The NHS must change its policy of allowing transgender people to be on single-sex wards aligned with their gender identity following the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a “woman”, the head of Britain’s equalities watchdog said.
On Wednesday, judges at the UK’s highest court unanimously ruled that the definition of a “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refers to “a biological woman and biological sex”.
Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chair of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said the ruling was “enormously consequential” and ensured clarity.
Politics latest: Supreme Court ruling should ‘draw a line’ under debate
She vowed to pursue organisations that do not update their policies, saying they should be “taking care” to look at the “very readable judgment”.
On single-sex hospital wards, Baroness Falkner told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the NHS will “have to change” their 2019 policy, which says transgender patients are entitled to be accommodated on single-sex wards matching how they identify.
She said the court ruling means there is now “no confusion” and the NHS “can start to implement the new legal reasoning and produce their exceptions forthwith”.
Women’s sport and changing rooms
The baroness also said trans women can no longer take part in women’s sport, while single-sex places, such as changing rooms, “must be based on biological sex”.
However, she said there is no law against organisations providing a “third space”, such as unisex toilets, and suggested trans rights organisations “should be using their powers of advocacy to ask for those third spaces”.
In 2021,…
