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Motion · S6M-17241 · 17 Apr 2025

Supreme Court Judgment on the Definition of "Woman"

Lodged by Tess White Standard Motion 23 supporters

The motion

That the Parliament welcomes the unanimous ruling from the UK Supreme Court that a "woman" is defined by biological sex; congratulates For Women Scotland Ltd for, it believes, tenaciously and repeatedly challenging the Scottish Government’s guidance in relation to this matter, which led to the appeal to the UK’s highest court and the ruling that the Scottish Government’s statutory guidance is “incorrect”; commends the charity Sex Matters, along with the LGB Alliance, Scottish Lesbians and the Lesbian Project, for what it sees as their important interventions in the appeal; considers that the Supreme Court judgment is clear that transgender people are not disadvantaged by the ruling, due to the protections afforded to them by the Equality Act 2010; notes that the ruling finds that separate spaces and single-sex services, communal accommodation, single-sex characteristic associations and charities, women’s fair participation in sport, the operation of the public sector equality duty, and the armed forces, require a biological interpretation of “sex” to function coherently; regrets that it took legal action to clarify the definition of a "woman"; pays tribute to grassroots activists, who organised across Scotland to defend the sex-based rights of women and girls, and urges the Scottish Government to urgently follow its legal obligations in relation to women’s rights and safety, and to ensure that all public sector bodies do the same.

Supporters (23)

Source: the Scottish Parliament motions and amendments record.