> but other parts of the act do apparently refer to other women and that they should not be discriminated against in the same way

Yes, the act (as it should) protects people from discrimination based on gender reassignment, e.g. you can't fire someone for their gender identity or deny them from a service.

The act makes it illegal to discriminate against someone due to their "sex", but a portion of the act allowed for "single sex" spaces where there is reasonable grounds to have them, but the act (reasonably at the time) did not define what sex was.

A piece of Scottish legislation referred to "woman as defined by the Equality Act", but the Equality Act never said if it was referring to biological sex or gender identity, the Scottish government said it would include people with gender reassignment certificates, a "woman's rights" charity disagreed. Hence the court got involved and found the original intention was to refer to biological sex, which was confirmed by the politician that introduced the Equality Act (Harriet Harman).

On the important issue of discrimination, Clause 9 makes it clear that a transsexual person would have protection under the Sex Discrimination Act as a person of the acquired sex or gender. Once recognition has been granted, they will be able to claim the rights appropriate to that gender.

- Lord Filkin, the Minister who introduced the Gender Recognition Bill in the House of Lords in 2003 (18th December)