4 days Ago By Noa Hoffman
A BUNGLING Health Minister today could not answer which changing rooms a trans person should use. Confused Karin Smyth also struggled to determine whether trans people should be treated the same as women in hospitals. AlamyHealth Minister Karin Smyth struggled to answer how the NHS should tackle the Supreme Court ruling[/caption]AlamySusan Smith and Marion Calder, directors of For Women Scotland group, celebrate outside The Supreme Court in London yesterday after judges ruled that a woman refers to biological sex[/caption]RexLegal experts say all organisations must follow the landmark judgement[/caption]It comes a day after the Supreme Court ruled that trans women are NOT women.
In a landmark judgement it was unanimously determined that “sex is binary” and female-only spaces must be protected on the basis of biology.Asked about the ruling’s impact on previous NHS guidance, which stated trans people should be accommodated according to their legally recognised gender, Ms Smyth told the BBC: “If I remember, the guidance you’re alluding to is an appendix to some previous guidance, and one of the issues, as I said earlier, that we are already looking at with the NHS is how they make sure that trans people are treated with privacy and dignity.“But the ruling is very clear that sex means biological sex, and.
.. the NHS will obviously be complying with that as every other public body will.
”READ MORE POLITICSJULIE BINDELI spent 20 years fighting to prove trans women aren't women - today, we wonCOMMON SENSETrans women AREN'T women as JK Rowling & Kemi hail 'victory for truth'Quizzed separately on whether trans women should use female changing rooms, Ms Smyth told Times Radio: “Look I think we need to make sure that in this discussion we are following both the law so that is clear for women and for service providers and you know...
this varies upon what the provision of those service providers are. “Large organisations, smaller organisations, many smaller organisations.”After multiple attempts at answering what the ruling means for the NHS, Ms Smyth told LBC: “If people do go to hospital, if they are on a ward, should be in a single sex space.
”Britain’s equality watchdog is rushing to rewrite its rulebook after the court ruling shook up the law on sex and gender.The Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says it’ll urgently update its guidance — as ministers face mounting pressure to spell out what the verdict means for schools, hospitals and workplaces.Baroness Falkner, who chairs the EHRC, said the impact of the ruling “cannot be overstated” and vowed a rapid review of the watchdog’s advice to reflect the fresh legal clarity.
Sir Keir Starmer slammed by campaigners SIR Keir Starmer was yesterday slammed by campaigners and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch for spending years refusing to define a woman.The PM — who welcomed the Supreme Court judgment — was accused of hypocrisy for previously tying himself in knots over the issue.In 2022 he declared: “Trans women are women.
”The following year he tweaked his position to say a woman is an “adult female”.And in 2024 Sir Keir, drew ridicule for insisting 99.9 per cent of women “don’t have a penis” — meaning one in every thousand do.
Ms Badenoch blasted: “The era of Keir Starmer telling us some women have penises has come to an end. Hallelujah!”Ex-Labour MP Rosie Duffield, now sitting as an independent, joked she wanted to buy him an “I told you so” T-shirt.She added: “But I would need a different one for every moment of every day.
”A Labour source blamed ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn for the party’s disarray.The source said: “This just shows why it was so important that Keir hauled the Labour Party back to the commonsense position the public take on these sorts of issues.“He gradually moved the party from one that took the activist position to a serious, sensible one that protected women’s spaces while allowing for respectful debate.
“It’s one of the reasons the country felt Labour was safe to elect just a few years after the disaster of 2019.”Despite the defiant statement it took only a few hours for Sir Keir’s wokest MPs to hit out at the decision.Following yesterday’s judgement, a top legal expert declared places reserved for women must shut out all blokes — including trans women.
Naomi Cunningham, barrister and chair of campaign group Sex Matters, said: “It is now clear that in any situation in which it is lawful to operate a single-sex or separate-sex service for women, it is not merely lawful but compulsory to exclude all men.“And ‘men’ for these purposes includes trans women, whether or not they hold gender recognition certificates (GRCs). “The same is true in reverse of single-sex or separate-sex services for men.
”Bev Jackson, co-founder of LGB Alliance, said the decision wipes out “any semblance” of doubt about whether males can join women’s spaces.She said: “The legal definition of ‘woman’ is clear now. This means that any club, association or other group of any size — for example, a lesbian social club — can now legally operate on a single-sex basis.
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