Court ruling on legal definition of a woman ‘misinterpreted’, Lady Hale says

Brenda Hale applauded the fact the Charleston literary festival’s organisers had organised gender neutral loos, ‘despite the fact there are people saying you can’t do that’. Photograph: David Levenson/Getty

The supreme court’s ruling that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex “has been misinterpreted”, Brenda Hale has said.

Speaking at the Charleston literary festival in East Sussex, the first female president of the supreme court said the last thing she wanted now that she had retired was to “undermine the court and its authority by being critical of its decisions”.