LETTER to the BMA - response to the resident doctor resolution on the Supreme Court judgment

A letter in response to the Resident Doctor Conference resolution in April 2025 regarding the Supreme Court judgment in the case of For Women Scotland v Scottish ministers.

Tuesday 6^th May 2025

Dear Professor Banfield

As you know from the reaction in the media, members of the public and many members of the BMA are disappointed by the Resident Doctor resolution regarding the Supreme Court judgment in the case of For Women Scotland Ltd v Scottish ministers [2025] UKSC16. The response of the BMA to a member of the Council’s tweets on X further increased this sense of frustration.

The Supreme Court did not pass a new law – that is for parliament. What it did was to clarify the law as it has been since the Equality Act (2010) was enacted. In the years since then there has been steady pressure by activists, many of them doctors, to promote the mantra that “trans women are women”, completely contrary to the law and to rational fact. Consequently, many women’s rights campaigners have been cancelled, de-platformed and hounded. The rights of women that should have been protected by the Equality Act, under the protected characteristics of sex, and those of lesbians protected under sex and sexual orientation, have been eroded to such an extent that women’s groups are forced to meet in secret to avoid being pestered by men who say they are women.

Thanks to a great number of determined and brave women, particularly those of For Women Scotland Ltd, this intrusion into the rights of women has been stopped. We can say again that a woman is defined biologically and that a trans woman is a man.

We are appalled that Resident Doctor EM4 was passed. This motion describes biological sex ie that observed at birth, as “reductive, trans and intersex-exclusionary and biologically nonsensical”, 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”.

The facts are, of course, that male and female are biological terms for the sex of the bodies of animals that are designed around the production of either small gametes (male) or large gametes (female). There is no intersex and there is no third sex. All disorders of sexual development are disorders of either male sexual development or of female sexual development. The irony of doctors lecturing the country’s most senior judges on points of law whilst simultaneously demonstrating a lack of understanding of the most basic of human biology has not been lost on the general public, our patients.

Gender, by contrast, is a personal belief about oneself that cannot be verified objectively. Gender non-conforming does not mean that someone has changed sex, something that is impossible regardless of interventions such as cross sex hormones and surgery. These interventions cause clear harms both physically and to mental health, and are not a requirement for people with differences of gender belief or gender non-conformity.

The recent Sullivan report demonstrated clearly the risks to society and medical care when sex and gender are conflated. As a profession that relies on accurate data and promotes evidence-based practice we should be critical of transactivists’ push to confuse and distort recording of vital information both in healthcare and more widely. Biological realism does not detract from our ability to offer compassionate and respectful care to trans patients, as we should to all who rely on us for care. Indeed, insisting upon robust data and accurate medical records is the only way in which we can provide appropriate assessment and care, and avoid discriminating against trans patients and other vulnerable groups alike.

If the BMA is to regain the trust of its membership then it must stop making damaging assertions and illogical statements. It must recognise the harms wreaked by transgender activists and lead the drive for re-establishing sex as a crucial marker in health and identity records. It must call for NHS organisations to record sex accurately so that appropriate and safe care is given to all patients. It must also insist that the GMC accurately records the sex of doctors on the GMC Register so that patients can have confidence that they know who their doctor is, and that they can be relied on to be honest in all dealings with their patients.

Statements such as those we have seen from within the BMA make a mockery of the medical profession and cause direct harm to our trusted position in society and to our relationships with our patients. We are ashamed of our medical colleagues who are so cavalier with facts of biology that they ignore the realities of sex.

We strongly urge the BMA to stop this nonsense and to respond positively to the Supreme Court judgment, to support the Cass Review and the Sullivan Report, and to call for further reviews into the adult gender services that are still causing harm to our most vulnerable patients.

Yours sincerely

For Biology in Medicine