SARAH VINE: Labour's breathtaking mendacity after trans ruling (2025)

This week's Supreme Court ruling on the legal definition of a woman is the perfect opportunity to stop and take stock of the mad culture war that has been raging around this issue for the past decade or so.

In the battle of Trans v Terfs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists), it would appear for now, at least that the Terfs have scored a definitive victory. The judges have ruled that when the term 'woman' is used in the context of the 2010 Equality Act, it means a biological woman, and that 'sex' denotes biological sex.

This means that biological males – including physically intact ones – who 'identify' as female can no longer claim automatic entry to women-only spaces such as changing rooms, toilets and prisons. It also means that they cannot now participate in women's sports, something that many (including myself) have long argued gives them an unfair physical advantage.

Needless to say, this has prompted outrage, especially on social media, from LGBTQ-etc campaigners, who see it as a blow to their rights by a reactionary and bigoted judiciary and by a group of hardline Terfs who want to deny them their right to exist. This is not the case.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with being a trans woman. Or, for that matter a trans man, though this ruling will mainly affect trans women since trans men don't statistically pose a threat to biological males, whereas the same has not proven true of trans women.

Trans people – or those who feel themselves to be a different gender from their biological sex – have a history stretching back centuries and spanning many cultures. They are a small but steadfast minority, often vulnerable to the judgement of the mainstream. The vast majority pose no threat to anyone, and just want to get on with their lives like the rest of us.

One thinks of the late author and travel writer Jan Morris, the Olympian Caitlyn Jenner – even Armistead Maupin's wonderful fictional character, Anna Madrigal. All authentic, complex characters whose desire to live as women has no bearing on the dignity, safety and rights of biological females.

Trans women like these have always been welcome alongside biological women as far as I'm concerned, provided everyone concerned is comfortable with it. I, certainly, have never felt threatened by any of the trans ladies I occasionally sit next to or share a bathroom with at my hairdresser, who specialises in hair loss (a problem I share with many trans women).

But this week's ruling has not been made necessary by these sorts of trans women. Instead, it is the result of the actions and aggressions of a different type of trans woman: those who claim to live as women but who in reality act like the worst kind of male bully, imposing their bodies and their sex on females. Who merely wear the mask of womanhood, not necessarily because that is who they want to be but because it suits their purpose, which has been shown, on occasion, to be criminal.

Some seem to delight in imposing their maleness on women in women-only spaces, others are clearly there for voyeuristic purposes.

It is neither the fault of trans women nor biological women that these people exist. But exist they do, and in recent years, as being trans has become a cause celebre, they have been able to take advantage. Biological women – always the first to bear the brunt of society's ills – have found their hard-won rights being whittled away and handed to a group of people – many of them, as I say, not truly trans women at all – who don't respect theirs.

There are countless examples of this. We simply cannot have a situation where a man accused of multiple rapes (Adam Graham) dons a wig and declares himself a woman (Isla Bryson) while awaiting trial and is indulged by the court, even serving part of his sentence in a women's prison.

Nor is it acceptable to have mediocre male athletes who possess all the inherent physical advantages of an adult male – superior strength and stamina – re-invent themselves as females to win women's medals.

Nor is it OK that women should have their jobs and livelihoods threatened – such as the nurse Sandie Peggie, suspended for refusing to share a room with a trans-identifying male doctor, or the eight Darlington nurses uncomfortable about sharing their changing room with a male-bodied colleague.

Women need private safe spaces in a way that men don't – because, simply, a man is far more likely to physically harm or take advantage of a woman than the other way round. Even if the male-bodied individuals involved have no bad intentions, some women just find that masculine energy oppressive and intimidating.

And with good reason. More than nine out of ten female murder victims are killed by men; and a woman is killed every three days by a man in the UK. Everywhere you look in the world, men are harming women. We are not making this up.

It's because of these men that women needed this Supreme Court ruling. Malicious individuals and all those who, for whatever reason – tribal politics, moral weakness, cowardice, laziness, deep-seated misogyny – have put the rights of male-bodied trans women above those of biological women.

It's these rogue elements who have pushed our patience, kindness and tolerance to its limits and left us biological women – as defined by the highest court in the land – with no choice but to defend ourselves.

True trans women understand this, or at least they ought to. For what else is a trans woman but a male who has rejected masculinity and embraced her feminine side? Like biological women, trans women often face daily prejudice, and are frequent victims of male violence – including or even especially sexual violence. And yet somehow the one-dimensional dogma of trans ideology – trans women ARE women, and anyone who questions that is evil – has pitted them against their sisters – when in fact all women, trans and biological, should be united against the same adversary.

Put bluntly, you can't identify as a woman and be on the side of opportunistic male abusers. And yet that's all too often the case. Trans women will defend all biological males seeking to enter women's spaces – even when it's patently obvious that they're fakes. And it's in part this stubborn intransigence that has led us to this point – and now they stand to lose out.

Many trans celebrities – such as Married at First Sight star Ella Morgan, Ant Lexa from Sex Education and Bel Priestley, who has 1.4million followers on social media – have spoken out furiously against this ruling. Their anger is perfectly understandable. If I were in their position, I too would be upset.

But they're directing their rage at the wrong people. It's not the judges, JK Rowling or the campaigners from For Women Scotland (who took their case to the Supreme Court) who are the real enemy here. It's the zealots on their own side and the lazy, opportunistic politicians, institutions and commentators who allowed this to happen, who overstepped all reasonable and safe boundaries in a pathetic and cowardly attempt to paint themselves as 'progressive'.

Instead of pushing back when they should have done, and advocating for a more flexible, common-sense approach, these guilty parties doubled down on the side of the hardliners. In Scotland particularly, where the now-discredited Nicola Sturgeon was in thrall to this toxic ideology, women were left with very little choice but to fight back. If not for themselves, then for their daughters.

With this ruling, these knee-benders find themselves in a right old pickle. Labour's whole stance on women's rights seems to have descended into farce, with ministers seemingly unable to compute the result.

Health minister Karin Smyth struggled to clarify which changing room trans women should now use, saying only that it 'was important that a trans man or a trans woman also has dignity in their use of public spaces'.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves avoided giving a straightforward answer to the question of whether the Prime Minister should apologise to MP Rosie Duffield, who was hounded out of the party for her gender-critical views.

Meanwhile Steve North, president of the Unison union (which bankrolled Labour to the tune of more than £4million last year) said: 'I want to restate my solidarity with our trans members. This judgment does not change Unison policy in support of trans rights.'

So: denial, then, and plenty of it. In the same way that Labour refuses to instigate a national inquiry into the paedophile Pakistani rape gangs who destroyed the lives of thousands of young girls and their families in Labour-run councils, now they refuse to accept a Supreme Court ruling that will ensure the safety of similarly vulnerable women against similarly opportunistic and predatory men.

That is Labour for you. That is the woke Left, which cares only about people-pleasing, and not about what's right or wrong.

David Lammy saying that 'a man can grow a cervix' and our Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, saying that some women have penises: they are as much a part of the problem as biological males who cheat female athletes out of their achievements, or insert themselves into women's spaces for all the wrong reasons.

The sheer mendacity of Labour in the wake of this ruling is breathtaking. Rather than accept they made mistakes, they are trying to gaslight us all – when what they should really do is apologise, not just to women but to all those who have, like Duffield, been defenestrated for daring to speak out.

Women like Maggie Oliver – the whistleblowing former detective with Greater Manchester Police now leading the charge for a rape-gang inquiry – together with Trina Budge, Susan Smith and Marion Calder, directors of For Women Scotland, are cut from the same cloth. They are not afraid to make the difficult, unfashionable argument, they will not make excuses for bad people just because they happen to be minorities.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, too, belongs in that category. She has advocated for protecting women's spaces long before it became semi-acceptable to do so.

But it doesn't end here. There is one final frontier in the fightback against this dogma, and it affects both sexes. That is the scandal of children and young people being coerced into permanently altering their bodies via drugs or

surgery by zealots posing as medical professionals.

Gender ideology is rife in schools. Kids are not being made aware – nor equipped to understand – the long-term repercussions of the choices they are being guided towards making. They don't understand that transitioning is a serious, life-long commitment that requires permanent medication and may well lead to serious complications, from permanent infertility to weakened bones and cancer.

They find themselves unhappy or confused about life, and instead of being encouraged to explore their emotions, they are being told that the problem lies in the very essence of who they are.

The Cass review into gender services for children and young people in Britain has already led to an indefinite ban on the sale and supply of puberty blockers via private prescription in the UK – but even the most cursory glance at social media will reveal how far the rot has already spread. And this time it's not just about protecting women, it's about protecting the next generation.

That, sadly, is a battle that has yet to be won.