Mick Hartley

A good editorial in the Times:

After years of argument, ideological extremism and an outbreak of collective insanity across the public sector and in corporate boardrooms, the Supreme Court has finally proclaimed that a woman is an adult human female, and references to “sex” and “women” in the Equality Act refer to biological sex and biological women. The judgment, which the loudest and most unpleasant voices in this long-running campaign of misinformation against British feminists insisted would never come, was unanimous. All five justices agreed what millions of people know instinctively to be true: that biological sex, not the expression of a subjective gender identity, is the only meaningful qualification to womanhood.

Such an elementary truth should never have been contested before the highest court. That it was — in a bitter dispute between the self-styled progressives of Scotland’s nationalist government and the women who dared to defy them — is testament to a political and cultural establishment that lost touch with reality. It was always absurd that the SNP, much of the Labour Party, prominent Conservatives and countless public bodies and universities insisted that men were able to simply speak themselves into female-only spaces, some of which women fought for years to establish….

Hopefully, the ruling will bring an end to this bizarre culture war. Now is not the time for triumphalism or gloating but consensus around two truths: that trans people have the right to live their lives in dignity and that women’s rights are sacrosanct also. To that end ministers must now amend the Gender Recognition Act of 2004 which only perpetuates the misconception that a piece of paper can alter the facts of life. Public institutions and universities must now be held to account if they ignore the law. Women should never have had to fight this battle in defence of scientific truth. But at least it is now won. Sanity is restored.

The battle's not over, of course. Trans ideologues, notably the men claiming to be women, have been and will continue to be notably aggressive in their demands. At bottom, after all, this has always been an angry men's movement fuelled by misogyny. They're not about to shut up just yet.