Something extraordinary happened in Parliament last week: a debate took place about the terms “sex” and “gender” in the U.K.’s Equality Act. Members of Parliament discussed how to safeguard transgender-identifying people while also protecting women’s rights to single-sex spaces, sports, and health care. If occasionally heated and emotive, the discussion was also thoughtful and intelligent—two qualities absent from previous parliamentary debates on this issue. …

Petitioners were right to call for the law to be clarified. Those agitating for the status quo know that current confusions are open to manipulation. Yet what was perhaps most astonishing was the fact that this debate even took place. Transgender activists have long maintained a “no debate” principle, arguing that all discussion of competing rights is a denial of transgender people’s “existence.” This prohibition on debate has sparked accusations of censorship in publishing, journalism, and academia. For politicians to stand up in Parliament and discuss definitions of sex and gender—and debate the point at which expanding protections for one group impinges upon the rights of another—was itself a victory for rationality.

[A process victory, perhaps. When women can maintain their privacy and safety and can compete honestly and fairly in sports, then those will be victories for rationality. If we consider open debate a victory in itself, we have ceded far more territory than we know. — Ed]