The uncertain future of the Equality Act

Sir Keir Starmer’s interpretation of the Equality Act has caused something of a stir. The Labour leader cited the Brown-era legislation to support his assertion that ‘trans women are women’ and that this ‘happens to be the law in the United Kingdom’. This reading of the Act has drawn criticism from gender-critical feminists, including the trans writer Debbie Hayton, who states:

If Keir Starmer thinks that I am a woman, I am delighted to tell him the truth. Transwomen (like me) are male, while women (like my wife) are female. Biology does not lie, male is not female, and therefore transwomen are not women.

For all my many other sins, I am not a lawyer. When I read the Equality Act, as a layman, it seems clear that its two relevant protected characteristics are ‘gender reassignment’ and ‘sex’. ‘A transsexual person’, for the purposes of the Act, is ‘a person who has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment’, while the characteristic