Supreme Court LIVE: Judges to rule on legal definition of a woman in major announcement

The matter first came to court in 2022, when For Women Scotland (FWS) successfully challenged the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 over its inclusion of trans women in its definition of women.

The Court of Session ruled that changing the definition of a woman in the act was unlawful, as it dealt with matters falling outside the Scottish Parliament’s legal competence.

Following the challenge, the Scottish Government dropped the definition from the act and issued revised statutory guidance – essentially, advice on how to comply with the law.

This stated that under the 2018 Act the definition of a woman was the same as that set out in the Equality Act 2010, and also that a person with a GRC recognising their gender as female had the sex of a woman.

FWS challenged this revised guidance on the grounds sex under the Equality Act referred to its biological meaning, and the Government was overstepping its powers by effectively redefining the meaning of “woman”.

However, its challenge was rejected by the Court of Session’s Outer House on December 13 2022.

The Inner House upheld that decision on November 1 2023 – but did grant FWS permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court.