In the olden days, it was fun to be a lesbian. There was a particular type of solidarity based on shared experiences of the world and an immersion in a culture that was creative, warm, exciting and, frankly, a right laugh.
But good cheer among lesbians has been in short supply in recent years. We have had to battle against peculiar and unpleasant men who enjoy breaching women’s boundaries by pretending to be both women and lesbians. This has meant that any man who wanted to attend a lesbian speed-dating event, join a lesbian sports club or attend a lesbian support group was entirely free to do so. Complaints from women about this were met with accusations of bigotry and transphobia.
But the UK Supreme Court wasn’t having any of it. On Wednesday, it delivered its judgement in For Women Scotland Ltd vs The Scottish Ministers (LGB Alliance, of which I am CEO, intervened on behalf of For Women Scotland). The ruling said that sex in the Equality Act means biological sex, to whoops from women across the country. It stated in the clearest terms that defining men as lesbians would impact on the protections afforded to women who are same-sex attracted under the Equality Act.
The ruling unpicked the contradictions between the Gender Recognition Act, which assumes that it was possible to identify as the opposite sex, and the protected characteristic of sex in the Equality Act. How could sex-based rights stand if sex itself is considered mutable, the judges asked.
A gender-recognition certificate (GRC) can be obtained by any man – no need for drugs or surgery. According to the Scottish government, once in possession of that piece of paper, such a man becomes a woman for all purposes. Absurdly, it is not legal to ask for sight of someone’s GRC anyway. And any man in possession of one stating that he is a woman was protected under the Equality Act’s characteristics of gender reassignment and of sex. This gave him more protection than an actual woman.
In the end, the Supreme Court decided this isn’t how equality works. While the language of the judgement is circumspect, the inclusion of the delicious observation that ‘people are not sexually orientated towards those in possession of a certificate’, a line drawn from LGB Alliance’s intervention in the case, pricks the bubble of absurdity that has characterised the collective madness of the gender zealots.
This ruling is cheering news for same-sex-attracted people and gives lesbians, and increasingly gay men, the right to say ‘no’ to sexual pretenders intent on invading our spaces, sports and social groups.
Unsurprisingly, those who benefit most from a mushy understanding of the Equality Act have been loudest in their protests against the judgement. Yet while keyboard warriors bash out their hyperbolic and incendiary complaints, it is yet to be seen how quickly our major institutions will take into account the seriousness of this judgement.
The public reaction has been one of bemusement; how could a question as obvious as ‘What is a woman?’ have ended up at the Supreme Court?
For our part, we spent Wednesday morning dancing and singing on the steps of the Supreme Court. For many of us, it felt like old times.
Kate Barker is CEO of LGB Alliance.
