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An overly simplistic interpretation of “sex/gender”: For Women Scotland and EU sex equality law
In the much debated For Women Scotland judgment of 16 April 2025 (FWS), the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (UKSC) addressed the question of whether a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) changes a person’s sex for the purposes of the UK Equality Act of 2010 (EA 2010).
- Author
- Konstantinos Lamprinoudis and Christa Tobler
- Date
- 22 September 2026
The EA 2010 applies in three of the UK’s constituent countries, namely in England, Scotland and Wales (i.e. to the exclusion of Northern Ireland, which has its own legislation in the field). In essence, the UKSC held that a person holding a GRC of the female “acquired” gender (in legal terms a “trans woman with a GRC”) does not come within the definition of “woman” for the purposes of the EA 2010. Rather, the terms “woman” and “sex” must be interpreted as referring only to “biological” women and “biological” sex, understood as the sex a person is legally attributed at birth.
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