‘Trans people will always be here’: One year on from the Supreme Court ruling
As is so often the case with breaking news, many of us will remember exactly where we were on the morning of the 16th of April 2025. Some moments possess the power to punctuate an entirely new stage of our lives, and the announcement of the Supreme Court’s ruling – which stated that “the legal definition of a woman is based on their biological sex assigned at birth” – was certainly one of those for me.
The sun shone through my window as I woke that Wednesday in Barcelona, my partner at the time still asleep next to me. I checked my phone, and was inundated with messages sharing screengrabs of headlines that had dropped that morning. One right-wing article stated simply: trans women not women in definition ruling. My heart sank as I realised I no longer possessed the clarity on my own rights, stability and legal protections that I’d carried comfortably with me just the day before. Tears stung my eyes as I switched off my phone, deciding not to delve deeper until the dust had started to settle. I looked over at my boyfriend, envying his state of sleep.
‘Morning… Puffy face!’ were the first words he mumbled to me as he opened his eyes and sleepily poked my cheek.
‘Oh, am I puffy? I’ve been crying.’
‘Crying? Why?’
I didn’t know how to answer the question, beyond the immense fear and uncertainty that had settled as knots in the middle of my chest. I wondered to what extent my own future might change – a year on, I still live with the discomfort of not knowing precisely where I stand when it comes to my own long term rights and legal protections as a trans woman in the UK. As Online Comms Officer for trans charity Not A Phase, the rest of that day was spent tackling the discourse head-on, ensuring our own output was informative and provided clarity and assurance to our community. For many trans people, there was life before, and then life after the Supreme Court’s ruling – a ruling that has shaken parts of life as we know it for so many of us over the past year.
So, what happened?
A trans-exclusionary group (For Women Scotland) started a crowdfunder in 2024 and received a £70,000 donation from JK Rowling. With these funds, they challenged the definition of the term ‘woman’ for the purposes of the Equality Act which outlines human rights in the UK, including in cases of discrimination and harassment. This resulted in the Supreme Court redefining the terms ‘sex’, ‘man’ and ‘woman’ as an individual’s biological sex as noted at birth – an outcome fully erasive of lived trans experiences, as well as those who are intersex (up to 1.7% of the global population as estimated by the UN). 50,000 medics of the BMA condemned the ruling, advising it was both “scientifically illiterate” and “biologically nonsensical.”
After the ruling, the Equality & Human Rights Commission (EHRC) were then tasked with drafting guidance on how these definitions would be implemented, potentially impacting the human rights of women and trans people. What followed has been confusing and widely misunderstood both within the trans community and among the broader population – some interpreted the Supreme Court’s ruling as an immediate legal ban on trans people from bathrooms. In reality, no laws had changed with immediate effect – where the ruling had been decided, next steps and legal actions had not.
As of this week, the EHRC has submitted at least two main rounds of the updated draft Code of Practice to the government for approval. One version in September was met with backlash from hundreds of firms across the UK who warned the proposed guidance on spaces such as bathrooms was ‘unworkable’ and would cause ‘significant economic harm.’ Another draft has been submitted, but next steps and a final outcome for trans rights remains unclear at this stage.