This week’s Supreme Court ruling was not a case of women’s rights defeating trans rights; it was a victory for truth over falsehood.
I refer, of course, to For Women Scotland’s win against the Scottish Ministers about the definition of ‘woman’ in law. I was at the court that day supporting a separate Supreme Court case where, backed by my legal team, parents won the freedom to properly share the stories of how their children were treated by doctors in end-of-life cases.
However, the For Women Scotland case finally confirmed that the Equality Act means ‘woman’ when it says ‘woman’. The judges were right to say that the Scottish Ministers’ pro-transgender interpretation of the law is incoherent. Their judgment moves us closer to recognising, as a society, the reality that we are made unchangeably male or female.
Christians have consistently been at the forefront of speaking this truth clearly, and have often paid a price for it.
The Christian Legal Centre has supported several high-profile cases where Christians have been punished for acknowledging biological sex.
Dr David Mackereth lost his job in 2018 for saying that he wouldn’t use transgender pronouns.
Street preacher Dave McConnell was convicted (overturned on appeal) over accusations he ‘misgendered’ a member of the public.
Joshua Sutcliffe lost his job as a teacher and became a marked man, eventually being banned from teaching, for refusing to use the preferred pronouns of a girl identifying as a boy.
Parents Nigel and Sally Rowe challenged government-backed pro-trans school policies, leading directly to new draft government guidance that better protected gender-questioning children.
And perhaps most notably, Kristie Higgs was fired from her job at a school because of two Facebook posts, visible only to her friends, raising awareness about pro-trans literature being used with young children at schools. In February she won her own landmark free speech legal victory at the Court of Appeal.
It is true that this week’s Supreme Court case does not speak directly to all of these cases. But if we can recognise what a woman is – and what a man isn’t – in the Equality Act, why can’t we do so elsewhere?
Even now, the Darlington Nurses are challenging the hostile treatment they received from the hospital where they worked because they were not comfortable with a biological male using their changing space. Health Secretary Wes Streeting promised further action following this ruling and the EHRC now says that it will pursue NHS trusts that don’t follow new single-sex policies.
Another nurse, Jennifer Melle, faces discipline for referring to a 6-foot biologically male prisoner she was treating as a ‘Mr’, in line with the gender on his medical records.
School chaplain Rev Dr Bernard Randall stood up to the now-defunct Educate and Celebrate at a staff training day where founder Elly Barnes misrepresented the Equality Act. After a school assembly where he upheld the right for people to disagree with parts of LGBTQ ideology, he lost his job and even his licence to minister in his Church of England diocese.
‘Hannah’ lost her job as a teacher because she sought to safeguard pupils from the dangers of trans ideology.
Artist Victoria Culf was banned from her own exhibition and reported to the police for saying in a casual conversation, while making a cup of tea, that it is harmful for children to try and change their sex.
There are indeed many ways that transgender ideology has hurt women; issues like single-sex spaces and fair competition in sports. But it should be clear that it is both female and male truth-speakers – like these Christians and many others - who have been harmed by transgender ideology.
And they’re still not the only victims of transgenderism and all the policies our institutions have recklessly pursued.
Trans-identifying people themselves are caused harm. Most of all, children who have been told they might be born in the wrong body, who have been allowed to socially transition and given puberty blockers. Many are already struggling to come to terms with the permanent damage done to their bodies because trusted adults said they could become what they are not. Who can imagine how many more will come to this realisation in the years ahead?
Those still struggling with genuine gender distress are being harmed. They are being told that transition could fix them – the closest thing to a ‘harmful conversion practice’ that routinely takes place in modern-day Britain. But trans women are not women, and trans men are not men. Following this path dooms people to living an identity that can never be aligned with reality and that will perpetually gnaw at their souls.
This ideology even hurts men who cynically claim to be women for perceived perks, as appears with many prisoners. These men need, for everyone’s sake, to be met with a firm ‘no’. For them, the strong hand of justice can be redemptive – leading to repentance and forgiveness.
That’s why we shouldn’t see this ‘culture war’ as women rights vs trans rights.
Truth protects us all.
And that’s why this judgment is not enough. It is one thing for a person to deliberately present themselves as if they are a member of the opposite sex. It is another, much more serious, step for our institutions to endorse and promote that lie through official documents, the court system, hospitals and schools.
We must go further and recognise throughout society and culture that no one can change their sex – only their appearance.
This means undoing all the ways in which our laws and institutions have embedded these falsehoods. And we can do this without at any time being mean-spirited or hateful towards anyone.
Truth and love are best friends (1 Corinthians 13:6, Ephesians 4:15,). That’s why we must keep working to end the grip of this untrue, harmful ideology on our nation.
Andrea Williams is CEO of Christian Concern.
