What Is a Woman?

 by John Hinderaker

Certain U.S. Supreme Court justices may be unable to answer that question, but the Supreme Court of the U.K. has concluded that a woman is–well, you know–a woman. The London Times reports:

Every organisation in Britain has been told to revisit their equality policies after the country’s highest court ruled that trans women were not legally women.

Women’s rights campaigners celebrated as the Supreme Court declared on Wednesday that the definition of a woman in the Equality Act was based on biological sex, ending years of confusion over the issue.

Campaigners said organisations that allowed biological men into women’s spaces must immediately scrap the policies or face legal action.

The court’s opinion is long–interminable, actually. It involves the interpretation of multiple statutes. This is some of the key language:

169. The only other guidance as to the meaning of these expressions is given in the general interpretation provisions in section 212(1) which provide:

“In this Act …
‘man’ means a male of any age; …
‘woman’ means a female of any age.”

170. In other words, what is made unlawful is sex discrimination against women and men; and the provision in section 212(1) ensures that boys and girls are protected against discrimination connected to their sex.

171. The definition of sex in the [Equality Act] 2010 makes clear that the concept of sex is binary, a person is either a woman or a man. Persons who share that protected characteristic for the purposes of the group-based rights and protections are persons of the same sex and provisions that refer to protection for women necessarily exclude men. Although the word “biological” does not appear in this definition, the ordinary meaning of those plain and unambiguous words corresponds with the biological characteristics that make an individual a man or a woman. These are assumed to be self-explanatory and to require no further explanation. Men and women are on the face of the definition only differentiated as a grouping by the biology they share with their group.

Across Europe, governments as well as medical institutions are retreating from the “trans” mania of a few years ago. But we Americans are a little behind the times. This morning, the U.S. government sued the State of Maine on account of Maine’s insistence on allowing boys to play in girls’ sports. The federal government alleges, I think correctly, that allowing boys to compete in girls’ sports illegally discriminates against girls under federal civil rights law.

This is a strange issue on which to fight to the death, but that apparently is what the Democratic Party has chosen to do.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/04/what-is-a-woman-3.php