You can’t cancel the Supreme Court

It was notable that in the Supreme Court’s judgment on what has been termed the ‘what is a woman’ case, Lord Hodge felt it necessary to caution against it being read as a triumph of one group in our society at the expense of another.

The judgment recognises and acknowledges the existence of groups who felt they, along with their hard-won protections, were being erased.

Women are particularly sensitive to erasure, it being the essence of misogyny, and it was good to see the terms ‘women’ and ‘lesbian’ back.

‘Woman’ appeared to need added explanations that it meant you didn’t have a certificate or had a womb and ‘lesbian’ had fallen out of fashion with non-binary becoming more acceptable, even if inaccurate.

There is genuine concern that there is more pressure on young people to transition than explore their own sexuality. Iran is not the model.

Despite the insistence that being kind is so important to us these days, being kind is not what we’ve seen in this difference of opinions.

The repercussions of being on the perceived wrong side have been off the scale in the level of abuse and action taken by employers against their own employees.

The ongoing Fife Health Board employment tribunal is a case in point. We should have empathy with Sandie and Dr Upton as they have both found themselves in a situation created by our Scottish Government and guidance issued by a health board that disregarded the law.

People have been driven out of their jobs, publicly humiliated and, to use another popular term, cancelled. We can’t cancel the Supreme Court and Lord Hodge’s caution is a long overdue warning. 

Karen Condie heads the Litigation & Employment team at Holmes Mackillop