UK Supreme Court gender ruling is huge victory for women dismissed as 'bigots' by Sturgeon – Susan Dalgety

Surrounded by a crowd of excited women in a secret Edinburgh location, Trina Budge was almost invisible behind an exuberant bouquet of flowers in the Suffragette colours of purple, green and white.

“I am so relieved and so pleased by the Supreme Court judgment,” she said. As one of the three directors of For Women Scotland, the grassroots campaign group who took their argument all the way to the UK’s highest court, she had every reason to be happy. The judgment handed down this morning by Lord Hodge on behalf of the Supreme Court judges was unequivocal.

“The central question of this appeal is the meaning of the terms women and sex in the Equality Act 2010. Do these terms refer to biological women or biological woman to be interpreted as extending to a trans woman with a gender recognition certificate…” started Lord Hodge. As he continued, a hundred women held their breath.

“The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms ‘women’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman…”

READ MORE: Supreme Court UK ruling on definition of woman branded 'abject humiliation for the SNP'

Members of campaign group For Women Scotland which brought a case to the UK Supreme Court over whether trans women could be regarded as female for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act (Picture: Lucy North) | PA

Sex is not a choice

The room erupted in cheers, as if Scotland had just won the World Cup quipped campaigner Annemarie Ward later. But amid the cheers were tears, lots of tears. Women, ordinary women like Trina, Susan Smith and Marion Calder of For Women Scotland, had sacrificed the last eight years of their lives – and often their families’ – to prove, once and for all, that sex is immutable, that being female is not a choice, or an identity, but a biological fact.

Women lost their livelihoods, some were even hounded by former colleagues for their views. They were insulted as “bigots” by the most powerful woman in the country at the time, Nicola Sturgeon. Some, like author J K Rowling and former SNP minister Ash Regan risked their reputations defending what turned out to be a legal, as well as biological, fact.

READ MORE: The key points from UK Supreme Court ruling on gender 'definition of a woman' For Women Scotland case

Others, like charity worker Roz Adams and nurse Sandie Peggie found themselves in employment tribunals, fighting for their right to speak the truth. But still they kept going.

The Supreme Court’s ruling will have significant implications for public policy in Scotland, and across the rest of the UK. The SNP government has long argued that sex can be changed as easily as completing a form.

READ MORE: Supreme Court sex definition will have huge impact and could revive SNP's gender reforms

UK veto of gender bill vindicated

Its ill-fated Gender Recognition Reform bill was an attempt to embed self ID in law, until the then Scottish Secretary Alister Jack vetoed it because of its likely impact on the Equality Act. Jack’s decision was vindicated today by the Supreme Court.

But before the work begins to strip out identity ideology from public bodies such as the Scottish Prison Service and the NHS, today belongs to Scotland’s army of determined women who refused to stay silent while cowardly politicians, public sector leaders and charities tried to persuade the world that men can be women if they say they are.

READ MORE: Joanna Cherry: Nicola Sturgeon owes women an apology following Supreme Court ruling

Today belongs to the women who hung purple, green and white ribbons from trees, sewed banners, learned – and understood – the finer points of equality legislation, lobbied politicians, marched, organised.

Women who were so determined that they would not sacrifice the rights won by the Suffragettes or the second wave feminists of the 1970s that they were prepared to sacrifice everything. Today belongs to the women who wouldn’t wheesht.