Victoria McCloud (Screen capture via UK Judiciary/YouTube)
The first transgender judge in the U.K. is challenging her country’s Supreme Court ruling that says the legal definition of a woman is limited to “biological women” and does not include trans women.
The Guardian on Aug. 18 reported Victoria McCloud, who left the bench in 2024, has challenged the Supreme Court’s April decision in the European Court of Human Rights. (The U.K. officially left the European Union in 2020, but the country remains a member of the European Convention on Human Rights.)
The Equality Act that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity took effect in 2010.
Scottish MPs in 2018 passed a bill that sought to increase the number of women on government boards.
The Supreme Court ruling notes For Women Scotland — a “feminist voluntary organization which campaigns to strengthen women’s rights and children’s rights in Scotland” — challenged the Scottish government’s decision to include trans women with a Gender Recognition Certificate in its definition of women when it implemented the quota. The decision sparked outrage among trans activists and their allies.
“The court reversed my and 8,500 other people’s sex for the whole of equality law,” McCloud told the Guardian. “We are now two sexes at once.”
The Guardian reported For Women Scotland is suing the Scottish government on grounds it has refused to abide by the Supreme Court decision.
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