Section I: Origins – From Theory to Policy

The ideological shift currently reshaping the meaning of “woman” and dismantling long-established sex-based rights did not emerge from grassroots democratic movements. Instead, it was seeded within postmodern academic thought and later transmitted into law, public institutions, and cultural norms via NGOs, activist legal frameworks, and philanthropic lobbying. This ideological trajectory is rooted most notably in the work of Judith Butler and the rise of queer theory in elite United States universities.

Postmodern Foundations: From Philosophy to Political Strategy

Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble (1990) introduced the foundational concept of gender performativity (Butler, 1990). Butler argued that gender is not a stable identity or internal truth derived from biological sex but rather a series of repeated social performances that produce the illusion of a coherent gender. In Butler’s words, gender is “a stylised repetition of acts” through which the appearance of a stable identity is constructed (Butler, 1990). This radically destabilised the distinction between sex and gender, encouraging the idea that even sex itself may be socially constructed.

Butler’s work drew heavily on French poststructuralists such as Michel Foucault, who argued that identity categories are instruments of social control, and Jacques Derrida, who critiqued binary structures as inherently hierarchical and exclusionary. Thus, “woman” became not a material category rooted in biological difference but a discursive construct available to anyone who performs or claims it. This opened the door to the conceptual erasure of sex as a basis for feminist political organising.

Following Butler, Jack Halberstam and Paul B. Preciado pushed gender theory into new territories. Halberstam’s Female Masculinity (1998) challenged the assumption that masculinity belongs to male bodies, arguing that masculinity is a cultural expression that any subject can claim. In The Queer Art of Failure (2011), Halberstam embraced non-conformity, proposing that failure to adhere to societal norms should be valorised as a form of resistance to heteropatriarchal capitalism.

Paul B. Preciado, in Testo Junkie (2013), documented their use of testosterone (Preciado, 2013) as an act of self-determined gender experimentation. Preciado proposed the idea of the “pharmacopornographic regime,” describing a society where gender and sexuality are regulated through pharmaceuticals and media. Gender, in this view, becomes a biotechnological product mediated through hormones, surgeries, and cultural scripts. This formulation extended Butler’s performativity into post-embodiment, where gender is a mutable identity that transcends anatomy entirely (Preciado, 2013).

Queer Theory and the Collapse of Binaries

These theoretical frameworks, developed within rarefied academic settings, were united by a common postmodern goal: deconstruct binary distinctions such as male/female, gay/straight, and nature/culture. Queer theory, as it became known, sought to dismantle these binaries by emphasising fluidity, ambiguity, and resistance to fixed identity categories. While queer theory initially focused on disrupting heteronormativity and homophobia, its influence soon extended to the category of “woman” itself, calling into question whether a coherent definition of womanhood could or should exist at all.

Although these concepts were highly theoretical and confined initially to elite academic circles, they began shaping institutional policy in the early 2000s. Their dissemination was facilitated not by public debate or democratic consensus but through academic capture followed by institutional capture, whereby public bodies adopted the language and assumptions of postmodern theory under the guidance of activist organisations.

Political Uptake: From Theory to Law

A critical question now arises: Why has this ideological shift primarily affected women rather than men?

The answer lies in a set of intersecting sociopolitical, institutional, and legal factors:

Firstly, the concept of ‘woman’ has long been symbolically contested. It is culturally associated with reproduction, vulnerability, and access to public space, markers which have historically made it a site for ideological conflict and redefinition (Beauvoir, 1949; Pateman, 1988). Meanwhile, the category ‘man’ is typically treated as the default in law and policy, which shields it from scrutiny (Squires, 1999).

Secondly, feminist activism secured practical gains such as single-sex toilets, refuges, and sports categories, spaces which are now being redefined under gender identity frameworks (Dobash and Dobash, 1980; Coy et al., 2008). These gains are uniquely vulnerable because they were specifically designed to protect women from male violence. However, they are now open to anyone who self-identifies as female. Male-only spaces rarely face the same ideological scrutiny or political restructuring.

Thirdly, structural inequality persists even within progressive circles. Male-born individuals who identify as women often retain institutional privilege and social power, which allows them to dominate discourse and policy within both feminist and LGBTQ+ spaces. The reverse dynamic, female-born individuals identifying with male spaces, rarely challenge male dominance (Jeffreys, 2014).

Fourthly, media and policy discourse tends to prioritise the inclusion of trans-identified males over the privacy, dignity, and safety of women and girls. Women’s concerns are often reframed as intolerance, which silences legitimate objections and curtails democratic scrutiny.

The formalisation of this ideology began with the Yogyakarta Principles (2007), a set of non-binding international guidelines that introduced gender identity as a protected characteristic under human rights law (Yogyakarta Principles, 2007). Though never debated or ratified by any parliament, the principles have profoundly shaped policy and law.

Organisations such as Stonewall (UK), ILGA-Europe, and GATE operationalised these principles through lobbying and training programmes. Stonewall’s Diversity Champions Programme embedded gender identity policies in over 850 public institutions across the UK, including the NHS, schools, and local authorities. Their guidance redefined the term “woman” to include anyone who self-identifies as such and advised replacing sex-based language with gender-neutral alternatives.

This policy shift was not neutral. Removing biological sex from institutional language and safeguarding protocols undermined the legal basis for single-sex protections. For example, while the Equality Act 2010 provides exemptions for women-only spaces in healthcare, prisons, and domestic violence shelters, these provisions are rendered ineffective if ‘woman’ is based on self-identification rather than sex (Equality Act, 2010).

In 2025, the UK Supreme Court in For Women Scotland Ltd v Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16 ruled that for the Equality Act, the term “woman” refers to biological sex (Supreme Court, 2025). This ruling reaffirmed that the protected characteristic of gender reassignment does not override the sex-based definition of woman, restoring legal clarity to the operation of single-sex services.

In healthcare, replacing sex with gender in data collection hampers the tracking of sex-specific outcomes such as cervical cancer and maternal mortality (Sex Matters, 2021). In sports, male-bodied athletes in female competitions have been shown to compromise fairness and safety, leading to restrictions by governing bodies such as World Athletics and FINA. In safeguarding, the loss of sex-based criteria has created ethical tensions in protecting vulnerable women.

In effect, queer theory moved from deconstructing binaries in the classroom to dismantling legal and material protections for women. It replaced objective sex-based definitions with subjective claims, eroding the foundations of sex-based rights.

References

Beauvoir, S. de (1949). The Second Sex. Paris: Gallimard.

Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.

Coy, M., Kelly, L., & Foord, J. (2008). Map of Gaps: The postcode lottery of violence against women support services in Britain. End Violence Against Women Coalition.

Dobash, R. E., & Dobash, R. P. (1980). Violence Against Wives: A Case Against the Patriarchy. New York: Free Press.

Equality Act 2010. UK Public General Acts. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents

FINA (2022). Policy on Eligibility for the Men’s and Women’s Competition Categories. Available at: https://www.worldaquatics.com/about/fina

Halberstam, J. (1998). Female Masculinity. Durham: Duke University Press.

Halberstam, J. (2011). The Queer Art of Failure. Durham: Duke University Press.

Jeffreys, S. (2014). Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism. London: Routledge.

Pateman, C. (1988). The Sexual Contract. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Preciado, P. B. (2013). Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era. New York: The Feminist Press.

Sex Matters (2021). Sex-Disaggregated Data and the NHS: Why Sex Matters in Healthcare. Available at: https://sex-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Sex-Disaggregated-Data-in-the-NHS.pdf

Squires, J. (1999). Gender in Political Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Supreme Court (2025). For Women Scotland Ltd v Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16. Available at: https://supremecourt.uk/uploads/uksc_2024_0042_judgment_aea6c48cee.pdf

World Athletics (2023). Eligibility Regulations for Transgender Athletes. Available at: https://worldathletics.org/news/press-releases

Yogyakarta Principles (2007). Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. Available at: https://yogyakartaprinciples.org/