Thank the Lord for some common sense. In this case, thank Lord Hodge, who yesterday delivered the UK Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling that trans women are not biologically female.
Extraordinary as it is that such an obvious statement requires an 88-page judgment, compiled over many months by the highest court of appeal in the country, this decision is crucial.
It was a momentous day for women and for the law. An era of collective madness is over – though we must not be complacent, because the angry brigade are likely to continue their attempts to impose their demands through bullying. They will keep bellowing ‘trans women are women’ through their megaphones and hurling vile threats at anyone who dares oppose them.
The war isn’t over, but the turning point has been reached. In most circumstances, at least, no longer will any man, whether he’s sporting a wig and make-up or a full beard, be able to wave a piece of paper headed ‘gender recognition certificate’ and insist the rest of us acknowledge his legal right to be recognised as female.
This represents a victory for women and girls everywhere, and a major step towards enhancing their safety.
I’m especially grateful to the court for emphasising that the ruling does not represent a ‘defeat’ for trans women. On the contrary, it’s an accurate and reassuring reflection of who people like me really, biologically are.
We all instinctively know the difference between men and women, despite the powerful lobby that has tried its damndest to deny it. I’m fortunate in being a science teacher with a thorough grasp of biology, so I’m well able to articulate the truth behind the common sense.
Adults who, like me, need to change their appearance and even their physical shape, in order to feel comfortable in their own skin, should be able to do so safely. Everyone ought to respect that need. But it doesn’t alter the basic reality that, as the Supreme Court has ruled, ‘the concept of sex is binary’.
The biology of sex is much more than just reproduction. It affects the development of our bodies, most obviously during puberty but quite profoundly from the moment of conception. Throughout the nine months before birth, human bodies develop according to their sex, and that continues to be true during each minute of childhood.
Boys and girls develop along different paths. Social conditioning plays a part, naturally, but that only modifies the effects of biological sex.
I have immense admiration for the campaign group For Women Scotland, who have fought fearlessly every step of the way. They’ve battled through the courts in Scotland and then England, through the High Court and the Court of Session, all the way to the Supreme Court.
It’s due to their courage and tenacity that sanity has been restored to the law of the UK. Campaigners in other countries that are still living in a legal fantasy world of trans delusion will take great hope from this.
Politicians of all parties have failed women during this long battle. Most egregiously, Sir Keir Starmer was spouting nonsense when he claimed some women had penises. He’s a lawyer, and I trust this ruling has helped him to remember the difference between men and women.
Campaigners celebrate outside the Supreme Court in London yesterday after the court ruling
We shall have to see how the government reacts to the ruling. Predictably, some Labour ministers are taking the line that this verdict just confirms what they’ve been saying all along – which is, of course, not true. I whole-heartedly challenge the line taken by MP Nadia Whittome who said yesterday: ‘I share the deep disappointment in today’s Supreme Court ruling, and the concerns about what this will mean for trans women going forward.
‘Today and every day, I stand in unwavering solidarity with the trans community. We must never stop fighting for trans rights.’
Labour should have offered support to biological women from the moment they came to power, since the law as it stood was incoherent.
The blame for that falls on previous administrations, who allowed confusion and inconsistency to multiply because they were too intimidated by the trans lobbyists.
Theresa May, when she was prime minister, pledged to usher in the crazy world of gender recognition certificates by self identification alone. We’ve seen male domestic abusers strong-arm their way into women’s spaces, male athletes using their masculine physiques to gain a biological advantage in women’s sports, and male voyeurs sidling into women’s changing rooms.
All these outrageous and dangerous distortions of common sense were made possible by a Conservative administration that was too weak to act. But the scandal goes back further still, to the Blair era, when the Gender Recognition Act was introduced without sufficient regard for common sense. Politicians have had numerous opportunities to turn the tide, but lacked the willpower and the gumption shown by For Women Scotland.
So I’m grateful to the Supreme Court for their decision. The judges could have copied the politicians and hidden behind a wall of excuses. They might, for instance, have claimed that, as the Equality Act doesn’t define what a woman is, the responsibility to clear up this mess lay with parliament.
In that case, the controversy would have probably dragged on for years. Instead, the court took firm action. That’s a sharp admonition to the government, though I don’t expect Downing Street will admit it.
Most of all, I welcome the ruling as a teacher, whose mission for nearly 30 years has been to guide and educate children. When I decided to transition, I was a full adult. I knew my own mind, whatever happened.
That cannot be said of any teenager or pre-pubertal child. They are not old enough to make responsible decisions that will have drastic and lifelong consequences, such as altering their bodies with hormones and surgery.
I only began ‘socially transitioning’ in 2012 – at the age of 44. I started to change my appearance and my wardrobe. I experimented with make-up and attempted to be seen as a woman.
Other people responded by referring to me using female pronouns. A year later, I began hormone treatment provided by the NHS.
Difficult though this was for my wife Stephanie and our three children, we all stayed together. And despite all the inevitable problems I faced at the school where I worked as a science teacher, the transition brought me huge relief.
I’d been secretly trying on women’s clothes since I was a small child, and began buying my own at 14. Decades of concealing my inner turmoil was coming to an end.
In 2016, I took the ultimate step of undergoing gender realignment surgery on my genitals. My body is now female to all appearances, but I’m a trans woman, a man who has gone to great lengths to look female, and who ‘lives as a woman’. There’s a very significant difference – and one that the law now acknowledges.
There are two sexes, male and female, and sex cannot be changed. Trans women certainly exist – I’m one of them. But trans women, however loudly the slogans blare, are not women.
Debbie Hayton is a transgender teacher and journalist.
