Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom and Ireland

UKSC in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers: Equality Act 2010 'sex', 'man' and 'woman' mean biological sex; GRA s9(1) disapplied; implications for single-sex services, employment and PSED

Published on: 16 April 2025

Published by a LexisNexis Employment expert

Legal News

Article summary

Background

This appeal concerns the Appellant’s challenge to the legality of statutory guidance from the Respondent, which treats a GRC confirming a person’s gender as female as bringing them within the EqA 2010 definition of ‘woman’. The Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018, an Act of the Scottish Parliament (ASP 2018), sets targets to boost the share of women on public boards. Originally, ASP 2018 defined ‘woman’ to include those with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment: individuals living as women and proposing to undergo, undergoing, or having undergone a process of gender reassignment. In 2022, following a challenge by the Appellant (FWS1), the Inner House held that this statutory definition was unlawful, as it addressed matters beyond the Scottish Parliament’s legislative competence. After FWS1, the Respondent published revised statutory guidance, which is now under challenge. It asserts that, for ASP 2018, ‘woman’ bears the same meaning as in the EqA 2010. It further states that a person holding a GRC recognising that their gender...

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