Supreme Court holds that ‘sex’ means ‘biological sex’

In For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16, the Supreme Court held that the words ‘sex’, ‘woman’ and ‘man’ in sections 11 and 212(1) of the Equality Act 2010 (EqA 2010) mean biological sex, biological woman and biological man, with the effect that:

• a trans man with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) (a biological female but legally male for those purposes to which section 9(1) of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA 2004) applies) is a woman for the purposes of EqA 2010, s 11; and

• a trans woman with a GRC (biologically male but legally female for those purposes to which GRA 2004, s 9(1) applies), is a man and not entitled to be treated as a woman under EqA 2010.

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