Fact-Checking The Equality Act Ruling
The Equality Act Ruling is currently making headlines, and finding the facts among the strong opinions has been overwhelming for many people.
To help you sift through the noise, Jackafal fact-checks claims shared about the recent ruling in mainstream and social media, and offers a summary of what the ruling means, legally and for the people most affected.
For those of you who follow UK news, the recent ruling with regards to the Equality Act has probably crossed your feed. On 16 April 2025, the UK Supreme Court clarified that the term ‘sex’ in regard to the Equality Act only refers to sex at birth, and its sex discrimination protections do not apply to the post-transition gender of trans people. The media and social media are still awash with a number of conflicting (and often quite incendiary) headlines, so we're here to fact-check the noise.
The Equality Act has changed - True Or False?
The Equality Act has not actually changed in terms of wording: the ruling announced clarifications of how some of the terms in the Equality Act should be legally interpreted, but did not alter the existing act. That said, given the ruling will affect how the Act is interpreted, it will change how the law is applied, and how the public at large interprets the law, particularly regarding single-sex spaces.
It is now legal to discriminate against trans people in the UK - True Or False?
The Equality Act outlines 9 protected characteristics who receive specific protections against discrimination. While ‘sex’ has now been clarified as not extending to trans people, there still exists the protected characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’ and all trans people are legally protected against direct and indirect discrimination under this. However, the ruling did also make explicit that single-sex spaces are allowed to exclude trans people who were not born as that sex, and that is no longer considered discrimination.
Biological sex is binary - True Or False?
Prepare for a (really condensed) biology lesson on this one, folks… It is generally accepted that the majority of society, at birth, is one of two sexes: male and female. Doctors will generally decide on the basis of chromosomes, sexual organs and/or genitalia which sex you are, and for most people, that is a straightforward process. However, there is also a not insignificant proportion of people who are born intersex (it is hard to determine the exact number because of the way in which births are recorded, but the UK Government suggests it could be as high as 1 in 300 people). This can mean children, for example, born with more than one set of sexual organs/genitalia, or whose chromosomes are not the expected XX or XY in some way.
It has now been clarified that the Equality Act covers protections relating to biological sex, and the terms ‘man’ and ‘woman’ in this context refer to women and men in terms of biological sex alone. At present, biological sex is defined as the “sex of a person at birth”, but as we’ve discussed above, that doesn’t fall into a neat man-woman category in all cases. As it is normally practice in the UK for the M/F marker on birth certificates to be determined by the medical professionals presiding over the birth, it’s fair to assume that at present, the decision that doctor makes will now have more serious implications and knock-on effects for which single-sex spaces that person can entire for the rest of their life - and that’s something that has not been discussed very widely at the moment. Ultimately, the ruling does not arbitrarily mean that all sex is now biologically binary, but given the wording used, there are definitely still questions to answer about how intersex people fit into this clarification of the Equality Act regarding sex.
Single-sex spaces just became safer - True Or False?
It depends on how you define safer, and for whom. If by safer, you mean the legal right to have single-sex spaces which only include people born of that sex is now more legally protected, that is true. While evidence suggests that trans people in single-sex spaces are no more likely to commit crime than any other person, there are a number of reasons relating to identity, trauma and even religion that mean some people feel strongly that single-sex spaces should refer to biological sex only, and their needs are now better protected.
However, the ruling has also made life less safe for a number of people. As the ruling suggests that trans people may now be required to use sex-assigned spaces that don’t align with the gender they are living - for example, a trans man, even with a Gender Recognition Certificate, may legally be required to use the women’s bathroom in public settings. In addition to the potential for trans people to be endangered by people being hostile in these situations, any trans people who ‘pass’ (are not easily recognisable as trans) may face a dilemma of not legally being allowed to use one bathroom, while visibly looking like they ‘shouldn’t’ use the legally assigned one. There is also a risk that people who look more masculine or feminine than expected for their biological sex will face challenges. So for trans and non-binary people and for people whose gender expression doesn’t conform, it has become more dangerous.
Transwomen are no longer women/transmen are no longer men - True Or False?
In the legal definition specifically with regard to the Equality Act 2010:
a man now only applies to someone who was born male
a woman now only applies to someone who was born female
sex now purely applies to biological sex, not gender
However, this is only in regard to this very specific piece of legislation. As a society, we often use the term woman and man to interchangeably refer to sex or gender. Whether there is ongoing legal debate about the definition of sex with regard to a man or a woman, trans people are still the same people they were yesterday, and will be the same people tomorrow - and the language we use to refer to them in everyday life is unlikely to shift drastically overnight.
Whatever the words we use to describe them, trans people are people first and foremost. As we navigate the legal upheaval, complex emotions and confusion that’s come out of the recent ruling, it is more important than ever to make sure we vocally and visibly show our support, love and respect to trans people.
