Sturgeon Warns Transgender Lives Risk Becoming ‘Unliveable’ After Supreme Court Ruling
Nicola Sturgeon has warned that the lives of transgender people in the UK risk becoming “unliveable” in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling on the legal definition of a woman—her first public response to the judgment, which stemmed from legislation passed under her leadership in the Scottish Parliament.
The UK Supreme Court ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer solely to biological women and biological sex. The case was brought by gender-critical campaign group For Women Scotland, who challenged a law passed at Holyrood intended to boost women’s representation on public boards, arguing it should not include transgender women.
While Sturgeon accepted that the ruling now represents the law of the land, she voiced serious concern about interim guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which she said could amount to a blanket ban on transgender people accessing toilets and services aligned with their gender identity.
“The key question now is how this is implemented,” she said. “Can it be done in a way that protects women while still allowing trans people to live their lives with dignity, safety, and acceptance? I’d be very concerned if the interim guidance becomes final, because that could make trans people’s lives almost unliveable. And it certainly doesn’t make women any safer—violence against women comes from predatory men, not from trans people.”
Sturgeon, the former SNP leader and First Minister, emphasized that the judgment doesn’t have to make life impossibly difficult for trans people, but warned that certain interpretations could endanger trans rights. “If that’s the case, then yes, I believe the current law needs to be reconsidered,” she told reporters at Holyrood.
The ruling has been celebrated by gender-critical activists and has caused widespread concern within the transgender community. Many campaigners and media voices had called on Sturgeon to address the decision directly.
A long-time advocate for transgender rights, Sturgeon spent the final years of her premiership navigating a deeply polarised and often toxic debate over her government’s gender recognition reforms, passed in late 2022. The bill, backed by multiple parties, aimed to simplify the legal process of gender recognition and extended self-identification rights to 16- and 17-year-olds. However, it was blocked by Rishi Sunak’s UK government, which argued it conflicted with the UK-wide Equality Act.
After the veto, Sturgeon criticised opponents of the bill for using women’s rights as a cover for transphobia. On The News Agents podcast, she said some critics were “deeply misogynist, often homophobic, and possibly racist.”
Despite renewed criticism in the wake of the court ruling, Sturgeon rejected calls to apologise. “I fundamentally, and respectfully, disagree,” she said. “There are different views on this—I’ve always acknowledged that—but respect must go both ways. It’s wrong for any individual or group to claim their view is the only one that matters.”
