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Hello, I'm Alicia McCarthy. Thanks for downloading the Yesterday in Parliament podcast.

On Tuesday the 22nd of April, there were angry exchanges in the Commons as the government responded to last week's Supreme Court ruling on the legal definition of a woman.

What is a woman? A question which after a lengthy legal battle ended up in the Supreme Court

last week. Judges ruled that the term woman in relation to the Equality's Act is defined by

biological sex and that someone born male doesn't have the right to use spaces or services

designated as being for women only.

Responding to the ruling, the Equality's Minister Bridget Philipson said there was what she called a sensible view held by the majority of the British public.

That women need single-sex spaces, that those spaces should be protected.

And that you can protect those spaces while treating trans people with respect as well.

So the certainty that this judgment brings is welcome.

And now, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is time to move forward.

She argued what was needed now was clarity about what the ruling meant for everything from prisons to sport and

health care and the Equality's and Human Rights Commission was working quickly on a code of practice

to reflect the judgment. Now normally it's the minister's opposite number on the Tory benches

who responds to statements like this but this time the conservative leader Kemi Badenock,

herself a former women

and Equality's Minister, came to the dispatch box and took a swing at Sekeir Stama.

In 2021, the Prime Minister said it is not right to say only women have a cervix. In 2022, he said,

it is the law that trans women are women. In 2023, he said, and I quote, 99% of women don't have a penis.

I know what a woman is, and I always have.

The people of this country know what a woman is.

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