Thousands of transgender people and activists came out to protest in London after Britain’s top court ruled that biological sex defines a woman under the Equality Act.
The verdict effectively excluded trans individuals, including those holding a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), from the anti-discrimination legislation passed in 2010.
On Saturday, the activists gathered in Parliament Square, holding signs that said “Trans women are women” and rejecting the ruling as “transphobic.”
According to police, seven statues were vandalized, including a monument to feminist writer and women’s voting rights campaigner Millicent Fawcett.
“Criminal damage like this, including to statues of men and women who fought for freedom and justice like Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Millicent Fawcett, is disgraceful — it is right [that] the police are investigating,” Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said.
A spokesperson for Women and Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson said she “utterly condemns the appalling defacement” of the statue of Fawcett.
On Wednesday, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the terms ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act refer to “a biological woman and biological sex” instead of “certificated sex.”
According to the BBC, the judges argued that interpreting sex as “certificated” rather than “biological” would “cut across the definitions of man and woman and thus the protected characteristic of sex in an incoherent way.”
The conservative group For Women Scotland, which brought the case before the court, praised the decision. “Sex is real and women can now feel safe that services and spaces designated for women are for women,” said Susan Smith, the group’s co-founder.
LGBTQ rights advocates condemned the ruling, with activist group Stonewall saying that it would have “widespread and harmful implications for our communities.”
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