Statement following the UK Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of a woman, and recent statements from the USA’s head of Department of Health and Human Services.
2025-05-23
Recently Robert F. Kennedy has declared a determination to find the “cause” of what he wrongly describes as the preventable tragedy of autism, calling the increasing numbers of known autistic people an epidemic and describing autism as a disease. He has also started compiling a registry of autistic people, a move with alarming historical precedents, especially considered alongside rhetoric of this sort.
Meanwhile, the UK Supreme Court has ruled that a woman is defined by biological sex for the purposes of the Equality Act, contradicting the expressed intentions of those behind this legislation. This ruling is of huge concern to our trans siblings, a significant proportion of whom are autistic.
As the committee of this autistic mutual support group and Disabled People’s Organisation, we agree with the United Nations that human rights are indivisible. Left unaddressed, an attack on the dignity of one is an attack on all.
We see these recent events as related, and as stemming from wilful ignorance and the abuse of power. It is significant that trans and autistic people are under attack from many of the same sources.
Prior to the ruling, the UK Supreme Court was urged by the Good Law Project to engage with arguments gathered from Trans rights organisations to be put forward by academic, Stephen Whittle, and former Supreme Court judge Victoria McCloud, both trans, both with a gender recognition certificate. It decided to exclude them, thereby excluding trans voices entirely; Amnesty International was allowed a written intervention on behalf of trans people, but this was barely mentioned in the judgement. This landmark judgement was made in a vacuum, ignoring the safeguard we all seek: nothing about us without us.
Properly understood, autism and womanhood are more than biological categories. Autistic people, in common with trans men, non-binary and intersex people, and women including trans women, experience a social reality that includes discrimination and threats to our safety. These threats are rising as a result of a global political shift to the right, with intolerance of difference normalised, and we can only resist by recognising our common humanity and acting in solidarity.
We know that many in our community are also LGBTQIA+, and as a committee we hope that you will support us in our determination to stand for trans rights, now and always. Our work sees us participating as a Disabled Person’s Organisation at committee level in the Scottish Parliament. This similarly involves opposing discrimination against disabled people, campaigning and advocating for fair support and for improvements to health, mental health and social services. Trans rights are human rights. Autism is not an illness. Ignorance is curable.