Thread by @boswelltoday

THREAD: How the Peggie Tribunal Neutralised the For Women Scotland Judgment

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The most revealing part of the Peggie judgment is how the Tribunal handled the @ForWomenScot Supreme Court ruling. If you want to understand the institutional resistance women are facing, you start here.

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The Tribunal accepts the core holding of FWS without hesitation:
👌“Woman” in the Equality Act means biological female
👌“Biological sex” means sex as recorded at birth
This applies wherever the Act uses those terms
👌They repeat this plainly. No ambiguity. FWS is binding. ✔️

3/
So far, so sane.
But then comes the manoeuvre.
The Tribunal walls off FWS by declaring that it belongs only to Part 3 of the Equality Act (services), while Peggie’s case falls under Part 5 (employment).
The two parts, the Tribunal insists, are “mutually exclusive.”

4/
This single move allows them to say the quiet part out loud:
FWS tells us what the word woman means…
but does not compel employers to maintain single-sex changing rooms.
Because Parliament “did not specifically legislate” for workplace facilities.

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This is astonishing.
The Supreme Court clarifies the definition of sex precisely because it matters across the Act.
Yet the Tribunal behaves as if the definition evaporates when a woman is undressing at work.

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The claimant – and For Women Scotland as an intervener – argued the obvious:
If the EA2010 defines “woman” as biologically female, then granting a male employee access to a female-only changing room is inherently unlawful.
The Tribunal dismisses this outright.

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They acknowledge the argument, quote it, and then reject it with one sentence:
The claimant’s interpretation of FWS “was not correct.”
No detailed reasoning.
Just a refusal to apply the Supreme Court’s logic in the one context where it matters most.

8/
Instead, the Tribunal decides FWS is relevant only to Peggie’s perception:
🔴 Why she felt violated
🔴 Why her reaction was reasonable
🔴 Why her dignity was impacted
So FWS becomes a psychological explanation, not a legal safeguard.

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This is how the judgment reaches its bizarre split:
Harassment? Yes.
A male body in a female changing room violated her dignity.
Discrimination? No.
Because FWS apparently has nothing to say about employer obligations in a workplace.

10/
To recap the intellectual gymnastics:
– The Supreme Court defines woman = female
– Peggie is female
– The doctor is male
– Peggie objects
– The employer keeps the arrangement
– Her dignity is violated
– Yet the Tribunal says the employer acted lawfully on sex

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And just to complete the circle, the Tribunal rejects FWS’s own submission as an intervener:
They explicitly state that FWS’s interpretation “did not inevitably lead to a finding for the claimant.”

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Institutions aren’t confused.
They are resisting.
FWS settled the definition of woman.
The Peggie Tribunal’s treatment of it shows that some bodies will contort themselves endlessly rather than implement it.

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But here’s the irony:
By accepting FWS’s definition of woman and accepting Peggie’s reaction as reasonable, the Tribunal has set the stage for the next case to go further.
The ground is shifting.
They just couldn’t bring themselves to move with it.
End.