The Supreme Court has given its judgment in the long-running case of For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16. The court decided that for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 (EA 2010) the protected characteristic of sex means “biological sex”, regardless of whether a person has a gender recognition certificate (GRC).

The decision

The Supreme Court decided that the words “man”, “woman” and “sex” in the EA 2010 mean “biological sex”. Although the court did not define what it meant by biological, the judgment suggests it was referring to the sex declared on an individual’s original birth certificate. We use the term biological sex here as that is the term used in the judgment. The Supreme Court made clear that it was not adjudicating on arguments about the meaning of gender or sex in the public domain, nor was it involved in policymaking. The court also reminds us that the judgment does not remove the various protections from discrimination that transgender people have under the EA 2010. Interim update The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published an interim update on the implications of the judgment.