https://thecritic.co.uk/john-swinneys-isla-bryson-moment/

Next week, the highest court in the land will hear arguments that show that, far from leaving a legacy of clear legislation, MPs who voted for the Equality Act 2010 left unfinished business when it comes to one of its key definitions: what is a woman?

If — somehow — you are only dimly aware of the long-running political and cultural argument about the definition of a woman, you may wonder why the Supreme Court is wasting its time on such an obvious question. Surely, a woman is an adult human female? But, according to a horde of academics, senior politicians, countless celebrities and even some medics, you would be wrong. A woman, as defined by the proponents of gender identity theory, is anyone who says they are one, regardless of their biology.

Under Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish Government went to court to defend this identity-based interpretation, in the context of the Equality Act 2010. First it won; then, on appeal, it lost. But the Scottish courts left open that a man who has obtained a gender recognition certificate (GRC) is a woman under that Act, as if he had been born female. This is why next Tuesday and Wednesday, five Supreme Court judges led by Lord Reed will consider a question brought by campaign group For Women Scotland: “Is a person with a full gender recognition certificate which recognises that their gender is female a ‘woman’ for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010?”

We are approaching what is arguably the end game in the battle between material reality and gender identity theory. If the Supreme Court upholds Lady Haldane’s 2022 ruling that “the meaning of sex for the purposes of the 2010 [Equality] Act, ‘sex’ is not limited to biological or birth sex, but includes those in possession of a GRC obtained in accordance with the 2004 Act stating their acquired gender, and thus their sex”, then Britain’s sex wars will rage on until politicians at Westminster are willing to confront the tangled legacy of earlier legislation.