Yet women, including the NHS nurse Sandie Peggie<\/a>, are still being reprimanded by employers and employment tribunal judges for saying that males should not be in women\u2019s toilets, changing rooms and other women\u2019s only spaces.<\/p>\n Sandie Peggie, right, won a partial victory in her case against NHS Fife<\/p>\n JANE BARLOW\/PA<\/p>\n Susan Smith, 53, a former financial adviser and one of FWS\u2019s three founding members, says: \u201cBoth the Scottish government and the UK government claim they accept the Supreme Court ruling, but they have done nothing to implement it. Rather, they have gone out of their way to thwart it. Bridget Phillipson<\/a> [the secretary for women and equalities] in particular is trying to fudge the law by sitting on the Equality and Human Rights Commission [EHRC] guidance, and it is having a serious impact on women.\u201d<\/p>\n After the ruling, the EHRC drafted a code of practice advising businesses and public bodies how to maintain single-sex spaces, including hospital wards and prisons, in order to comply with the ruling, and urged the government to bring it to parliament \u201cat speed\u201d.<\/p>\n More than three months later, however, Phillipson is still refusing to sign it,<\/a> saying she is concerned the guidance is \u201ctrans exclusive\u201d \u2014 and if she means that it excludes males from women\u2019s-only spaces, she is correct, because that is what flows from the court\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Bridget Phillipson and Keir Starmer don\u2019t like what the Supreme Court did, they have the power to change it. But they\u2019re not going to do that, because they know it would be incredibly unpopular and stupid and they\u2019d lose support. So instead they\u2019re playing silly buggers and trying to change the law by stealth,\u201d says Smith.<\/p>\n Phillipson claims that banning males from women\u2019s single-sex spaces would mean a mother would not be able to bring her toddler son into a changing room. It\u2019s an argument that is in equal parts fatuous and desperate, suggesting that a small child with his mother is analogous to a grown man who believes he is a woman.<\/p>\n Marion Calder, 54, an NHS worker and single mother, another of FWS\u2019s founders, says: \u201cWhy should we ever listen to Phillipson again if she cannot make a decision about something as simple as this? She needs to \u2018woman up\u2019 and face down these men\u2019s rights activists. It\u2019s very simple: things are either single sex or they\u2019re not. But if I had a penny for every time someone said, \u2018Oh it\u2019s terribly complicated\u2019 I\u2019d be richer than JK Rowling.\u201d<\/p>\n Trina Budge, 54, a farmer from Caithness and FWS\u2019s third founder, adds: \u201cYou know, we asked to meet with Phillipson just before the verdict last April, and she said no.\u201d <\/p>\n Did Starmer contact them? They all burst out laughing at the thought.<\/p>\n \u2022 Trans civil servants can still use toilets of choice<\/a><\/p>\n Smith, Calder and Budge connected over Mumsnet in 2018 over the shared view that gender ideology is a deeply misogynistic movement, and one that was becoming alarmingly popular in Scottish public life.<\/p>\n The three women are rarely in the same room together. While Smith and Calder live close to one another, Budge lives a six-hour drive away to the north.<\/p>\n But today, they are all in Smith\u2019s home on the outskirts of Edinburgh. The house is filled with Christmas decorations and piles of teenagers\u2019 books and shoes, belonging to Smith\u2019s three children. The only sign that the woman who lives here who changed history is a small photo in the front hall, half-hidden behind a pile of post, of Smith and Calder, grinning outside the Supreme Court after their victory.<\/p>\n HENRY NICHOLLS\/AFP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n And yet FWS will be starting 2026 back in court because \u2014 shockingly, if not surprisingly \u2014 the Scottish government still has not settled FWS\u2019s legal expenses<\/a>, for which it is liable. These expenses are estimated to exceed \u00a3417,000.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s currently being covered by our regular small donations from supporters. And of course our far- right millions,\u201d says Calder dryly, referring to the lies spread by trans activist groups that FWS is funded by far-right Americans. In fact, the group is funded by small direct-debit donations from individual supporters, most of which are less than \u00a340. It relies entirely on volunteers and cannot afford an office, relying instead on a PO Box and Zoom calls.<\/p>\n \u201cI wish I could get some of those far-right millions to fix the hole in my ceiling,\u201d says Smith. \u201cWell, it lets in the fresh air, I suppose.\u201d<\/p>\n The Scottish government says it has not paid the costs because \u201cthere is an established process to be undertaken to agree the final costs for a legal case and these will be calculated and published in due course\u201d.<\/p>\n FWS says it is stalling. \u201cThey are hoping that by depriving us of money, we won\u2019t be able to take on further cases, because they knew we were going to go after them on prisons,\u201d says Calder.<\/p>\n If that was the plan, it has failed. In February FWS will be suing the Scottish government \u2014 again \u2014 over guidance from the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) stating that if a male prisoner who identifies as a woman can be \u201csafely accommodated\u201d in a women\u2019s prison, he will be, although this does not apply to male prisoners with a history of violence against women and girls.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it wouldn\u2019t matter if they were in for shoplifting, they\u2019re still a man and so shouldn\u2019t be in a women\u2019s prison,\u201d says Smith. \u201cIt\u2019s terribly complicated, of course,\u201d says Calder, and rolls her eyes.<\/p>\n \u2022 SNP fights to keep trans women in female prisons<\/a><\/p>\n Whereas FWS subsists on donations, the Scottish government gave more than \u00a31.1 million last year to organisations that promote gender ideology, including Stonewall Scotland, Scottish Trans and, in particular, Scotland\u2019s Equality Network.<\/p>\n Founded in 1997, the Equality Network national organisation joined up with the Scottish Trans Alliance in 2007 and it focuses heavily on trans rights, offering training to employers about how to be \u201ctrans aware\u201d.<\/p>\n The Equality Network still insists it is \u201clikely to be unlawful\u201d to exclude trans-identifying men from women-only spaces, contrary to the Supreme Court ruling. The chief executive of the Equality Network, Rebecca Don Kennedy, has described the fight against gender ideology as \u201ca US import that\u2019s anti-progress, anti-rights and anti-women\u2019s rights\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re winning because our arguments are sound, not because we\u2019re funded by some imaginary Americans,\u201d says Smith. Last year the Scottish government gave the Equality Network \u00a3465,258.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d like to ask these politicians, why are they giving money from the public purse to organisations which argue in favour of breaking the law? They wouldn\u2019t do that to organisations that argue in favour of paying less than the minimum wage,\u201d says Budge.<\/p>\n Freedom of information requests have shown Scottish politicians exchanging emails with activists from the Equality Network on how to draft bills that respect \u2014 in one example \u2014 \u201cgender expression, through the medium of clothing\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like politicians have outsourced their brains to the third sector so they don\u2019t have to do their thinking, and it all becomes a circle jerk,\u201d says Calder.<\/p>\n FWS says John Swinney, Scotland\u2019s first minister, promised to meet them after the Supreme Court ruling. \u201cBut he never did, and now he\u2019s making the excuse that he can\u2019t because we\u2019re taking them back to court about the costs. Well, we wouldn\u2019t have to go to court if they just paid the costs,\u201d says Smith. <\/p>\n Some MSPs did contact them after the Supreme Court verdict, says Budge. \u201cBut the conversations never went anywhere. It was just, \u2018We\u2019re setting up working groups to look into that.\u2019 It felt like they were talking to us just so they could say, \u2018OK, we talked to them, done now,\u2019\u201d says Smith.<\/p>\n Calder adds: \u201cPart of the problem is that the SNP has been in power for 18 years. So to be awarded contracts and to move in polite society, you have to walk in lockstep with it.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Solicitor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/\/162ffe45-b2dd-43be-9364-a848a83850a3.jpg\")
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