Christa Tobler, professor of European law, attended and spoke on the implications of UK Supreme Court's ruling for EU non-discrimination law in the case For Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v The Scottish Ministers (Respondent) in London.
In this judgment, the Supreme Court held that the term 'sex' in the UK Equal Treatment Act refers to a person's biological sex at the time of birth, to the exclusion of the sex acquired by transsexual persons through gender recognition. European law is referred to only a very limited manner. The lengthy judgment (87 pages) raises numerous questions.
In relation to EU law, one of these questions is whether EU non-discrimination law is based on a binary understanding of the concept of sex, and what role indirect sex discrimination could play for transsexual persons under the Supreme Court's narrow understanding of sex.
In 2012, Christa Tobler co-authored a report on the position of, among others, transsexual persons under EU non-discrimination law under the then existing case law of the European Court of Justice. For the European Equality Law Network, Tobler also wrote two reports on indirect discrimination, the 2008 report and the 2022 report.
The event was organised by Jule Mulder and Peter Dunne (University of Bristol) and held at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London.
