Sturgeon: Law may need to change after Supreme Court ruling

The Herald Scotland

6 days ago

Her intervention comes weeks after she told reporters in Holyrood that the lives of transgender people are at risk of being made 'unliveable' in the aftermath of the judgment.
Ms Sturgeon was speaking at the How the Light Gets In festival in Hay-on-Wye yesterday and cited comments made last week by Baroness Hale of Richmond, the first female president of the Supreme Court, who said the April judgment had been 'misinterpreted'.
Ms Sturgeon ​i​nsisted the Supreme Court judgment in April had said 'what the law is, there is no gainsaying that'.
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But she added that it was for politicians to 'decide what the law should be or has to be'.
'That judgment, I think, has been massively overinterpreted in terms of some of the immediate reactions to it," she said.
'But if it is the case that the judgment means we have to move to a situation where trans lives are almost impossible to live then I'm sorry but the law has to change because that is not an acceptable way to be.'
Since the judgment the Equality and Human Rights Commission has published an interim update on what it means for the operation of single-sex spaces.
It states that in places like hospitals, shops and restaurants, trans women should not be permitted to use women's facilities.
The Scottish Parliament earlier this month banned trans gender people from using toilets in their acquired gender in the building.
Trans people and their supporters hit back saying many fear using toilets of their birth sex.
Dylan Hamilton, a trans man who works at Holyrood as an MSP staffer, said the policy would impact him, calling the rule change 'a personal attack on my dignity that I will have to experience every day'.
Speaking to journalists in Holyrood for the first time about the landmark court ruling earlier this month Ms Sturgeon raised concerns about interim guidance issued by the EHRC.
The former First Minister said it was not inevitable that the judgment would make the lives of transgender people 'impossibly difficult', but there was a danger that certain interpretations could put transgender rights at risk.
'If that is the case, then yes, it would be my view that the law as it stands needs to be looked at,' she told reporters at the Scottish Parliament.
Ms Sturgeon has been one of the UK most prominent supporters of transgender rights, with her Scottish Government having introduced gender recognition reforms that would have made it easier for Scots to change their legally recognised sex.
The reforms were ultimately blocked by the former UK Government.
The Supreme Court judgment in April, which ruled that sex is defined by biological sex under equality law, followed years of legal wranglings and had effectively been fought for by the campaign group, For Women Scotland.
Ms Sturgeon's views on the impact the court ruling's interpretation on the trans gender community have been echoed by the Scottish Government.
Social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said fears trans people feel around using single-sex spaces have been "aggravated" by the EHRC interim guidance.
Ms Sturgeon's comments were criticised by ​Susan Smith of For Women Scotland, who secured the victory in the Supreme Court against the Scottish government​.
'It would be quite ironic, although not unexpected, if the first female First Minister was resolutely sticking to the notion that biological sex is some nebulous concept​,' she told The Times.
"There has indeed been a great deal of misrepresentation of the Supreme Court ruling, but the most egregious has come from trans activists who have spun the most outrageous interpretations."
Dr Lucy Hunter, of Murray Blackburn Mackenzie​, a policy analysis group which supported the For Women Scotland Supreme Court challenge,​ told The Times the 'reasoning and conclusions of the Supreme Court are easy to follow'.
'Organisations faced with undoing the effect of years of poor advice would do best to follow the example of the Scottish parliament, and take steps straightaway to comply with the law,' Ms Hunter said.
'They need to read the judgment, obtain their own legal advice and ignore the former First Minister, whose contributions on this subject remain as unhelpful as ever.'
Ms Sturgeon, whose memoir Frankly is due to be released this August, also spoke about the way she had been treated as a woman in politics​.