In a significant legal development, the UK has ruled that, within the scope of the Equality Act 2010, the term “woman” refers to biological sex. For many trans people, this has profound implications—not just for their access to certain rights and protections, but for how those rights are now framed in retrospect. What was once considered inclusion is now, legally speaking, revealed to have never truly existed.
To understand the full weight of this moment, consider the concept of an annulment in marriage law. An annulment is not a divorce. It doesn’t dissolve a union that once existed—it states that the union was never valid to begin with. It redefines the past. It asserts that what seemed to be real was, in the eyes of the law, a fiction.
This is what has happened with the redefinition of “woman” under the Equality Act. Rights that many trans people believed they had—such as protections under the category of “sex” or access to single-sex spaces—are now legally framed as having never applied to them in the first place. Not removed. Not repealed. But retroactively deemed never to have existed. It is not a divorce from those rights. It is an annulment.
This kind of legal reconfiguration carries a unique sting. Divorce acknowledges a relationship’s legitimacy, even if it ultimately ends. Annulment does not. In the same way, legal clarity on “sex” may give certain institutions certainty going forward, but it sends a powerful and painful message to trans people: the recognition they believed they had was an illusion.
The practical consequences are immediate—changes in policy around healthcare, prisons, sports, and single-sex services. But the philosophical implications are just as serious. What does it mean for a state to retroactively declare that certain citizens never had the protections they believed they did? What does it mean to be told your inclusion in civil rights law was a misunderstanding, not a mistake corrected, but a misconception exposed?
This is not just a policy clarification; it is a rewriting of the social contract. It invites a broader reckoning with how the law interacts with identity—how it confers recognition, and just as easily, withdraws it. And it leaves many asking: If legal recognition can be annulled, was it ever truly recognition at all?
And it is such a relief to know that the UK supreme court made this decision – clearly seeing the light and realising the inane lunacy of this whole “trans” cult – totally of it’s own volition and in response to the exasperation – well on it’s way to seething anger – of the populace at large.
Donald Trump is a US politician.
Big surprise. A piece of (Government) paper doth not a woman make.
The most insane part of this was that Trannies can have a new birth certificate issued with their new gender on it.
Surely the change in the law recognises that the implied definition (of a woman = women, and any bloke with a bit of paper signed by a doctor) was incomplete / incorrect, because ‘trans women’ made sure they used those ‘protections’ to the hilt for the period of time they were in force. The accessing by men of womens’ changing rooms and toilets happened, it wasn’t an “illusion”.
“For many” people pretending to be “trans people, this has profound implications” FTFY. A small but necessary correction. It may stop second rate blokes winning swimming gold medals and mean cowardly rapists have to serve their time in men’s jails, but I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this. The reason trans people were invented by the Left hasn’t gone away and if the demand is still there the supply will continue….
“This is what has happened with the redefinition of “woman” under the Equality Act. Rights that many trans people believed they had—such as protections under the category of “sex” or access to single-sex spaces—are now legally framed as having never applied to them in the first place.”
No, trans people still have exactly the same rights they ever had , only under the banner of the sex they were born with, not the sex that they are fantasising that they are. If I am under the delusion I am a dog I do not qualify to be protected by laws against cruelty to animals. But I am protected by all the laws against cruelty and injury to humans, even if i don’t think I am one.
Ergo a ‘transwoman’ has all the protections the Equality Act ever gave him, just its the protection not to be discriminated against for being a man, rather than for being a women. Because he was never a woman and never will be so cannot gain those protections. Which is as true as the fact that I can never become a dog, however much I convince myself I am.
The judgment is clear that no one’s rights have been taken away. Nor is it a retrospective change in the law. It clarifies what was already there. The confusion occurred since the concept of gender self-identification was misinterpreted in the Equality Act. This judgment sets that straight, and the gender recognition act needs to go back to parliament to sort out. This was a refreshingly sound judgment that reaffirms what we have always known (including trans people) – a man is a man and a woman is a woman, and reference to this in the act refers to sex, not self-identified gender.
Must admit I was astonished that the UK supreme court could make such a sensible and obvious judgement.
One suspects that the loonies of the left will ensure that it has a stake driven through its heart.
This makes it sound like we have changed something. What we have done is reject something that never was defined and agreed, a man/woman can change to a woman/man. That was never defined in law yet people took to the next stage, marriage,, etc. as if it was.
Putting a stake in the ground in an area that nobody in their right mind would have considered something up for discussion even just a couple of decade or so ago is clarifying what we have all know from early childhood and in our entire history never needed to be clarified at all.
The annulments are just our way to correct the legal issues we have created by being so stupid.
” the redefinition of “woman” under the Equality Act. ”
I take issue with this phrasing. Indeed a very large part of problem we have been facing is the deliberate misuse or twisting of words to give them meanings they should not have. The Supreme Court has not “redefined” “woman” – they have set out that the obvious original definition should pertain. It was the lunatic trans-lobby that has been attempting the redefinition and they have been given a sound, richly deserved and long overdue kicking for it.
“to retroactively declare that certain citizens never had the protections they believed they did”
If that was what was going on, this would be a travesty. Thankfully it’s not: those citizens were deliberately intruding on and undermining the long-established protections of others – real women. They have been told that they no longer have the protection of the law to continue to erode the rights of others.
Good.
Tim,
Who wrote this? It’s framed almost entirely from the perspective of the side that has been told – comprehensively – that their perspective is wrong and that they should get back in their box (judiciously ambiguous pronouns for the win)
the recognition they believed they had was an illusion.
The transition they believed they’d done was an illusion and the attempt to force society to accommodate this illusion was profoundly harmful to the vast majority. This, finally and inevitably, has been put right not only because the initial legal fiction was ineffably dumb and banal, as any unindoctrinated child would tell you, but also because, in Feynman’s words, you can fool people but you can’t fool nature.
We can continue to be civil to these deluded people and allow them to live out their fantasy as far as it goes, but now, rightly and properly, their fantasy is revealed for what it is and limits have been placed on their behaviour.
Next week, the “supreme” court is expected to rule on whether grass is green and sky is blue.
The most insane part of this was that Trannies can have a new birth certificate issued with their new gender on it.
Not gender. Apparently, “boi” is a gender, among many others. The most insane part of this was that Trannies could have a new birth certificate issued with their new sex on it, rewriting the past, thanks to postmodernist lefty conflation of biological sex with outward appearance and behaviour, and appropriating a grammatical term to describe it.
This was completely insane.
“The most insane part of this was that Trannies could have a new birth certificate issued with their new sex on it”
Presumably that is going to have to change. Otherwise you’re going to have the position where the SC have decreed that a woman is a biological woman, but some people will have bits of paper saying they are a biological woman (ie were born that way) when they weren’t. A complete lie in other words.
“Got a Y chromosome? You’re not going in there then, no matter what your bit of paper says. Sorry.”
If some trannies hadn’t behaved so badly would anyone be much bothered either way?
Again, if some doctors hadn’t made themselves busy “transitioning” children would anyone be bothered?
Or was the widespread public disgust at the whole affair a rejection of the pitiful combination of bullying and cowardice of our ruling class?
Or was the disgust aimed at insanity being allowed to go untreated, such as the insanity of parents demanding that their children be mutilated?
““Got a Y chromosome? You’re not going in there then, no matter what your bit of paper says. Sorry.””
Yes thats fine for organisations who want to keep men out. But what about the organisations who will want to let the trannies into women’s spaces? Ie vast swathes of the State? They will be able to say ‘But this person IS a woman, look there’s her birth certificate saying so’. Having birth certificates that are lying will allow the ideologically motivated to get around the ban.
And how can a State body be allowed to lie? The law of the land is that a woman is only a biological woman, so the General Register Office can’t go around changing that fact on birth certificates now can they?
– The confusion occurred since the concept of gender self-identification was misinterpreted in the Equality Act. This judgment sets that straight, and the gender recognition act needs to go back to parliament to sort out.
Interesting, if so. It means the judiciary is overriding Parliament again. Just that this time “we” agree.
PJF
“Interesting, if so. It means the judiciary is overriding Parliament again. Just that this time “we” agree.”
Yes, although it’s delicious to have a Blairite construct humiliate Lammy, Starmer, Phillips, et al., we are still up shit creek.
@PJF – No. The judiciary is not overriding parliament. It is, in effect, telling parliament to clear up the mess it’s made. The GRA and Equality Act caused contradiction and confusion. This judgment is merely an acknowledgement of what the Equality Act always said. Men and women are defined by sex, not a piece of paper. It is up to parliament to revisit (preferably repeal) the GRA.
I actually wrote “sex” and replaced it with “gender” precisely because there are also only two of them.
This is the next objective in the War on Insanity in Public Life.
Sex is a biological characteristic, so “biological sex” is a biological biological characteristic. The correct term is just simply “sex”.
@ Ottokring
There are three genders: male, female and neuter
I would like to retroactively change my birth certificate to state that I was born in 1950, then claim ten years’ back pension. I identify as 75, dammit, I demand the facts reflect my assertion.
“john77
There are three genders: male, female and neuter”
Four, if ‘nutter’ is accepted as a gender.
I’m Ok with that.
Back in the day there were male, female, androgynous, and Danny La Rue. Plenty of lezzers and gays were perfectly happy as male and female, and those “interesting ” androgynous types could ponce about passive-aggressively dominating and manipulating people and getting on our tits, and the rest of us (having grown out of the “interesting” phase) could ignore them.
That worked for me.
Das Kind
Das Maedchen
Das Junge
It’s all these people who identify as Genitive who possess my hatred.
So what does “Carrie” have to say?
I’m getting very tired of saying this, but: the goal of the genital-obsessed weirdos is to eliminate trans people from public life.
Can someone please remind me who the real weirdos are?
How come these loud fluid non-binary types always declare exactly two pronouns.
I suspect the LBGQ lot, peace be upon them, now regret adding a T to their grouping. Loud, demanding and trouble-making, they stirred up resentment, when things were fine before. Nae Botha before – most people just accepted some are different and co-existed peacefully with them.
Clicking on the link from Carrie’s most recent article this warmed the cockles of my heart:-
“This morning I boarded a train to Newcastle for a final bit of trans 101 delivery on behalf of the LGBTQ org from which I — along with more than half of its remaining staff — was recently made redundant following cuts to USAID”
Thank you Elon, Big Balls and the rest of your team of heroes.
“This is not just a policy clarification; it is a rewriting of the social contract. “
Physics is not a social contract, it is a universal constant by which sex is determined, and cannot be written or rewritten by Mankind.
“
@ Ottokring
There are three genders: male, female and neuter
No there aren’t. It’s masculine, feminine and neuter which are used exclusively in language. Male and female are sex and refer exclusively to biology.
Incorrect use of words, no matter how commonplace, does not make the use correct or meaningful.
What we have done is reject something that never was defined and agreed, a man/woman can change to a woman/man.
It was worse than that. The trans lobby went out of its way to avoid a public debate, it was a stated strategy. (Search: The Spectator for “The document that reveals the remarkable tactics of trans lobbyists” my links keep springing the spam trap)
You may or may not agree with same sex marriage but there was a debate and everyone got their say. You’d have to have been Rip van Winkel or one of those pension women not to have known about it when the law was passed and the first ceremonies took place.
In contrast, most people woke up one day to find some of the most violent rapists turning up in women’s prisons, children being experimented on, blokes with beards in prancing round female changing rooms and anyone who complained getting cancelled, men winning women’s sports events etc and wondered WTF was going on. By which time they were told it was too late and if they complained in tweets they’d find themselves getting an unpleasant visit from Plod.
“What does it mean for a state to retroactively declare that certain citizens never had the protections they believed they did? What does it mean to be told your inclusion in civil rights law was a misunderstanding, not a mistake corrected, but a misconception exposed?”
Happens regularly, aksually….
The crux is in “believed they did”.
People, especially Activists and Lawyers (doubly so for the unholy combination of both..), thrive on interpretations of laws. And try to scew the perceived intent of the literal text towards their goals. Using any means to their disposal.
If this gets too obvious/obnoxious either the State or a countermovement runs a trial up to the highest court to ascertain the exact intent of the law text, placing hard boundaries to “interpretation”.
If a lower court with a judge with common sense hasn’t already called out the “excessive/creative interpretation” of whatever is playing.
As is the case here.. A loud, activist section of the T-squad and their Fans assumed their Interpretation, and therefore rights, were in the intent and letter of the law.
The High Court clearly stated that they were mistaken in their notions.
It’s not that the T’s lost “rights”, they assumed, incorrectly, a vindictive mind might even say illegally, they had “rights” on basis of that law that simply have never existed.
Which also means they can’t “lose” them to begin with.
but it sends a powerful and painful message to trans people
There are no “trans people”, because it’s biologically impossible to be born the “wrong” sex and it can’t be medically altered.
“Trans people” then, do not exist and “transgender” is not a valid diagnosis.
Mentally ill people do exist, and they suffer greatly from their obsessions and delusions, including those people who wish they were something they’re not. Mentally ill people should not have special rights based on the flavour of insanity they have, they need psychiatric care – not affirmation.
Carrie has been quite right on this, we’ve tried tolerating transgender as if it was just another sexuality and found it’s incompatible with society and a terrible danger to children, so the goal is Net Zero Trannies. We should never have tolerated the monstrous idea of “transgender” in the first place, it’s time to retire the entire LARP and consign “gender surgeries” to history, alongside other shameful episodes in medical history such phrenology, trepanning, and transorbital lobotomies.
Grist – The reason trans people were invented by the Left hasn’t gone away
It’s multifactor corruption of the soul.
Internet porn and its consequences, especially on middle aged male nerds
Galloping mental illness among teenage girls, also fueled by the internet
All of this is taking place in societies facing desperate problems that are rarely acknowledged as such – the fertility crisis, the Replacement Migration crisis, the cultural civil war the Left has been waging for decades against the traditional family, normal social and sexual mores etc. Confusion abounds, morale is low and demons feast on unguarded souls.
It shouldn’t surprise us that dying societies manifest their unhealthiness in more eunuchs and mutilants. The trick is to stop being busy dying and get busy living.
This is where C18th philosophers have got you. In the sh1t. The concept of individual rights (except in the strictly legal sense). Moral rights. God given rights, with a nod to the Dec of Ind. The “right to life” etc. Total bollocks on stilts. There are only obligations.
It inevitably ends up as anything anyone wants they’ll demand as a “right”. And puts others in the position of arguing why they won’t assume the obligation to deliver it. Or to “deny them their rights” is the preferred bleat.
So let’s stop talking about rights & start talking about obligations. And make the conversation a short one..
BiS – So let’s stop talking about rights & start talking about obligations
The reason this falls as flat as Rishi’s Bring Back National Service plan (still astonishing this was a supposedly election winning idea in CCHQ’s tiny mind) is that, if we want to be all Lockean about it, the State has not only flagrantly refused to uphold its end of the bargain, it gleefully “rubs their noses” in pursuing actively harmful measures against Their Own People (as we always say when the West is about to bomb another unlucky Middle Eastern country).
So, obligations to whom and what, exactly? The dismal 14 year Tory Interregnum attempted to define “British values” as an abstraction that can somehow exist in the absence of actual, non-paper British people. The results were the usual unpalatable Eton mess of vaguely uplifting but meaning-free and instantly forgettable corporate wordsalad. Nobody takes it seriously, do they?
I was at a friend’s UK citizenship ceremony (he’s one of those damn dusky furriners) and it was a nice enough little gig. Some fine words about Britain and they played a midi Roland soundcard version of the national anthem from a CD player and everything. But what does it all mean, Basil? When your children can’t imagine being able to afford a house, and Mad Ed is promising the plebs that the transport technology of the future is the rickshaw?
“What does it mean for a state to retroactively declare that certain citizens never had the protections they believed they did?”
Happened to me just last October. For 30+ years it had been the settled position of the UK State (and multiple governments within that time) that business assets such as farmland were not subject to inheritance taxes. Then suddenly they were. Not much I can do about it.
Never trust the State.
When my then-wife got British citizenship, she simply posted off a form, and got a document by return. “Citizenship Ceremony”? That’s so un-British.
Jgh – it was a nice little ceremony, several of the new citizens were dressed up to the nines and brought family and friends, because it’s a big day for them. Only takes a few minutes, but I do think the personal touch of an officer of the state welcoming new Brits is better than citizenship by post.
@ BiS
Logically there can be no “Rights” without corresponding obligations. There can be obligations without “Rights”.
Hence Deuteronomy focusses on duties: GOD is more intelligent than the woke media
Das Kind
Das Maedchen
Das Junge
Did the » Neue Rechtschreibung « make Junge neuter?
PJF – Interesting, if so. It means the judiciary is overriding Parliament again. Just that this time “we” agree.
They aren’t. They were asked to rule on whether the words “woman” and “sex” in the Equalities Act (abolish it) meant “woman” and “sex”. The judiciary would be quite happy to rule that men are women if that’s what the statute said, but it doesn’t.
Nobody should have been surprised by this unanimous and inevitable decision. Not even Jolyon, but he got paid again I assume, and isn’t that what really matters?
Das Kind
Das Maedchen
Das Junge
Did the » Neue Rechtschreibung « make Junge neuter?
Not according to DWDS (Der deutsche Wortschatz von 1600 bis heute.)
It does depend what you are referring to, though:
Weren’t there people prosecuted for saying that trans women were men? What happens to them?
“Weren’t there people prosecuted for saying that trans women were men? ”
At least one person was arrested, charged and convicted of calling a tranny a man, though the conviction was overturned on appeal:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-64905216
And plenty more were arrested and interviewed by police, though maybe not in the end charged. And some had ‘non-crime hate incidents’ recorded against them, such as Harry Miller:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/14/transgender-tweet-police-acted-unlawfully
There can be obligations without “Rights”.
There are obligations to pay taxes. You’re saying there’s a right to pay taxes? Not sure if HMRC would agree with you. Rather mess up their book keeping.
“ it sends a powerful and painful message to trans people: the recognition they believed they had was an illusion.”
Yeah well – if they needed a Supreme Court ruling to puncture the illusion they had tried to impose on the rest of us then they needed an IQ test.