The... Supreme Court Ruling

UK Supreme Court rules legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex

So just moments after I open my eyes yesterday on Wednesday morning, I read that headline... I felt my stomach drop, as I try to understand what this means for me, as a trans person. Reading all the headlines about it being a "victory for women's rights", that it "brings clarity to the issue of gendered spaces" was all the more infuriating. Especially given that this is not a victory for women's rights and brings no such clarity to this so called "debate". But yet another normal day on Terf Island, huh?

There's so much that is bizarre about this ruling. One being that: it seems to directly undermine the Equality Act? The equality act states that nowhere can discriminate on the basis of someone being trans. Yet, this ruling mandates that, in the equality act, that the words woman and sex refer to "biological sex".

There's so much talk about how "Women can now feel safe", how "sex is now binary"... And I'm just sitting here, shaking my head at how fundamentally wrong all this is.

Biological sex

Starting with the whole "biological sex" thing: their argument is that, legally, someone's gender is apparently decided by their "biology". This is still too vague for me, so if you do more digging, you'll find that they mean: what you were assigned at birth. They seem so keen to use "science" to prove their point, while missing the point that defining someone's sex/gender based on what a doctor decides by glancing at genitals at birth is unscientific at its core.

Some make an argument based on chromosomes... This is invalid. There are plenty of people out there who have grown up with AFAB genitalia, lived their lives as women and happen to have XY chromosomes. Are we saying that intersex people should be excluded in this way? Doesn't that seem wrong? Obviously, there's many other experiences of being intersex that don't line up with that, and that calls for even more questions.

Which brings me to my next point... Didn't this ruling effectively just legislate intersex people out of existence? It says that sex is binary, despite the fact that there are over 1 million intersex people in the UK alone. Considering the track record for intersex rights in this country, that is deeply concerning. Based on this, sex is literally not binary, it can't be.

So the biological sex argument already stands on very shaky ground. But to take this further: Is this not splitting hairs? When someone goes on HRT, their body changes and adapts to the primary sex characteristics of whatever direction they're transitioning to. At which point, for some, that means we move through the world as that gender and are treated as such. Do cis women walk around with this magical ✨ sex aura ✨ that emits which trans women don't have?

Some will make the argument its about having a "female reproductive system". Oh, ok. So when women have hysterectomies, they become men, right? Because based on that, women are birthing machines, that's what defines and sets them apart from men. Others talk about being able to give birth... So infertile women are actually men, then? So, the menopause turns you into a man? I'm confused. This sure doesn't look like a victory for women's rights at all.

What does it mean to be a "biological woman"? To have a uterus and ovaries? To have tits? To have cis woman levels of estrogen in your blood? At what point does losing any one of these infinite combinations make someone a man?

The truth is, trying to create a scientific category for something that is inherently social is impossible. You literally cannot.

Protecting women's spaces

Then there's the whole "we can finally protect women's spaces" thing... But again, I have so many questions about this. To me, it feels like this is just going to police the presentation of both cis and trans women. No one is winning here. Are we going to start doing genital inspections at the door of single sex spaces? Even then, that literally wouldn't work, because if we're trying to spot someone who is "biologically/genetically male", then we'd probably need to do blood tests, right? But even then, where does this leave intersex women?

Obviously, no one is going to do that (I fucking hope). But then, that means we're just creating the case for policing women's bodies and the way they present, surely? We're just policing these spaces off of the "vibes" that the women who want to participate give off. Dressing too butch? You're probably trans! You can't come in! See how absurd this is? This will exclude everyone and help no one.

This will hit the trans community hard. And worse yet? It'll hit the most discriminated within it the hardest, those who need safe spaces and community the most: trans people of color and disabled trans people.

Though its not the point, I suppose one thing about this is that, any space that is using this ruling to exclude trans people was never a safe space to begin with. Remember that this won't change how truly safe spaces will operate.

What the fuck

All in all, I'm devastated. Like OK, we still have protections from the Equality Act. But it's still not entirely clear what they stand for in the face of For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers. Where do my rights stand? What does this mean if I end up in hospital and need to be on a ward? What does this mean for using the toilet of my gender?

One thing I do know, is that this has increased the hate already. I made a Threads post about this, and oh my fucking god: the bile I've received...

Its just so exhausting having to deal with this shit day in day out. I'm literally just existing, trying to get by in this shitty world we inhabit like literally everyone else.

This just feels like a continuation of the walls closing in on me. Whether or not this ruling actually can negatively affect my way of life right now is irrelevant. Ultimately, its an attempt to curtail my freedom as a trans person, its an attempt to take us out of public life, to shrink us and beat us down.

Why aren't we focusing this hate and vitriol at the real problem: predatory men who seek to harm people? Why can't we focus all this effort on changing the education system to do a better job at teaching kids how to treat each other fairly and equally? Why can't we be focusing all this hate on the billionaires who have a vested interest in holding up the patriarchy and keeping women down?

This is grim, that much is true. But one thing I know's for sure is that: if we organise, stick together and build community, if we fight together, eat together, celebrate together and embody joy together, we will out-organise them. We will triumph over these ghouls. At the end of the day, there's no sound ethical or logical reasoning behind any of this and it will eventually fall apart like cheap soup.

So in the meantime? Find community, participate in and foster it. Experience, share and inspire joy within it. We're headed for some rocky times, and we need robust support networks to navigate the treacherous waters we'll find ourselves in.

Over and out xo