The Green Party is facing a fresh legal challenge after Eleanora Folan, a trans woman, was elected to represent the Eastern Region on the Green Party Council in a seat designated for women. Gender-critical members are consulting lawyers, arguing the election conflicts with the Supreme Court's ruling that 'woman' in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex. The Good Law Project has stepped in to defend the party, arguing that political parties have a protected right under the European Convention on Human Rights to organise in line with their own principles and constitution.

What actually happened

Eleanora Folan won a vote to fill the women's representative seat for the Eastern Region on the Green Party Council. She describes herself as a "trans communist" and the vote was contested, with a low turnout of just over eight percent. Gender-critical members of the party are now consulting lawyers, and a group calling itself Lesbian Greens characterised the result as unlawful. The party's own spokesperson pushed back firmly, saying all elections are held in accordance with its rules and constitution, and that it does not accept that the EHRC guidance following the Supreme Court ruling changes that.

The Good Law Project confirmed it is defending the party in any legal action that follows, and launched a fundraiser for the case. Their argument is straightforward: the Greens have every right to hold gender-critical beliefs within their membership, but the party also has a right under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights to stand by its own manifesto and principles. Trans rights are written into the Greens' constitution. A political party being legally compelled to exclude trans women from internal representative positions is a different and much larger question than the one the Supreme Court was actually answering.

What the legal challenge really tests

The Supreme Court ruled that the words "woman" and "sex" in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex. That ruling matters, and its consequences are real. But the Equality Act is not the only law in play here, and the Supreme Court ruling did not repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 or the European Convention on Human Rights. Courts do not interpret statutes in isolation. The question of whether a private political party can be legally required to exclude trans women from a seat its own members voted to fill her into is genuinely open, and the Good Law Project is right to say so.

What concerns me about the framing in this story, and in much of the coverage around it, is the suggestion that the law is now settled and the Greens are simply refusing to follow it. That is not what the situation is. A court ruling interpreting a statute is not the same as the statute itself. Parliament did not write "biological woman" into the Equality Act; the Supreme Court read the Act in a particular way, in a particular case. Whether that reading compels the outcome the gender-critical complainants want here is a different question, and one that still needs to be tested.

The party's broader legal difficulties

The article is right that the Greens are dealing with significant legal exposure. They have already lost a case brought by Shahrar Ali, their former deputy leader, after a judge found the party had unlawfully discriminated against him because of his protected gender-critical beliefs. He was awarded £9,100 for injury to feelings, though the court was clear the outcome would have been different had the party followed a fair procedure. Emma Bateman, a former co-chair of Green Party Women, is also bringing a claim after being suspended and eventually expelled. The party's own lawyers warned last year, in a leaked 53-page report, of material legal and financial risks, and its treasurer has flagged substantial exposure to Equality Act claims in the annual accounts.

None of that legal trouble, though, is the same as saying the party acted wrongly in electing Eleanora Folan. The Shahrar Ali case was about due process and discrimination on the basis of belief, not about trans inclusion. The party is perfectly capable of having made real procedural errors in some disciplinary cases while also being correct that trans women are women and that Folan was entitled to stand for that seat, and both things can be true.

What is at stake

If this challenge succeeds, it would mean that internal party structures, the grassroots mechanisms parties use to give marginalised groups a voice, could be legally compelled to exclude trans women. Not as a policy choice, but as a legal requirement. That is a significant step, and one with consequences well beyond the Green Party. Every party that has taken steps to include trans women in women's representative roles would need to reconsider them.

The Good Law Project's argument about Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR is not a technicality. Freedom of association means that political parties, within limits, get to decide who represents whom and on what terms. A court ordering a party to change those terms to exclude a specific group of its members is a serious interference with that freedom. Whether the court finds that interference justified by the Supreme Court's reading of the Equality Act is, genuinely, what this case is about.

Eleanora Folan deserves not to be reduced to a legal test case, because she is the person at the centre of this story. She stood for election. She won. Her community voted for her. The legal challenge is an attempt to undo that democratic outcome, and whatever the law ultimately decides, that is worth naming clearly.

If there is a news story you would like me to cover then just let Sammy know.

Dr Helen Webberley is a Gender Specialist, Medical Educator, and founder of GenderGP. She writes about gender diversity, trans healthcare, and the human stories behind the headlines.