Women's rights group who defeated the Scottish government says it's 'unconscionable' NI women wouldn't benefit

​Marion Calder – the co-director of For Women Scotland (FWS) – says it “is unconscionable that women in one part of the UK should be at a legal disadvantage compared to their sisters in another part of the country”.

She was reacting to concerns that the judgement – which said that sex under the GB equality act means biological sex – would not fully apply to Northern Ireland because of EU rights provisions under the post-Brexit deal. Her comments come as Sex Matters – another group which campaigns on women’s rights – says that the principle behind the ruling also applies to the relevant legislation in Northern Ireland. The judgement said that “there is no doubt” that references to man and woman in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 “were references to biological sex”.

Maya Forstater, Executive Director of Sex Matters, said: “Just as King Canute recognised that he didn’t have the power to command the tides, the Supreme Court has recognised that no government has the power to legislate humans out of being mammals who come in two immutable sexes”.

She said that although the Supreme Court’s judgment concerned only the Equality Act in GB, it said that the effect of the Gender Recognition Act on the many other statutes that refer to men and women must be carefully considered.

“We are confident that this exercise would result in the same conclusion as in the Supreme Court judgment, when carried out in respect of the meaning of ‘sex’ in relation to the Sex Discrimination (NI) Order 1976.

“Equality between women and men remains a fundamental principle under Article 2 and Article 3(2) of the EC Treaty and in the case law of the Court of Justice. Neither judges in Strasbourg or bureaucrats in Brussels have the power to hold back the tides or to decree that human beings aren’t mammals”.

Stormont’s finance department said it will consider the implications of the ruling “in terms of gender recognition”.