I wonder if Rebecca Dom Kennedy wrote this pish on company time. I.e., paid for by the taxpayer. She is clearly enraged at the award:
Rebecca Don Kennedy is Chief Executive Officer of the Equality Network
archive.is/2025.11.24-144145/www.heraldscotland.com/politics/holyrood/25645284.across-public-life-animosity-towards-trans-people-becoming-overt/
'...The third nominee was For Women Scotland for their campaigning around changing the definition of women to a biological one. This campaign saw them take Scottish Ministers to court twice, and then to the UK Supreme Court to ensure that ‘women’ as defined in the Equality Act was a biological definition exclusive of trans women.
This campaign’s aim, ultimately, is to ensure that cis women (one whose gender identity aligns with her birth sex) and trans women will be treated differently for all purposes and across all services. Some applauded the supposed prevailing of ‘common sense’.
Others, like me and many more, saw this as fundamentally counter to decades of equalities and human rights progress. We see that it will result in harmful exclusionary practice and a denial of access to services for trans and cis women. For Women Scotland won the award.
As an organisation we too campaign to change policy and legislation and know that campaigning is tough. Objectively, yes, FWS’s campaign was successful in that they succeeded in getting what they wanted at the Supreme Court. But ‘successful’ is clearly subjective here. What has this campaign achieved to better the lives of people in Scotland?
The ruling of the Supreme Court in April, and the resulting proposed Code of Practice (CoP), have been heavily criticised. Several bodies have documented alarm over developments in the UK, including the UN and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights. The impact on the ground for real people has been catastrophic. Trans Actual have released reports detailing how this has negatively impacted trans and cis people.
So far, without having seen a final Code of Practice approved by the <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/mmeGC/www.heraldscotland.com/topics/uk-government/?ref=au" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">UK Government, there is no clarity, no conversations around inclusion, only blanket exclusion. The leaked version of the CoP released by The Times suggests that people may be refused access to services and spaces based only on what they look like. That has been dubbed a ‘Misogynist’s Charter’. It would see a Scotland where people, mostly women, will be excluded from facilities and services based on how they look and likely exposed to aggressive vigilante toilet policing. Now women must look and behave a certain way and be reduced to their vulvas and reproductive ability whilst at it.
In the meantime, trans people are further retreating from public life, and gender non-conforming cis women are forced to change their appearance to avoid harassment. To my mind, these effects on cis women undermine FWS’s claim to be campaigning to protect women. Across public life, animosity towards trans people is becoming more overt and more prominent, sacrificing the well-being of all women whilst pushing to restrict trans people.
The women FWS claim to protect will in fact be harmed by this retrogression. Trans people are increasingly vulnerable right now and yet they, and we, persist alongside others in pushing forward to better the lives of all LGBTI+ and marginalised people, including women in Scotland. In so doing we collectively aim for a Scotland where people are lifted, where rights are realised, and where all are treated with dignity, respect and empathy, as all of us should be.
The ‘winning’ campaign had none of these principles as their foundation.'