The supreme court judgment on the application of the 2010 Equality Act has rendered the UK’s system of legal gender recognition entirely hollow. It has ruled that men like me who have gender recognition certificates are defined as women in equality law, which applies to organisations ranging from workplaces to public services and sporting bodies. Vice versa for trans women.
For context, the Gender Recognition Act 2004 was passed after the European court of human rights ruled that the “intermediate zone”, between two sexes, in which trans people were then forced to exist was – and, crucially, remains – unlawful. Under the Gender Recognition Act, I am male “for all purposes”, but the supreme court decided this is not the case under the Equality Act. In effect, it is not the case in public.
