by Joanna Williams, Telegraph
We should not be surprised. Few in Government rushed to welcome the Supreme Court ruling
A year ago this week, the Supreme Court ruled that “sex” refers to a person’s biological sex at birth and not their gender identity. Whether a person is male or female, in other words, is a matter of chromosomes, hormones and anatomy, not thoughts and feelings.
Once, such basic facts of life were clear to everyone. The very idea of needing lawyers to define “man” and “woman”, and politicians to determine who, exactly, gets to use single-sex spaces was too ridiculous to contemplate. But then, transgender rights activists confused the picture. Men wearing dresses and waving Gender Recognition Certificates barged into women’s toilets, changing rooms, sports teams and prison cells.
The Supreme Court’s ruling began restoring sanity to public life, but it fell to Labour’s Bridget Phillipson, Minister for Women and Equalities, to finish the job. Alas, it remains undone. Guidance on upholding women’s right to single-sex spaces – vital instruction on how schools and hospitals, local councils and charities should interpret and implement the legal definition of sex – has not been published. Worse, previous civil service policies backing gender self-identification remain in place.
New rules would help nudge institutions that have not yet taken steps to protect single-sex spaces to get their act together. Being able to point to Government-approved documents would help groups like the Girl Guides, who are trying to implement change but are meeting resistance. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has played its part and produced guidance for Government ministers. So why is Phillipson dragging her feet?
Excuses appear plentiful. Time, we have been told repeatedly, is needed to get the code of practice right. But after twelve long months, it’s worth asking just how much time is needed to specify that men should stick to the male toilets and leave the female loos to women. It is hardly rocket science. Men and women, boys and girls, have been able to divide themselves according to sex for millennia. We haven’t all suddenly lost this capacity.