UK residents can no longer legally change their gender after Supreme Court ruling

NIGERIANS living in the UK can no longer claim a new gender other than the one into which they were born after the country's Supreme Court ruled earlier today that transgender changes are not legally recognised.

Over recent years, the transgender debates has been a divisive political topic and the subject of several legal disputes. Today, the UK Supreme Court brought finality to the matter, ruling that a woman is someone born biologically female, thus excluding transgender people from the legal definition.

Five judges ruled unanimously that the UK Equality Act means trans women can be excluded from some groups and single-sex spaces, such as changing rooms, homeless shelters, swimming areas and medical or counselling services provided only to women. Several women’s groups that supported the appeal celebrated outside court and hailed it as a major victory in their effort to protect spaces designated for women.

Susan Smith, co-director of For Women Scotland, said: “Everyone knows what sex is and you can’t change it. It’s common sense, basic common sense and the fact that we have been down a rabbit hole where people have tried to deny science and to deny reality and hopefully this will now see us back to reality.”

This ruling means that a transgender person with a certificate that recognises them as female should not be considered a woman for equality purposes. Also, the ruling brings some clarity in the UK to a contentious issue that has polarised politics in some other countries, particularly the US.

For instance, over the last four years, Republican-controlled states in the US have been banning gender-affirming care for minors. They have also barred transgender women and girls from sports competitions that align with their gender and restricted which public bathrooms transgender people can use.

Justice Patrick Hodge said, however, that the British ruling does not remove protection from trans people, who are still protected from discrimination under UK law. This case stems from a 2018 law passed by the Scottish Parliament saying 50% of the membership of the boards of Scottish public bodies should be women and as a result, transgender women with gender recognition certificates were to be included in meeting the quota.

However, For Women Scotland challenged this inclusion and today won a favourable ruling. which only allows people born female to be classified as women. Justice Hodge said interpreting sex as certificated sex would cut across the definitions of man and woman and thus, the protected characteristic of sex in an incoherent way that would create heterogeneous groupings.

However, campaign group Scottish Trans said it was shocked and disappointed by the ruling, saying it would undermine legal protection for transgender people enshrined in the 2004 Gender Recognition Act. Maggie Chapman, a Green Party lawmaker in the Scottish Parliament, added that the ruling was deeply concerning for human rights and a huge blow to some of the most marginalised people in society.

Ms Chapman said: “Trans people have been cynically targeted and demonised by politicians and large parts of the media for far too long. This has contributed to attacks on longstanding rights and attempts to erase their existence altogether.”