.
It takes a lack of empathy for women for any adult men to claim to be one in the first place
What all of this highlights for me is the utter absence of empathy, compassion and kindness on one side of “the trans debate” — and it is not the side of gender-critical feminists. This lack of empathy goes to the very heart of the sex and gender debate, and to the mess created by politicians who could not be bothered to consider the feelings of anyone other than trans-identified males.
It takes a lack of empathy for women for any adult men to claim to be one in the first place. It may not be deliberate. I am prepared to accept that while some — the Andrea Long Chus, the Dylan Mulvaneys, the Grace Laverys — are clearly trolling women, others are simply too bound up in their own distress to consider how insulting it is to women and girls to reduce them to an idea in their heads. Along with most women, I am not incapable of feeling empathy for these men. Nevertheless, theirs are not the only emotions that count. Other people matter. As Woolf put it, “women feel just as men feel”.
Like many feminists, while I find the concept of gender identity fundamentally sexist, rooted in regressive and often pornified stereotypes, I have never had any particular desire to tell men who believe themselves to be women that in actual fact, they are not. It’s not just that this would be needlessly hurtful; it’s also that their beliefs aren’t remotely interesting. Scratch the surface and it’s bog-standard fantasising about how women lack complex emotional lives, or enjoy being hurt, or really get off on getting dressed up. It’s not some great challenge to “the gender binary”; it’s conservative and it’s boring.
What interests me and others — what has always interested feminists — are the diverse, complex lives of women and girls. The trouble with trans ideology is that an absence of empathy for female people is so deeply ingrained — so essential to the maintenance of the passive femininity myth — that any assertion of female needs, desires and boundaries is instantly translated into an attack on trans women. It is as though female humans, those eternal looking-glasses, only operate on two emotional settings: the desire to serve males by saying “yes”, or to hurt them by saying “no”.
This is why every time women have suggested that we are a class of humans in our own right, we’ve been accused of wilfully denying trans women’s “right to exist”. It’s why the supreme court ruling has been swiftly reinterpreted, not as something about and for women, but as cruelly targeting males, just for the sheer hell of it. It cannot be that women are doing something on behalf of other women, with male desire on the periphery; to those in thrall to gender ideology, such a thing does not compute.
I have found it obscene to see the handwringing over women drinking champagne following the ruling, with the implication that these are heartless bitches who wanted to be “triumphalist”. Do you want to know what triumphalism looks like? It’s Jordan Gray on Channel Four, getting his dick out to play the piano while singing “I’m a perfect woman – my tits will never shrink”. As an actual woman, who has experienced both flashing and years of deep distress related to my own changing body, this really pissed me off. Still, I managed not to put out a request that my misogyny-murdered corpse be deposited outside the Channel Four studios.
And one of the reasons why feminists don’t tend to do this is that ours is not a politics of pure grievance. It’s about examining what women and girls actually need, and trying to make it happen. For Women Scotland were not campaigning against trans rights; they were campaigning for lesbians, for female prisoners, for sex assault victims, for all women who want support and recognition in law. That is what empathy looks like — looking outwards, thinking about the needs of others.
That trans activists and their allies have interpreted the ruling so badly shows just how poor their own empathising skills have become. I am sure they would feel happier if they could start to consider what other emotional settings women have, beyond those that revolve around meeting or not meeting male desires.
We are people with our own inner lives, and once you learn to think of us as such, you might see that our needs have nothing to do with attacking you. You will feel safer, but first of all, you need to learn to be kind.Tell your story; Ask a question; Interpret generously http://storybythethroat.wordpress.com/tell-ask-listen/
'We have to have conversations about how men can make sure that other men are safe. I remember during a time when a lot of gay men were attacked and abused for their sexuality, and there was never any suggestion that they should then be accepted into female spaces and we should protect them. Because women aren't human shields, and male violence is a problem, whether that's male on male violence or male on female violence...'
'If you think that being pro-women is in itself inherently anti-trans, it's saying that women are not allowed to have their own political or social movement without hurting other people, and I don't think that's fair or correct.'
Interesting that the interviewer insists that she provide solutions for transwomen (ie: biological men) but nothing is said throughout about transmen (biological females). Another reflection of the male entitlement dominating the discourse.Tell your story; Ask a question; Interpret generously http://storybythethroat.wordpress.com/tell-ask-listen/
Thanks Ian. I feel compelled to give you thanks for archiving all the misdeeds and reactions entailed in this dialogue/s you posted. Perhaps I am socially conservative but would be glad to see T taken out of LGBT. Compassion rules in my universe, so solidarity w/T .. but not at the expense of women. At the end of the day, they comprise less than 1% odd of population. Essentially they are being used as a political football in idpol battles. Waste of the time for left imo.
No worries t, appreciate the thanks. I think in some ways the T+ add-ons to LGB are the real social conservatives, especially with the pernicious idea that if you don't fit in with society's stereotypes about how your biological sex should behave and present itself then it must be because you are really the other sex, and have to start altering your body chemistry and mutilating yourself in order to adhere to a whole different range of stereotypes. Whatever happened to criticising those stereotypes and striving to live authentically on your own terms? Or as the LGB Alliance describes it:
'Now there is a new type of homophobia in the UK that the established LGBTQ+ groups are failing to tackle and, in many cases, are actually making worse.
They promote the idea that gender, the way you feel or dress, is more important than biological sex. As lesbians, gay men and bisexuals whose orientation is sex based, we believe that replacing sex with gender means that we can no longer name or describe the discrimination we face and, therefore, that our hard-won rights can be dismantled.
LGB Alliance believes that biological sex matters, that same-sex attraction is real, and we exist to support, celebrate and champion the very many people who feel the same way.' - https://lgballiance.org.uk/about/
Agreed on the need for compassion, and I wouldn't want to deny the suffering of ppl with genuine dysphoria. However, as you say, it has to be balanced against the rights of others, and not used as a political wedge issue. Probably what they need is therapy, and the ability to direct the self-loathing outwards onto the society that insists they should act in a way they're incapable of. That would have the potential to be a real progressive force IMHO.
on April 22, 2025, 12:41 am