Supreme Court ruling: Build united working-class struggle for women’s and trans rights

Socialist Party Scotland executive committee statement

Five judges from the capitalist establishment – all were educated at Oxford or Cambridge universities – have used an interpretation of the Equality Act 2010 to rule that trans women are not to be defined as women. 

This will be widely seen among the trans community, and the many who have fought for trans rights, as a significant step backwards in the struggle for equality. 

The ruling will now open the door to the possible exclusion of trans women from resources they have utilised for years, including health, rape crisis and violence against women services. This can only have the effect of harming an already marginalised and highly discriminated against community.

Nor will the Court ruling will do nothing to improve the safety of women’s spaces. The biggest threat to domestic violence refuges is not trans women seeking refuge, but austerity, pursued by the Tories, Labour and the SNP, which has cut and closed refuge provision. The chronic lack of council homes forces women to stay in violent situations. 

It’s vital that there is a united working-class response to defend the rights of trans people as part of a struggle to defend all those who face oppression, including women. Therefore it is positive that a number of trade unions have released statements since the ruling that emphasises exactly those points.

Legal challenge 

The case of the For Women Scotland group versus the Scottish government goes back to 2018, when the group launched a judicial review to challenge the government’s proposal to allow trans women with gender recognition certificates to be able to be counted as women in the SNP government’s drive to have 50/50 representation on public bodies and boards. 

Attempts at positive discrimination from the top down without fighting for fundamental economic change often have divisive consequences. For Women Scotland’s legal challenge was blocked through the various stages of the Scottish judiciary until they appealed to the UK Supreme Court.

The UK Supreme Court’s judgement shows the limitations of the 2010 Equality Act. It was always likely the UK Supreme Court would interpret the case in a rigid way, influenced by the agenda of the ruling class. 

While within this legislation there are protections against discrimination of trans people, since the ruling there has been further declarations by campaigners wishing to erode further the rights of trans women. For Women Scotland also now want the removal of the gender recognition legislation that was passed into UK law in 2004. 

Supporters of the ruling by the court no doubt include genuine female activists worried about cuts to public services and attacks on women’s rights. Including those who are worried about the underfunding of women’s healthcare due to entrenched, historical bias and unequal research. This is in the wider context of the NHS and social care suffering chronic cuts and privatisation.

However, others include a number that have retreated from putting forward positions of class unity in the trade unions and a socialist analysis. They instead put forward a separatist agenda that focuses on gender-based identity politics rather than pointing the blame at capitalist parties for attacking the working class as a whole.

As is normal with UK Supreme Court cases, reflecting the class bias of the judiciary, a limited number of “interventions ” were permitted to influence the ruling. The very well funded For Women Scotland were represented as were other NGOs, but trans rights groups were not, the trade unions who organise people of all identities and genders had no input.

Hypocrisy

The ruling also marks the consequence of years of often utterly toxic debates over the rights of women versus the rights of trans people. For all the talk by right wing capitalist politicians like Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay, UK Tory leader Kemi Badenoch as well as Reform UK’s Nigel Farage, who all celebrated the outcome as a victory for women and girls, in reality they are hypocrites. 

They have no interest in the rights of women – particularly working class women – other than to utilise the issue of trans rights to deepen the divisions among the oppressed for political advantage.

It was the Tories who imposed over a decade of austerity that impacted working-class women through the slashing of public services, cuts to wages and assaults on workers’ rights. Starmer’s Labour government is carrying on where the Tories left off. The Westminster government welcomed the ruling. Yet Starmer himself originally supported making gender recognition easier but now, without any honesty about why his view has changed, has followed the right populists. 

The SNP, who claimed to defend trans rights, passed on Tory cuts to working-class communities across Scotland. This also contributed to creating the conditions for division, including on the issue of the right to self-identify and gender recognition legislation which at one time commanded majority public support. 

Reflecting pressure from the establishment and the divisions within the SNP and wider society, first minister Swinney says the Scottish government accepted the ruling. The Scottish government have no intention of revisiting the GRR issue having made it a central piece of legislation under Nicola Sturgeon’s government. 

Under their leadership, and that of the Scottish Greens, support for gender reform ebbed away as their own form of corrosive identity politics was continually used to dismiss genuine concerns of significant numbers of working class people over the issue. 

Rather than handle the debate in a sensitive manner – the leadership of the SNP and Scottish Greens indulged in accusing many of those who raised opposition to self-ID of being transphobic. At the same time as talking about giving rights to trans people the also massively underfunding the health, social and public services that the whole working class rely on – including trans people. 

It is a major mistake for those who purport to be on the left, including some supporters of Scottish independence to “wholeheartedly welcome the judgement”. Have they forgotten so easily the self-same UK Supreme Court that undemocratically ruled against the Scottish parliament’s right to hold a second independence referendum in 2023? The capitalist legal establishment are there to defend the interests of capitalism and where necessary trample over democratic rights in the process. 

This is unlikely to be the last time this element of the culture war is played out in court. Further legal cases will also come out of this ruling. There is a parallel here now with the battles in the US over similar issues. 

Socialists defend hard won legal rights and protections for the oppressed, but the capitalist court system cannot be relied on in struggles for liberation.

A united struggle 

In the wake of the judgement a socialist approach to fighting for the rights of women and trans people based on a united struggle against all forms of oppression, including against racism and LGBTQ+ rights, must be taken up. 

Trade union members must fight for their unions to not only express solidarity, but to fight the bosses for control in the workplace, education, health, and other public services, and businesses to prevent this ruling ramping up discrimination and division. They must seek to unite with organisations of service users and the wider working class. 

In reality all of the oppressed and the working class generally are under attack from the failures and deepening crisis of capitalism. 

The cost of living crisis, massive underfunding of health, housing, education and social care impact working-class women, men, trans and LGBTQ+ people without exception. 

SNP as well as Tory and Labour cuts to budgets erode the services we need. The key task socialists and trade unionists face is to unite the struggles of the working class as the strike wave of 2022/23 did.

The building of new mass workers’ party to unite all of the oppressed and fight for socialism to deliver the fundamental economic and social change we all need is essential. Struggle for full funding of council services and the NHS would ensure public services for all without waiting lists and shortages of resources. 

And the money is there. Look at the spiralling profits of big business and the engorged assets of the billionaires. If that wealth was taken for the working-class majority it would transform the lives of millions. 

Ultimately, socialism and a struggle to end the rule of capitalism would put an end to all forms of oppression, including the class exploitation that is the life-blood of this rotten capitalist system.