And from the Republic of Ireland we have David Cullinane TD, Sinn Fein’s health spokesperson in the Republic apologising after initially welcoming the UK Supreme Court ruling. archive.ph/sbvLP
At Stormont, DUP MP Carla Lockhart declared it “a victory for common sense”.
TUV MLA Timothy Gaston said "The funding of Stonewall – which receives public money both via the Sinn Fein-led Department of Finance and the Sinn Fein and DUP-led Executive Office – must cease.
Policy documents such as the Inclusive Language Guide which was produced by the Finance Department and seeks to discourage the use of words such as mother, wife and girlfriend must be withdrawn."
UUP’s justice spokesman Doug Beattie MLA said the ruling “raises several questions” for Northern Ireland – such as, for example, “does it mean that women held in a woman’s prison can take a legal case against the Department of Justice and the Northern Ireland Prison Service, under our equality legislation, if someone who is transgender is placed within her prison accommodation wing?”
He added that “those from the transgender community exist, and this ruling does not take away their rights as a protected group, but it does make it clear that they are transgender, not women”.
https://archive.ph/DtF55
Follow David Thompson, who produced the Stephen Nolan BBC radio series on Stonewall, on X at @NewsLetter_Pols for more Northern Irish reporting. NI has it's own equality legislation, not the Equality Act.
I'm looking forward to what the Alliance and nationalist MLA members of the Executive Office (TEO) committee, who were extremely hostile to the Women's Rights Network NI members who gave evidence on women's rights and single sex spaces in the TEO inquiry into gaps in equality legislation, will say. https://archive.ph/Gorbf