Doctors have branded the Supreme Court transgender ruling as “scientifically illiterate”.
The British Medical Association’s (BMA) resident doctors – previously called junior doctors – have voted to “condemn” the judgment, which ruled that trans women were not legally women.
The doctors passed a motion at a conference on Saturday criticising the ruling as “biologically nonsensical”.
The doctors claimed a binary divide between sex and gender “has no basis in science or medicine while being actively harmful to transgender and gender-diverse people”, according to a motion seen by The Times.
The wing of BMA, which represents about 50,000 doctors in training, said it “condemns scientifically illiterate rulings from the Supreme Court, made without consulting relevant experts and stakeholders, that will cause real-world harm to the trans, non-binary and intersex communities in this country”.
The stance raises the prospect of the medical profession seeking to obstruct NHS plans to draw up new single-sex space guidance, which it is doing urgently.
It comes after the union’s decision last summer to reject and lobby against the Cass Review and to call for an end to the ban on puberty blockers for children identifying as transgender, which led to hundreds of doctors to quit in revolt.
The motion was passed on Saturday at an annual conference of the BMA’s resident doctors. The wider BMA union only adopts new policies that are voted in an annual meeting, next due to be held in June.
The Supreme Court ruling clarified what was meant by the term women in the 2010 Equality Act and means transgender women can be excluded from women-only spaces.
The BMA motion, responding to the ruling, said: “This meeting condemns the Supreme Court ruling defining the term ‘woman’ with respect to the Equality Act as being based on ‘biological sex’, which they refer to as a person who was at birth of the female sex, as reductive, trans and intersex-exclusionary and biologically nonsensical.
“We recognise as doctors that sex and gender are complex and multifaceted aspects of the human condition and attempting to impose a rigid binary has no basis in science or medicine while being actively harmful to transgender and gender diverse people.”
It added that the BMA is committed to “affirming the rights of transgender and non-binary individuals to live their lives with dignity, having their identity respected”.
‘Indoctrinated by trans activism’
Helen Joyce, the director of advocacy at Sex Matters, told The Times: “It’s terrifying that a group of young doctors, all of whom have been through several years of advanced education and training in biology, have been indoctrinated by trans activism to such an extent that they claim categorisation by sex – male and female – is ‘reductive’ and has ‘no basis in science or medicine’.
“These junior doctors are an embarrassment to their profession. What next: young geographers claiming that the Earth is flat, or junior vets who think it’s bigoted to suggest that cats can’t identify as dogs?
“The consequences of these counterfactual beliefs were visible in the case of nurse Sandie Peggie, whose male colleague Dr Beth Upton used female changing rooms, claiming that he was ‘biologically female’ and that the term biological sex is a ‘nebulous dog whistle’.
“These junior doctors wildly misunderstand the role of the Supreme Court, which interprets the law rather than creating it or reflecting public opinion. They also seem to have missed the fact that no trans rights group such as Stonewall applied to intervene.”
A BMA spokesman said: “Attendees at the BMA’s resident doctor conference voted to show their opposition to the Supreme Court ruling on Saturday. However, BMA-wide policy is set at the annual representative meeting, with the next meeting coming in June.
“The BMA respects trans patients’ dignity, autonomy, and human rights and continues to believe that trans doctors, NHS workers and patients deserve dignity, safety and equitable access to healthcare and healthcare facilities.
