Freedom of speech • Page 3
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Why sex matters for human rights – our organisational framework
Sex Matters’ mission is to promote clarity on sex in law and policy in order to protect everybody’s human rights. This document sets out the key human rights that are relevant, and why and how our work is guided by the promotion of human rights. (Also see our short guide...
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Open letter to Minouche Shafik of the LSE
Members of the Open University Gender Critical Research Network have written to Baroness Minouche Shafik, Director of the London School of Economics, to ask for an independent review into the LSE’s Department of Gender Studies. Sex Matters joins them in calling on the LSE to launch an independent investigation...
6th November 2022
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Petition champions
After just three days we were over a quarter of the way to the 100,000 signatures needed to prompt a parliamentary debate. We’ve now got more than 40,000 signatures. Thank you to everyone who has already signed the Make the Equality Act Clear Petition. Every signature helps! If everyone...
5th November 2022
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Campaign update: Day 1
Yesterday we launched the Make the Equality Act Clear petition, calling on the government to clarify, with a legislative amendment, that sex means sex in the Equality Act 2010. It got an amazing response. In less than 24 hours, 15,000 people signed the petition, and the number is continuing...
3rd November 2022
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Is Sex Matters a feminist organisation?
The Sex Matters team is just back from a fantastic time at FiLiA, Europe’s largest feminist conference. But Sex Matters is not a feminist organisation. We simply subscribe to the radical notion that women are human beings, with full human rights. We also attended the LGB Alliance. But Sex...
27th October 2022
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Sex Matters writes to MSPs
Tomorrow 27th October is the Stage 1 debate on the Gender Recognition Reform Bill by the Scottish Parliament. Sex Matters has written to MSPs and sent them a copy of our “Sex and the Law” booklet. Equality law remains an area which is reserved for UK wide legislation, yet...
26th October 2022
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Helen Joyce in conversation with Sir Partha Dasgupta
Caius College Cambridge, 25th October 2022
Organised by Professor Arif Ahmed for Free Speech
1:26:50 on YouTube -
Sex Matters launches survey
Sex Matters is launching a survey about being gender-critical at work in the UK. Please take the survey and share your experiences
17th October 2022
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New media handbook on sex and gender
Sex Matters is publishing a handbook today, which aims to give journalists the confidence to write accurately, clearly and professionally about sex and gender. The past decade has seen a determined effort by transactivists and gender-identity lobby groups to make it impossible to talk about biological sex in a...
14th October 2022
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Labour Women’s Declaration
Launched in November 2019 when 300 Labour members and supporters signed a seven-point Declaration setting out the sex-based rights required for women and girls to flourish. The Declaration has since been signed by thousands of Labour-voting supporters, including elected politicians (Peers, MPs, MSPs, Cllrs) and Constituency Chairs and women’s...
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Sex and the law
A short guide to your human rights in everyday life.
Speaking about the two sexes, male and female, should not be difficult. This guide uses ordinary language, and is based on science, universal human rights and UK law -
‘I lost my job for saying males aren’t women. So I sued my employer’
Maya Forstater for Newsweek
On July 6, I won a claim I had first brought to a U.K. employment tribunal three years ago; that I was unfairly discriminated against by my employer, and subsequently denied employment, because of my personal views about sex and gender. -
What does the Forstater judgment mean for employers?
On 6th July 2022 an employment tribunal found that Maya Forstater had been directly discriminated against by the Center for Global Development because of her beliefs. This follows on from the precedent-setting judgment of the Employment Appeal Tribunal in June 2021, which found that the “gender critical” belief “that...
8th July 2022
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A win for free speech and sex-based rights
Sex Matters’ Executive Director, Maya Forstater, has won her employment tribunal case against her former employer. Here is her press statement: Maya Forstater, who took a claim for belief discrimination against her former employer, the Center for Global Development, has been vindicated by a ruling that she was unlawfully...
6th July 2022
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Sex realists gaining ground at Westminster
Debates on new laws in Parliament are one of the key battlefields between sex realists and sex denialists, with one side seeking clarity on sex, and the other seeking to conflate and confuse sex and gender identity. A long-term strategy of the sex-denial lobbyists has been to propose legislation seemingly...
31st May 2022
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Reading University VC speaks up for academic freedom
On 25 April 2022 Dr Holly Lawford-Smith, of the University of Melbourne, gave a seminar at Reading University’s school of law. She analysed Australia’s recent legislation banning conversion therapy, and questioned the rationale for including gender identity alongside sexual orientation. “We champion freedom of expression but…” When local LGBTQ+ organisations learnt...
23rd May 2022
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Union to vote on putting “boundaries” on gender-critical thought in the civil service
The FDA is the trade union for managers and professionals in public service. It includes the most senior civil servants and specialists such as lawyers and statisticians. Delegates at tomorrow’s annual conference will be considering a motion that would put “boundaries” on gender-critical speech and adopt the position that...
11th May 2022
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Send our new guidance to a school you know
Schools are calling out for clear guidance on sex and gender to answer questions such as what should they do when they face demands to socially transition children or to keep the secrets of a child who identifies as trans.
25th April 2022
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Sex and gender identity: keep your pupils safe and comply with the law – guidance for schools in England
This revision of our May 2021 guidance, produced together with Transgender Trend, draws on the interim report of the Cass Review, recent legal cases on freedom of belief, the EHRC’s new guidance on single-sex services and a YouGov survey of teachers, as well as government guidance and legislation. Republished with...
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Interview with Maya Forstater
Sex Matters’ Executive Director Maya Forstater won an important judgment in 2021 in her employment discrimination case. Now she is going back to court. Before her hearing begins next week on 7th March, Sex Matters interviewed Maya about her journey.
2nd March 2022
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College of Policing ordered to dial down the “chilling” effect on public debate
Sex Matters welcomes today’s landmark judgment from the Court of Appeal on the recording of non-crime hate incidents. It comes three years after Harry Miller received a visit from Humberside Police and had a non-crime hate incident recorded against his name after his tweets were reported as transphobic by...
20th December 2021
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Law Commission recommends protection for gender critical views from “chilling effect”
The Law Commission today released its report and recommendations on hate-crime legislation. It recommends extending hate-crime laws but calls for specific protection from prosecution for gender-critical views. The Commission explicitly disagreed with Stonewall and GIRES (the Gender Identity Research and Education Society), which had said that there should not be...
7th December 2021
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Courage calls to courage: in conversation with Maya Forstater
At the Filia 2021 conference, Maya Forstater in an informal discussion with some of the women who have stood up for women's rights and against gender ideology: Stephanie Davies Arai with parents and schools, Joanna Cherry in parliament, Jenni Murray in the media, Laoise Uí Aodha de Brún in...
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Reindorf Review on “no platforming”
Akua Reindorf’s review for the University of Essex of why events with external speakers were cancelled.
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Professor Kathleen Stock – the disinformation exposed
The protestors have been circulating falsehoods and vexatious arguments – here‘s our response.
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Exposing disinformation about Kathleen Stock
The intensification of targeting of Professor Kathleen Stock attracted public attention to the long-term campaign against her, and to the larger issue of academic freedom. Claims have been circulating which seek to discredit her and those who support her. We assess each one.
25th October 2021
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The Reindorf Review: a wake-up call for universities
In May 2021 the University of Essex published a review by barrister Akua Reindorf concerning the “deplatforming” of two academics because of their “gender critical” views. The university apologised to the two academics and is working to remedy the deeply concerning issues raised by the review. Sex Matters has...
23rd June 2021
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The Royal Academy and Belief Discrimination
Sex Matters has written to the Royal Academy about Jess de Wahls. You can download our letter. Jess de Wahls is a textile artist. Her work tackles feminism, misogyny and fetishism. She has expressed her gender-critical views, most notably in an essay she posted in 2019, and since then...
17th June 2021
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Maya Forstater: One’s sex can’t change. The story of my fight to ensure that this view, held by so many, is judged “worthy of respect”.
Maya Forstater for Conservative Home
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Woman who lost job over transgender views wins appeal
Maya Forstater and Becky Cotterrill talk forSky News
A woman who lost her job after expressing views that sex cannot be changed and transgender women are "not women" has won an appeal against an employment tribunal.
2:58 on YouTube. -
Woman sacked over gender-critical views wins court appeal
Becky Cotterill for Sky News
Maya Forstater who lost her job after expressing views that sex cannot be changed and transgender women are "not women" has won an appeal against an employment tribunal.
2:00 on YouTube.
