Misconception and reality

The Supreme Court ruling still protects gender reassignment

Dr Helen Webberley on Times Radio: the gender debate, with Jo Coburn, Times Radio

What people think

The Supreme Court ruling erased trans women from the law. It declared them men, stripped away their protections, and left them with nothing to stand on.

What is actually true

What I was trying to say there is that the ruling is an interpretation, and a contested one, not a rewriting of the statute. The Equality Act still carries gender reassignment as a protected characteristic, and that did not disappear. What the Court said, narrowly, is that for the specific protected characteristic of sex, biology is the reference point. It did not say trans women are men, and it did not remove the protections that exist for trans people under gender reassignment. Those are two different things, and collapsing them does real harm to people who are trying to understand where they stand. The law still sees you.

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