Patriarchal Hammers

I am writing this post in response to the Judgement, For Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v The Scottish Ministers (Respondent), published on April 16, 2025. Five judges from the UK supreme court ruled unanimously that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act (2010) did not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates (GRCs). In allowing the appeal, the judgement claimed that, at least for the purposes of interpreting the Equality Act, sex refers only to biological sex and that women and men should be treated as distinct groups with a shared biology. I would argue that this claim is not only unjust and ahistorical, based as it is on assertions about common use rather than examples of common use, but also profoundly anti-feminist. As Jess O’Thomson has argued, “We’re yet to see how all of this will play out in practice, but it seems clear that this won’t just hurt the trans community. The reasoning adopted, and the relentless desire to police ‘what is a woman’ can only hurt our wider communities.”

It is only because “gender critical feminists” have so dominated the British media that this judgement could be referred to as a “victory for women’s rights.”

I call the judgement a patriarchal hammer.

I have written this post as someone without legal expertise (as anyone with such expertise will no doubt be able to tell!). I write not just as a feminist but as someone who has undertaken empirical research into equality within the workplace, attending specifically to words used in policies and by practitioners. I write also as a cis lesbian of colour, out of a sense of urgency, and in solidarity with trans people.

In earlier contributions, I have shown how so-called “gender critical” feminists who often claimed to be silenced and hounded out of their jobs, have used tactics of bullying and intimidation to create a hostile environment for trans people and their allies. This small group of so-called “gender critical” feminists have been able to influence policy (and public debate) in the UK in a way that has been disastrous not only for LGBTQIA+ communities but for feminism.

Yes, defining women as a biological group is a disaster for feminism.

The many feminists who have argued against the biologisation of sex have been so routinely ignored that if you picked up a mainstream paper in the