Redefining What a "Woman" is
Is the Law Catching up to Natural Law Again?
In a world increasingly governed by slogans over substance, the British Supreme Court recently did something few institutions dare: it affirmed biological reality. In a unanimous decision, the Court ruled that for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010, the term woman refers to an adult human female—specifically, someone born biologically female. At first glance, this may seem a mundane act of legal housekeeping. But in the age of gender ideology, where truth itself is on trial, this ruling is a clarion call to return to reason.
The War on Reality
It is a peculiar feature of our time that truths once deemed self-evident must now be defended in court. The controversy prompting the ruling arose in Scotland, where feminist activists challenged the government’s proposal to expand the legal definition of woman to include biological males who self-identify as female. The activists were not motivated by bigotry, but by a hard-earned awareness of history. As they rightly argued, replacing biological sex with self-identified gender risks dismantling the very legal protections women have fought decades to secure—protections in sport, healthcare, education, and public safety.
Indeed, to abandon the category of “biological woman” is to make invisible the very group the law was designed to protect. The Court agreed, warning that without a clear, objective foundation in biology, rights become incoherent and unenforceable. As the ruling summarized, “terms such as woman and sex in the Equality Act refer to biological sex” because only biology can anchor consistent and meaningful protections (UK Supreme Court, 2024).
This legal clarity echoes what philosophy and theology have insisted for millennia: nature is not a social construct. It is a given. And it is not ours to edit.
The Feminist Rebellion
In a tragic irony, modern feminism finds itself pitted against the very progressive ideologies it once midwifed. J.K. Rowling, once a cultural darling, became a pariah simply for insisting on the distinction between biological men and women. “If you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman, you open the door to any and all men,” she said plainly (Rowling, 2020). The backlash she received—from Hollywood actors to digital mobs—demonstrates the spiritual intensity with which our culture now defends its illusions.
Martina Navratilova, the legendary athlete and self-identified lesbian, voiced a similar concern regarding transgender inclusion in female sports. “It is insane and it’s cheating,” she said. “I would not be happy to compete against a biological male. It would not be fair” (Navratilova, 2019). One does not need to be religious to recognize the biological and competitive inequity of a male body competing in a female category.
What unites these voices is not conservatism, but conscience. Not dogma, but data. A refusal to erase women in the name of inclusion. A refusal to endorse injustice in the name of compassion.
The Philosophical Collapse
Roger Scruton once said, “The utopian mind is remarkable not merely for being detached from reality, but also for taking a certain pride in consciously rejecting that reality” (Scruton, 2019). Gender ideology is precisely this kind of utopianism—an attempt to impose a psychological identity upon a material reality and to demand that the rest of the world obey the illusion. It is, in essence, the re-enactment of Eden’s first sin: to play god.
Even with hormone treatments or surgery, a person’s chromosomes remain unchanged. A biological male who transitions still has XY chromosomes; a female still has XX. No technology, no amount of surgical intervention, can rewrite the genetic code (Mayo Clinic, 2023). That’s not theology—it’s empirical science. And yet, ideology has become so dominant that truth itself must be exonerated in court.
What we face today is not simply a cultural debate, but a metaphysical rebellion. It is, as G.K. Chesterton warned, the age where “Christian virtues have gone mad.” Compassion has become codependency. Tolerance has become moral relativism. Charity has become forced affirmation. We are no longer protecting people from harm—we are affirming people into delusion.
The Role of Natural Law
This is why the Church has always insisted on the authority of natural law—not because it is religiously convenient, but because it is universally true. St. Thomas Aquinas defined natural law as “the rational creature’s participation in the eternal law” (Summa Theologiae, I-II, Q.91, a.2). In simpler terms, natural law is the moral order built into creation itself. It is not invented by man; it is discovered.
A society that severs itself from natural law will inevitably implode. We see this now: prisons forced to house violent biological males in women’s facilities, female athletes denied scholarships, and job quotas skewed by gender declarations untethered from reality. This isn’t justice—it’s structural injustice masquerading as inclusion.
As Ross Douthat observed in The Decadent Society, “The problem for secular progressivism is not that its ideals are unpopular, but that they are increasingly incoherent” (Douthat, 2020). Incoherence leads to injustice. And injustice, once enshrined in law, becomes a tyranny of lies.
The Stubbornness of Reality
But reality has a way of fighting back. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, no stranger to ideological coercion, warned the West that “the ideology of progressivism that demands the denial of simple truths will inevitably collapse before the stubbornness of reality” (Solzhenitsyn, 1978). You cannot permanently legislate away biology. You cannot cancel chromosomes. No matter how loudly the culture screams, “Gender is fluid,” reality remains unshaken.
There is a certain holiness in reality. A sanctity in creation. As Christians, we are not called to impose our theology on the world, but to witness to the truth that the world already knows in its bones. That a man is a man. That a woman is a woman. And that denying these truths is not kindness—it is cruelty.
A Call to Courage and Clarity
We live in a time where affirming biological truth is branded as hate, and denying it is labeled virtue. But Scripture does not call us to comfort; it calls us to courage. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Isaiah 5:20). The prophet does not mince words.
It is time for Christians to speak clearly, not cruelly—but clearly. To reclaim the language that has been twisted. To protect the dignity of women and the integrity of truth. To teach our children that their bodies are not mistakes but masterpieces. And to build a culture that flourishes not on fantasy, but on fidelity to what is real.
Conclusion: A Path Forward
The British Supreme Court’s decision to affirm the biological definition of womanhood is not just a legal victory—it is a moment of cultural sanity. But it must not end there. We must build on this foundation with laws that protect, institutions that educate, and churches that boldly proclaim that the human body is not an error to be corrected but a gift to be respected.
To love someone is to love them as they are—not merely as they feel themselves to be. And the first act of love is to tell the truth.
We must teach this. Preach this. And live this.
Because in doing so, we participate not in the creation of a new world, but in the restoration of the one God has already made—good, true, and beautiful.
Citations:
UK Supreme Court Ruling, 2024. Equality Act Interpretation.
Rowling, J.K. (2020). Personal essay on sex and gender issues. JKRowling.com
Navratilova, Martina. (2019). Public statement on trans inclusion in sports.
Scruton, Roger. How to Be a Conservative. Bloomsbury Continuum, 2019.
Chesterton, G.K. Orthodoxy. 1908.
Douthat, Ross. The Decadent Society. Avid Reader Press, 2020.
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. A World Split Apart. Harvard Address, 1978.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1954–1960.
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, I-II, Q.91, a.2.
Mayo Clinic, Genetic Counseling Resources, 2023.