
A branch of resident doctors from the British Medical Association (BMA) has come out swinging against the UK Supreme Court’s recent ruling that trans women should not be legally considered women under the country’s Equality Act.
A motion passed on Saturday by the association, which consists of about 50,000 doctors, said the ruling “has no basis in science or medicine while being actively harmful to transgender and gender-diverse people.”
Related
UK leader doesn’t even know what locker room trans women should use now
“It’s a large, complex issue,” she said after the nation’s supreme court ruled that trans women aren’t women.
It also called the ruling “scientifically illiterate,” as well as “reductive, trans and intersex-exclusionary and biologically nonsensical.”
Never Miss a Beat
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today
“We recognize as doctors,” the motion continued, “that sex and gender are complex and multifaceted aspects of the human condition and attempting to impose a rigid binary has no basis in science or medicine while being actively harmful to transgender and gender diverse people.”
The motion also sought to remind the Supreme Court that intersex people are real and have a “right to exist in the gender identity that matches their sense of self, regardless of whether this matches any identity assigned to them at birth.”
The BMA’s overall stance on the matter will be determined at a June conference, The Independent reported.
The high court ruled on April 16 that the definition of sex as used in the U.K.’s Equality Act 2010 is “binary” and decided by biology. A person who was not born as a biological female cannot obtain the legal protections the Act affords to women by changing their gender with a Gender Recognition Certificate, the court ruled.
The decision means that transgender women can be excluded from “women-only” spaces and transgender men can be excluded from “men-only” spaces.
The ruling ignited protests across the country.
Recently, the U.K.’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) released interim guidance on how the public should interpret the ruling, stating that in places like hospitals, shops and restaurants, trans women and men “should not be permitted to use” the facility that aligns with their gender.
BMA is the largest doctors’ union in the United Kingdom. Last year, it voted to publicly critique the Cass Review, a wide-ranging review of Britain’s medical interventions for transgender youth that was condemned by many trans people and allies.
The review has been used to limit and restrict the ability of trans minors to receive gender-affirming care. The BMA found that the Cass Review’s findings are “unsubstantiated,” and voted to oppose the implementation of the review’s recommendations.
Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.