The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom handed down a landmark ruling Wednesday when it decided that a woman is someone born biologically female.
Five judges ruled unanimously that the term "woman" in the U.K. Equality Act refers to a biological woman, a person born with female DNA.
The decision could limit access to women-only spaces for people who identify as transgender and set a new legal standard across the country.
And while several women's groups that supported the appeal celebrated outside the court, activists on both sides say the fight is not over.
"Everyone knows what sex is and you can't change it," said Susan Smith, co-director of "For Women Scotland," which brought the case. "It's common sense, basic common sense, and the fact that we have been down a rabbit hole where people have tried to deny science and to deny reality, and hopefully this will now see us back to reality."
The case stems from a 2018 law passed by the Scottish Parliament which stipulated that 50% of the membership of the boards of Scottish public bodies should be women. Biological men who identified as women and had gender recognition certificates were to be included in meeting the quota.
"For Women Scotland" filed a lawsuit arguing that the Scottish officials' redefinition of women went beyond Parliament's powers.
"Not tying the definition of sex to its ordinary meaning means that public boards could conceivably comprise 50% men and 50% men with certificates, yet still lawfully meet the targets for female representation," the group's director Trina Budge said previously.
The challenge was rejected by a court in 2022, but last year the group was granted permission to take the case to the U.K. Supreme Court.
Aidan O'Neill, a lawyer for FWS argued before the high court that under the Equality Act "sex" should refer to biological sex as understood "in ordinary, everyday language."
"Our position is your sex, whether you are a man or a woman or a girl or a boy, is determined from conception in utero, even before one's birth, by one's body," he said. "It is an expression of one's bodily reality. It is an immutable biological state."
The Supreme Court judges – three men and two women – sided with that definition.
"Interpreting 'sex' as certificated sex would cut across the definitions of 'man' and 'woman' ... and, thus, the protected characteristic of sex in an incoherent way," Justice Patrick Hodge said. "It would create heterogeneous groupings."
Author J.K. Rowling, who has openly criticized trans ideology, applauded the ruling saying that "in winning, they've protected the rights of women and girls across the U.K."
The British government welcomed the latest ruling, saying it would provide clarity and confidence for women.
"Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by this government," it said.
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