So this is how a clock turns backwards. With the hands still spinning even now, it’s hard to know yet exactly how far back in time we will land. But Wednesday’s supreme court ruling that for the purposes of equality law, “woman” means “biological woman” – basically the chromosomes you were born with, regardless of what legal hoops you have since jumped through – is nonetheless a watershed moment.
We are going back to a time before “trans women are women”, full stop, no debate: and if it’s handled well, accepting that sometimes life genuinely is more complicated than that could ultimately be healthy. But if handled badly, we could be heading back to a far darker time, when trans existence was shrouded in fear and shame and bigots had carte blanche.
