No 'pause' needed after gender court ruling, says UN official
Special rapporteur questions delay following Supreme Court ruling
A leading United Nations official has warned Scottish ministers that there is no need for them to “put on hold” plans responding to the landmark Supreme Court gender ruling, with no "ambiguity” surrounding what the UK’s highest court said.
Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, said there should be no “pause” in action taken by the Scottish Government to ensure the sex-based rights of women are upheld in the wake of the seminal ruling, which stated that ‘sex’ should be legally interpreted as referring to either a biological man or woman.
The ruling in April has wide-ranging implications for public bodies, service providers, and businesses across the country, and the Scottish Government has said that work is ongoing in order to provide them with “detailed guidance.” An Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) consultation on the guidance closed at the beginning of this month.
But amid ongoing questions over the lack of any new guidance, policies, and legislation following the judgement, Ms Alsalem said it was time for the Scottish Government to “actually get on with it and do it.”
‘There is a lot that can and should be implemented’
In an interview with the Sunday Times, the key figure at the UN agency said : “I do not think we should pause or put on hold any action awaiting this guidance, and I don’t think the Supreme Court said that either.”
She added: “While it is good you will have guidance, I do agree with those who say that there is a lot that can and should be implemented. It is not that there is ambiguity about all aspects of what the Supreme Court says.”
In calling for the Scottish government to act, Ms Alsalem said: “If businesses and state-affiliated institutions and government entities recognise that this is the right thing to do, and now this has also been said clearly by the Supreme Court, they actually get on with it and do it.”
It goes against ‘law of the land’
Ms Alsalem also claimed that some organisations had “punished” those who stood up for their sex-based rights. Referring specifically to Sandie Peggie, the nurse at the centre of an employment tribunal against NHS Fife, she said that public bodies that failed to support a woman’s right to single-sex spaces were falling foul of legislation.
She said of the case: “Particularly since the Supreme Court ruling, punishing women because they indicate their support for their sex-based right at work seems to me to be very problematic and goes against what is now the law of the land.”
Ms Peggie was suspended after complaining about sharing a changing room with a transgender doctor. She claims her treatment by the health board was unlawful under the Equalities Act. The tribunal, which began in February, is due to resume later this week.
Ms Alsalem also said it was of importance that Police Scotland clarified its approach to data collection and ended its practice of conflating biological sex with gender identity.
“The conflation of sex and gender data, in particular prioritising self-identified gender, erases biological sex records, distorting the male-driven nature of violence against women and girls and hindering root-cause analysis,” she said. “This approach undermines crime statistics and policy effectiveness in relation to violence against women and girls.”
She also backed proposed legislation to criminalise buying sex and said that Scotland should outlaw child marriage.
‘Farcical’ delay in implementing ruling
For Women Scotland, the gender-critical campaign group which brought a case against the Scottish Government arguing that sex-based protections should only apply to people that are born female, leading to April’s Supreme Court judgement, shared Ms Alsalem’s remarks on social media, and thanked her for her views.
Responding to Ms Alsalem’s comments, Tess White, the Scottish Conservative shadow equalities minister, said: “Almost three months to the day since the verdict, John Swinney is still determined to trample on the safety and rights of women. UN officials have rightly criticised his shameful handling of this and the SNP’s farcical delay in implementing the court ruling.
“The Supreme Court was crystal clear, and so was the EHRC’s guidance in the wake of it, so there is no excuse for the SNP failing to comply fully with the law now. The SNP government must stop dragging its heels, apologise for their dangerous gender legislation and do the right thing by protecting the rights of women and girls.”
It is not the first time Ms Alsalem has intervened in the Scottish Government’s stance around gender and sex-based rights. In 2022, she warned that the planned gender recognition reforms brought in by then first minister Nicola Sturgeon posed risks to the safety of women.
Work ‘ongoing’ around guidance
In a damning critique of the legislation, she said the government had not provided for any safeguarding measures so as to ensure that it could not be “abused by sexual predators and other perpetrators of violence.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Government said it had made it “clear” that it accepted the Supreme Court’s findings and that “detailed work” was “ongoing” in order to draft guidance.
He said: “We have already updated our guidance for the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 and are amending the recruitment process for appointments to regulated public bodies. In addition, Police Scotland has published interim guidance on searching of transgender people.”
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