And yet, one year on

Written by

Ophelia Benson

in

Sex Matters:

On 16th April 2025, the UK Supreme Court delivered its landmark judgment: the terms “man” and “woman” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex, and they always have. 

And yet, one year on, that clarity has not translated into action. Public bodies, regulators, employers and charities that were expected to review and update their policies continue to delay, avoid or outright resist change. Others are removing services for women and girls altogether. 

One year later, a new booklet from Sex Matters, asks a simple but urgent question:
If the law is settled, why are so many institutions still failing to follow it?

Some wild guesses: Because they want to. Because they can get away with it. Because trans ideology is inseparable from trans bullying and trans never shut upping.

Through case studies and testimony, One year later shows how this failure is harming women and girls in:

  • workplaces, where employees are not being provided with adequate facilities and face disciplinary action for raising concerns
  • healthcare, where the NHS is continuing to operate based on gender self-ID
  • local services, including leisure centres, refuges, and social care, which are not respecting the law
  • sport, where a two-tier system in some sports protects elite athletes but leaves most women competing against trans–identifying men
  • charities that are still wedded to the idea that “inclusion” means ignoring women’s rights 
  • criminal justice and safeguarding systems, where accurate data and risk assessment depend on clarity about sex.

So…everything, pretty much.

Comments

2 responses to “And yet, one year on”

  1. Omar Avatar
    Omar

    In 1789, Ben Franklin was reported to have observed that: “”In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” If he were still around, he might add a third: “And this unceasing torrent of trans bullshit.”

  2. Bjarte Foshaug Avatar
    Bjarte Foshaug

    Ever since I got interested in critical thinking back in the early 2000’s one intellectual habit I have always found useful has been to constantly ask myself: “If I were determined to defend the position of my opponents to the death, what would I do? I may not believe this stuff, but if I did believe it, how would I justify it to myself and the world? If I were one of the people on the other side, how would I try to refute Bjarte’s arguments? etc.”

    Even if you’re only interested in “winning” the argument, it is obviously useful to be able to refute your opponent’s best case in advance. But there is more to it than that. In fact, this approach has sometimes helped me discover real flaws in my own arguments before it was too late and saved me from making a damn fool out of myself (I still sometimes make a fool out of myself, of course, but not as often as would otherwise be the case). It’s also a useful antidote to the reflexive tendency to dismiss the people on the other side as idiots. As I keep saying, having the cognitive tools to know better doesn’t get you very far if you’re not motivated to use them that way. More often than not it’s the motivation that’s lacking, not the brain power. There are only so many ways to defend the indefensible, and in most cases I would not be able to do a better job myself.

    Then again, on a few rare occasions, I really do think I would be able to do a better job than my opponents at defending their own position. When the “For Women Scotland” ruling was announced last year, I predicted that the new main approach by the gender lobby would be to argue that TIMs were indeed “biological females” (because of “brain sex” etc.) and that “everyone has always been in favor of segregation by biological sex… as determined by self-ID, of course!” It’s what I would have done in their place and requires next to no modification of what they have already been claiming for years. I’m sure we can all think of biology professors prepared to testify under oath that this is the single most established fact in all of science and that anyone who claims otherwise is the equivalent of a flat-earther. There may be people out there making this argument, but so far it doesn’t seem to be the dominant line of argument I expected it to be. I suspect they simply haven thought through their own doctrine enough to see the obvious implication.

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