The Supreme Court (SC) was asked to interpret what ‘man’ and ‘woman’ meant is respect of the Equality Act.
Their decision was that ‘with respect to the Equality Act and that Act only’ man and woman were to mean the biological gender recorded at birth and not that recorded on gender recognition certificates.
This was a very unwelcome judgement and it has been seized upon by all manner of anti-trans people to mean that the judgement applies in all circumstances and in every possible situation. Most notably, this interpretation was jumped on by Kishwer Faulkner, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who published draft guidance that instructed people to deny the acquired gender and insist that the biological gender recorded at birth was the only one that could be applied. Faulkner, a former LibDem peer, has taken every opportunity to pursue her anti-trans agenda during her term at Chair of the EHRC.
Prior to this judgement most LGBTQ+ people would have recognised that the LibDems had adopted very positive attitudes towards LGBTQ+ issues and were firmly supportive of trans people being accepted and welcomed in their chosen gender. Yet Ed Davey’s first comments on the judgement were not to express dismay at the SC judgement but to say that he accepted the SC’s decision. [He had no choice, its judgement is final in respect of the Act as it stands, so why did he say it at all?] Whilst the party continues to express supportive views about LGBTQ+ issues, it has maintained an almost Trappist-like silence about its attitude towards the SC judgement and has not even suggested what action it proposes to pursue to get the necessary changes to the Equality Act to set this judgement aside.
As a result, many of our trans members are considering whether the LibDems are really their friends or not.
At the same time, people at the top of the party organisation took it upon themselves to ride roughshod over the party constitution and change the way the election rules, in respect of quotas, operated [particularly with respect to gender] for our many committees after the time for nominations had passed and without having the courtesy to tell anyone about it beforehand. Luckily the appeals panel has overruled them, but with the result that the count for party committees has been stalled whilst we sort this out.
I want to argue that this just won’t do. The party, and particularly its leader, need to start protesting very loudly about the effect of the SC’s judgement and proposing amendments to the Equality Act that overturn the SC’s decision, as parliament is entitled to do. The downright hostility of the Tories and Reform is appalling, but so too is the pusillanimous (and anti-trans) vacillation of the Labour Government.
We have an opportunity to stand up for what is right as we have done in the past on so many issues, whether they were popular or not. I find it unbelievable and untenable that our parliamentary party and our leader are remaining silent on this most important issue for trans people. Stand up and speak out! Our party demands that this Trappist-like silence ends forthwith.
* Dr Michael Taylor has been a party member since 1964. He is currently living in Greece.
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8 Comments
I wholeheartedly agree. Our leadership needs to start leading on this issue and stop wringing its hands.
Well said. My regretful guess is that many – not all – of our MPs want to be vocal on this but are being told to cool their jets. I invite the leadership to prove me wrong.
I suppose it is possible that Ed was worried about losing members that agree with the ruling?
If so, they were not truly Liberal Democrats in the first place. And it makes me wonder about Ed🤔
It is really time to stand up against the domination of the Nasties on the Right!
I think, Freedom of the Individual to be who they are, is vital to being a True Liberal Democrat.
the leadership may not be my friends, but i am certain that many of the wonderful members of this party are. Every day that passes, Ed discredits himself in my eyes with his horrid silence on such a vital issue to me and my peers – and cis allies too. Come the next leadership election i say that the current leadership WILL NOT have my vote.
Well said!
“Their decision was that ‘with respect to the Equality Act and that Act only’ man and woman were to mean the biological gender recorded at birth and not that recorded on gender recognition certificates.”
This inaccurately describes the judgment. In fact the Court decided:
“The meaning of the terms “sex”, “man” and “woman” in the EA 2010 is biological and
not certificated sex.”
See paragraph 265(xviii) of the judgement here: https://supremecourt.uk/uploads/uksc_2024_0042_judgment_aea6c48cee.pdf
It is noteworthy that the court said nothing at all about what biological sex actually is.
The leadership and MPs are asked to campaign for the law to be changed because the decision in the Supreme Court in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish
Ministers is unsatisfactory. As Michael rightly says, this is the appropriate political way forward
The court decided that “The meaning of the terms “sex”, “man” and “woman” in the EA 2010 is biological and not certificated sex.”
If this unsatisfactory, what should “sex”, “male” and “female” mean in the EA2010 and in law generally given it is desirable that legally defined terms have the same meaning across all statutes? How should statute be amended?
Back when I heard first heard the news of the judgment, whilst I was terrified at what this could mean for the trans community, I was hopeful that at least this issue should breath some much needed energy into our party. After all LGBT rights are something the party membership and MPs had been consistently united on, about as much as we are on Europe.
So surely we were about to come out swinging, demand a change to the law, call for Faulkner’s sacking and repeatedly berate the labour party food being transphobic bigots.
We would then gain recognition from the LGBT community and all those who strongly care about thier rights as their biggest and only major champions in parliament, and likely gain a small membership boost.
But no. Nothing. Apparently our spokespeople are very very concerned, but that rings very hollow if we don’t want anything to actually be done about it.
And most tragically we are now losing members, people who were with us even in the dark days of coalition feel they can no longer support the party because it no longer supports them.
Ultimately though if our leader won’t step up to the plate, we need to do it ourselves, at the next conference it is vital that we pass a policy motion to completely undo all of the damage this ruling has done.