Women’s sport is more popular and celebrated than ever, attracting record audiences and increasing participation.

Following the summer of 2025, which saw the England Lionesses defend their Euro victory and the Red Roses win the Women’s Rugby World Cup in front of more than 80,000 people at Twickenham, there is new momentum in women’s sport. The Women’s T20 Cricket World Cup 2026 and the Tour de France Femmes Grand Depart 2027 coming to Britain will bring more visibility.

But women’s sport has long been marginalised and under-resourced. Many women and girls still miss out on the physical and mental benefits of participating in sports, games and exercise. The government is working to drive a decade of change in women’s sport, and wants “to support women and girls at every stage of their lives to get involved in sport”.

Many national governing bodies have strategies for increasing the visibility, participation and performance of women in sport, and of women’s sport. Specific provision for women and girls is core to these strategies. Without female-only activities, facilities and competition, women and girls are disadvantaged.

The UK’s framework of equality law enables and supports this investment and the provision of sporting opportunity for women and girls. Yet in recent years many sports governing bodies, and the UK’s sports councils, have prioritised allowing men and boys to participate “as women” under the label of “inclusion”. Female-only provision in sport is already an inclusion measure: for women. It can work only if that is understood.

This report explains how the Equality Act protects opportunity, fairness, safety and inclusion for women and girls in sport. It highlights how the law has been misunderstood for 15 years and how this has harmed women. Many national governing bodies are now taking steps to put this right. This report ends with a call to sports leaders to stand up confidently for female-only sporting provision at every level and not to wait to be dragged through the courts defending injustice.

Executive summary

The legal status of female-only sport provision

Investing resources in providing women-only sport is necessary for women to take part, enjoy, excel and achieve in sport. Even in non-competitive activities many women prefer female-only sports, fitness sessions and facilities.

The law is clear. The Equality Act 2010 makes sex discrimination, including separating men and women, generally unlawful, but includes a range of exceptions that make it lawful to provide services, facilities, associations and competitions that are just for women (or just for men), including sport and not only competitive events.

It’s time to get women’s sports back on track

Consecutive governments, sports councils and national governing bodies have misunderstood the law. Many adopted policies that conflated the protected characteristics of “sex” (being a man or a woman) and “gender reassignment” (identifying as transgender). Instead of protecting female-only provision as an inclusion measure for women and girls, they permitted men who identify as women to access women’s spaces and services and to compete in women’s sport.

This is not fair and it was never the law. The Supreme Court judgment in the case of For Women Scotland spelled this out clearly. But there is now a culture of fear and confusion about protecting women’s sport. It should not fall to individual women to bring legal cases to force sports providers to do the right thing. Those at the top of the sport system should reinstate a clear, comprehensive commitment to fairness, enabling women’s sport to thrive.

“Waiting for guidance” is no longer an excuse: the EHRC’s revised code of practice for service providers, public functions and associations (2026) reiterates the Supreme Court judgment and states clearly that sex-based provisions must be on the basis of biological sex.

The five steps to put things right

1. The Minister for Sport should call for opportunity, fairness and safety for women and girls to be respected at every level of every sport.
2. The sports councils should withdraw the 2021 “trans inclusion” guidance and recognise that the correct approach to trans inclusion is inclusion within the correct sex category.
3. The sports councils should make a joint statement of commitment to women’s sport and produce clear, simple guidance protecting women’s sport at every level.
4. Individual sports councils should bring their data-collection surveys and registration data into line with the Equality Act and the reality that sex is immutable and binary.
5. National governing bodies and others in receipt of public funding should sign a fairness pledge to protect women’s sport at every level and be clear that woman means female.

How the Equality Act enables and protects single-sex sport and recreation

1. Under the Equality Act 2010 the protected characteristic of sex (man/woman) relates to a person’s innate biology, not their identity; it also includes boys and girls.
2. The Equality Act makes it unlawful for duty-bearers to discriminate by treating people less favourably based on their sex.
3. Duty bearers include public authorities, service providers, employers, associations, qualifications bodies and education providers.
4. In general, providing a service just for men or just for women would be sex discrimination. But providing only an “open” (mixed) category or facilities will also tend to disadvantage women.
5. The Equality Act includes exceptions that make it lawful to provide separately for women and men, or girls and boys, in a range of circumstances relevant to sport.
6. The sections of the Equality Act that do this include:
7. Schedule 16, which permits single-characteristic associations
8. Schedule 3 Part 7, which provides for single-sex and separate-sex services
9. Section 158 on positive action, which permits a broad range of action to meet specific needs of women or men
10. Section 193, which permits single-characteristic charities (and single-sex fundraising events)
11. Section 195 on participation as a competitor
12. Section 159 of Schedule 9, which permits employment to be limited to men or women where this is a genuine occupational requirement.
13. These provide the lawful basis for a wide range of female-only activities and facilities in the context of sports, games and exercise, including but not limited to qualification of individuals to participate in competitive events.
14. The public sector equality duty requires that public authorities consider women’s needs when setting policies. The provision for positive action allows for investment and development targeted at encouraging and enabling women and girls in sport.
15. Women and “trans women” do not share a protected characteristic, so this group cannot be the target for lawful positive action “for women”.
16. Rules and policies that allow men to participate, compete or use facilities “as women” disadvantage women. Duty bearers that design or operate such policies (or instruct, cause or induce others to) are at risk of claims for sex discrimination. Public authorities may also face claims that they are not fulfilling the public-sector equality duty.

This report explains how the law applies to every aspect of sport, including facilities, teams, competitions and changing rooms.

You do not need to be a lawyer to understand that the law enables and supports women’s sport. Simply by providing a female-only activity or badging a space as for “women”, a provider is likely to be relying on one of the sex-based exceptions in the Equality Act.

You do need to be clear and courageous to stand up for women’s sport. Women’s sport has always faced opposition, prejudice and devaluation. It is time to recognise that women and girls deserve equal opportunity to sport, and to celebrate and uphold the law that protects that.

What about transgender people in sport?

Sex is a protected characteristic in the Equality Act, and everyone is either male or female.

Gender reassignment is a separate protected characteristic. It applies to anyone who “is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person’s sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex” (commonly referred to as transgender people). Identifying as transgender does not change a person’s sex. Everyone retains their sex as observed at birth.

It would be direct gender-reassignment discrimination to exclude someone who identifies as transgender from sporting provision for their own sex. It would not be such discrimination to exclude them from provision for the opposite sex. A trans-identifying person might feel that separate-sex sports provision disadvantages them, but separate-sex provision is lawful if it comes under one of the exceptions in the Equality Act.

Sports facilities and providers are not required to undertake individual case-by-case assessment to decide on eligibility: they can apply clear sex-based rules.

Sport, equality and the law

The Equality Act

The Equality Act imposes specific duties not to discriminate in various defined contexts. This means that, except when sports and games are organised in a purely private context, such as among family or friends, it is likely that the organisers will be under a legal duty not to discriminate against or harass anyone in relation to protected characteristics, including sex, age, race, disability, sexual orientation and gender reassignment.¹

What do we mean by sports and games?

Sports and games are not defined in the Equality Act (and do not need to be) but for our purpose we consider broadly that:

• sport means forms of physical activity “which, through casual or organised participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels”
• games are physical or mental competitions conducted according to rules with the participants in direct opposition to each other.

These categories intersect. Some physical activities that may be classified as sports for some purposes, such as yoga, group cycling or rambling, do not generally involve competition. Some, such as dance, swimming and climbing, may be performed competitively but are often not. Some activities, such as bridge and chess, involve competition but do not involve physical exertion or athleticism. Many sports and games require some combination of physical and mental skills.

People who participate in sports and games (whether professionally or as amateurs, in recreation, training, development, competition, coaching or other roles) retain their rights under the Equality Act. They are citizens entitled to public services and to fair treatment by the state, as members of associations, as users of commercial or voluntary sector services, as students in school and college, and as employees and potential employees. Everyone is protected against sex discrimination and harassment. People are also protected against discrimination on the basis of “gender reassignment”. But this does not mean they can change their sex.

An important implication of the Supreme Court judgment in the case of For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers is that when organisations are taking lawful action for women or girls, this means female people.

How does the Equality Act apply to sports and games?

Duty bearers in relation to sports and games include:

• Associations – formal associations with 25 or more members are not permitted to discriminate in relation to the admission of members, or in the provision of any benefit, service or facility or other treatment of their members or associates. Many sports are organised through federations of such local and national associations.
• Service providers –national governing bodies, sports clubs, organisations and businesses provide services to the public including infrastructure, facilities, opportunities and systems for sports, games or exercise.
• Qualification bodies – governing bodies providing registration and licences for players, coaches and officials may be acting as qualification bodies by providing “authorisation, qualification, recognition, registration, enrolment or certification which is needed for, or facilitates engagement in, a particular trade or profession”.²
• Employers – within the sphere of professional or semi-professional sport, any club or other organisation that employs players, coaches or others (including as apprentices or contractors) has a responsibility as an employer not to discriminate. Remunerated office-holders are also protected against discrimination, even where not in an employment relationship.
• Schools and higher education institutions – thesehave specific responsibilities not to discriminate in relation to pupils or students, as well as other responsibilities, such as employers and service providers, for any wider services they provide to others who use their facilities.
• Local authorities (or education authorities in Scotland) – these have responsibilities in relation to the non-discriminatory provision of recreational and training facilities for children and young persons (such as playgrounds, parks, leisure centres, swimming pools, gymnasiums and social clubs), and the organisation of any activities at such facilities.
• Bodies exercising public functions – the functions played by public authorities (including UK Sport, Sport England, Sport Wales and Sport Scotland) and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are also covered by the Equality Act, including the public-sector equality duty.³

A wide range of activities, facilities and functions can come under the Equality Act in relation to sports and games, including:

• provision of facilities for sport, and ancillary facilities such as changing rooms
• provision of opportunities to participate in exercise and training sessions
• terms of club membership and treatment of members
• qualification criteria for events at any level
• application of rules to decide who can participate
• registration of players and codes of conduct
• provision of coaching and pathways for performance development
• setting rules and regulations for competition eligibility
• requirements for qualification for other roles in the sport
• provision of scholarships and bursaries
• provision of healthcare to players
• programmes for leadership development
• grants and funding for clubs and individuals
• employment and conditions of employment.

Why women and girls need dedicated provision to thrive

Women have different needs

It is well recognised that men are on average taller, faster and stronger than women. Men have bigger bones, longer limbs, wider hand spans, wider shoulders and narrower pelvises. They have larger and denser muscles, with a higher proportion of fast-twitch fibres, and larger hearts and lungs. Male blood has more oxygen-carrying capacity per litre than female blood. These physical differences confer an advantage in sporting activities.

This has been recognised by the International Olympic Committee, which finds that male sex “confers performance advantage in all sports and events that rely on strength, power, and/or endurance”. To protect fairness, as well as safety, particularly in contact sports, “it is necessary and adequate to base eligibility for competition on biological sex”.⁴

Even in precision sports such as pool, snooker and darts, men have a physical advantage. In cue sports, one clear way that strength gives an advantage is by enabling a higher cue speed and thus a better break shot. Another is that the trade-off between power and accuracy means that a stronger player can be more accurate than a weaker one.

In recreational sport and exercise, it can be intimidating and demotivating for women and girls to be denied their own spaces, activities, categories and events. Many women prefer to exercise with other women, and therefore seek out women-only running groups, gym classes and swimming sessions. In a recent survey 22% of women wanted female-only gym and swimming sessions.⁵

Female participation lags behind

Women in Sport, the charity set up to champion women’s sport in the UK, says that the skills and participation gaps between girls and boys exist from an early age. Boys are on average slightly faster and stronger than girls throughout primary school.⁶

“One of the most heart-breaking emails I had was from a mother saying at her daughter’s primary school, the headmaster decided to run co-ed races all day because there’s an eight-year-old boy who’s decided he wants to identify as a girl. Not a single little girl won an event at the school sports day. Her 11-year-old daughter came home in tears and said ‘Why am I bothering?’”
Baroness Sharron Davies speaking at a SEEN in Sport event in September 2025

By adolescence, many girls decide that they do not “belong” in sport. The challenges of puberty and periods, as well as their changing body shape and the unwanted attention this often brings, can create a negative experience as girls reach adulthood. Pregnancy, motherhood, and menopause are further stages in women’s lives where participation in exercise declines.⁷

A recent survey found that one in four women report not feeling physically healthy. Only 23% of women engage in 30 minutes of exercise a day, five or more times a week. 65% of women report not enjoying exercise.⁸ Around 930,000 fewer girls than boys play team sport in England, and half as many girls as boys dream of reaching the top in sport.⁹

Privacy, dignity and safety matter

Female changing rooms are important. Research conducted in 2021 by Sport England and UK Active, the industry body for gyms and leisure-centre operators, found that a quarter of women surveyed said that female-only changing facilities and toilets were a factor in whether they would participate in sport and exercise. Among those who had used a facility in the past three years, this rose to 40%, showing that it is a live issue.¹⁰

Safer Spaces to Move is a dedicated project between UK Active and Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign designed to help women and girls to feel safe and more confident while being active in gyms, fitness and leisure facilities.¹¹

None of this works when the category of “female” is opened up to include males who assert a female identity.

“My daughter is on the national development squad. We attended a presentation which talked about the process for drug testing. She will have to be naked from her bra line to her knees while somebody watches her pee. Apparently the person watching would be the ‘same gender’. I asked if that meant they would be the same sex. The presenter looked uncomfortable and said they didn’t know. So, potentially a man could be watching my semi-naked teenage daughter pee and presumably she couldn’t refuse.”
Parent, south-east England

The Equality Act permits support for women in sport

Women and girls depend on specific provision in every aspect of sports and games, including training, competition and changing rooms. The Equality Act includes a set of exceptions so that duty bearers can lawfully provide benefits and services separately to women or men. These exceptions to the general prohibition against direct discrimination are what make familiar sporting provision for women and girls (and for men and boys) lawful. They are not limited to competitive events, but cover a range of situations where the Equality Act applies.

The legal provisions that enable support for women in sport

Single-sex and mixed sport

Wherever a provision of the Equality Act is used to promote opportunity for women and girls, it applies based on biological sex, not gender identity.

Although “open” (fully mixed) sport and facilities are also lawful under the Equality Act, it may be indirect discrimination not to provide separately for women.

The relevant sections of the act

Associations: Schedule 16

Sports at local and county level are sometimes organised through single-sex associations. Such associations are in many cases how the organisation of women’s sport began.

What the law says

Single-sex associations are lawful.

Schedule 16, paragraph 1 of the Equality Act allows an association to restrict membership to persons who share a protected characteristic (which would otherwise be unlawful discrimination).

“An association that restricts membership to persons who share a protected characteristic does not breach section 101(3) by restricting access to benefits, facilities or services to such persons as share the characteristic.”

For example:

• Buckinghamshire County Ladies Golf Association promotes the interests of women’s and girls’ amateur golf at all levels in the county of Buckinghamshire. Its members and officers are women and girls who are members of the association. It undertakes talent development, ensures correct handicapping systems and runs the County Championships and other competitions.
• Barnes Bridge Ladies Rowing Club is based at the Civil Service Sports Club Boathouse in Chiswick. The club was originally called the Civil Service Ladies Rowing Association. It shares its clubhouse with Cygnet, the men’s civil-service rowing club.

Single-sex and separate-sex services: Schedule 3 Part 7

Sports and games facilities, exercise and training sessions and changing facilities are also often provided as single-sex or separate-sex services. For example:

• Single-sex and separate-sex changing rooms, showers and toilets are commonplace and an important part of making sports facilities accessible, safe and welcoming for women and girls.
• Everyone Active is a major leisure and fitness contractor that manages municipal gyms and swimming pools. It provides a range of women-only sessions with dedicated times and facilities, including women-only gyms, and women-only swimming sessions, gym sessions, group exercise classes, climbing-wall sessions and women-only running clubs.¹²
• The Rugby Football Union recently published a Design Guide to Female Toilet Provision to help clubs understand this need.¹³ It is delivering the Rugby World Cup 2025 Impact programme in partnership with HM Treasury, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Sport England. The programme includes a fund of £7 million for investment in facilities to “enhance the rugby club experience for females”, including constructing new female changing rooms and improving existing ones.
• This Girl Runs is a women’s running group that offers group runs and courses to help women reach distances of 3km and then to progress to 5km.¹⁴
• Breeze rides is a programme of women-only bike rides developed by British Cycling that aims to make more women feel confident and comfortable about going on a ride. Over 1,200 volunteer “Breeze champions” organise bike rides in their local areas with support and training from British Cycling and Scottish Cycling.
• NETBALLHer is a programme developed by England Netball and The Well HQ to educate women and girls at all levels of sport about their bodies across the different life stages. It aims to normalise conversations on topics around the female body by educating staff, coaches, officials and volunteers to create environments where women and girls can train and compete as their body changes.

“My daughter had a much older male playing in her university team with girls aged around 19–21. He used the female changing room with them. All the girls had been conditioned to be kind and be ‘trans allies’ so no one said anything. I had heard my daughter complain about some ‘inappropriate behaviour’ for over a year but I didn’t know the details and assumed this was an older woman because of the female name and female pronouns used. I wish I had known earlier that she was talking about a man as my safeguarding instincts would have been alerted sooner. Thankfully he was removed from their team. My daughter didn’t want to discuss it but said that everyone on the team was relieved.”
Parent, the Midlands

Single-sex and separate-sex services: Schedule 3 Part 7

What the law says

Organisations that provide services to the public can provide single-sex and separate-sex services where these are needed as a proportionate means to a legitimate aim.

The Equality Act includes express provision for single-sex and separate-sex services in a wide range of situations. Schedule 3, paragraphs 26 and 27 of the act allows for the provision of single-sex and separate-sex services.

A single-sex service can be provided if it meets one of the following conditions:

• Only people of that sex need the service.
• The service is also provided for men and women together, but providing the service in this way would not be sufficiently effective.
• The level of need for the service makes it not reasonably practicable to provide a separate service for each sex.
• The service is likely to be used by more than one person at the same time and a woman might reasonably object to the presence of a man (or vice versa).
• A person might reasonably object to the service user being of the opposite sex because the service involves physical contact.

The act also provides a more wide-ranging set of criteria for separate-sex services.

These can be provided if a joint service for persons of both sexes would be less effective.

They can also be provided differently if the extent to which the service is required by one sex makes it not reasonably practicable to provide the service otherwise than as a separate service provided differently for each sex.

Any limited service must be a proportionate means to a legitimate aim. This is a legal test also known as “objective justification”. It basically means that you have to have a good reason for the rule. It is explained in Homer v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police [2012] UKSC 15, which says:

“To be proportionate, a measure has to be both an appropriate means of achieving the legitimate aim and (reasonably) necessary in order to do so.”

Positive action: Section 158

Recognising the different needs of women in sport and the structural disadvantages they face, many national governing bodies have developed strategies to promote women and girls in sports and games. Common strands include investment in facilities; separate competition and development pathways for female athletes; dedicated coaching; workforce development; efforts to improve visibility and programmes focused on female health. For example:

• The Lawn Tennis Association’s “She Rallies” plan to get more women and girls involved in tennis focuses on participation, workforce and visibility.¹⁵ Programmes include the development of specific coaching for girls, giving greater prominence to the importance of female athletes’ health and wellbeing, and tailored support for venues, coaches and female players.
• The Football Association’s strategy for women and girls is called “Reaching Higher”.¹⁶ It includes commitments to support women and girls with their health and well-being needs.
• Welsh Rugby Union is seeking to achieve “equitable investment into the men and boys and women and girls community game”, increasing the number of women and girls who play and creating a clearly identified pathway to increase the number of women coaches and match officials.¹⁷ As part of these efforts it has established three player development centres for women and girls together with Swansea University, Cardiff Metropolitan University and Parc Eirias.
• The England and Wales Cricket Board is committed to “making cricket a truly gender-balanced sport”. It established the Metro Bank Girls in Cricket Fund, which focuses on recruiting, educating, supporting and celebrating the people who make girls’ cricket happen in clubs, with the ambition of tripling the number of girls’ teams at clubs by the end of 2028.¹⁸
• Scottish Cycling has a women and girls’ strategy.¹⁹ This involves investing in women’s cycling at every level from Breeze rides, a programme of free, women-only guided rides intended as an entry route for women to build their skills and confidence, to women-only coaching sessions and women’s races. Its aims include supporting clubs and groups to provide opportunities that engage and retain women and girls, which it hopes will lead to a 30% increase in female membership of clubs and 10 new clubs with strong female sections by 2027, develop opportunities and support for female riders to get started and progress within competition across all disciplines, increase female entries and licence holders by 30% by 2027 and provide tailored support to ensure the performance pathway prioritises the health and wellbeing of female athletes. It is seeking to Increase the number of female coaches, ride leaders and mountain-bike leaders, targeting a 20% increase by 2027.
• The English Chess Federation has a women’s chess initiative that aims to increase the number of women and girls taking part in social and competitive chess. It includes organising and enabling women-only events and clubs, and promoting the visibility of women in chess.²⁰

Any decision to invest in a programme for women to enable women to participate, train, compete and be recognised in a sport or game, rather than having a single category of participation for everyone (which would in practice be dominated by men), is likely to involve lawful positive action.

What the law says

Public and private bodies can take positive action to meet the specific needs of women and girls in sport and to overcome disadvantage they may face.

Section 158 of the Equality Act allows for “positive action” where an organisation has identified that people who share a protected characteristic suffer a disadvantage connected to the characteristic, have needs that are different from the needs of persons who do not share it or are disproportionately low in participation.

The positive action must be a proportionate means of achieving the aim of enabling or encouraging people from that group to overcome or minimise that disadvantage, meeting their needs or enabling or encouraging people from that group to participate in that activity.

This means public and private bodies can take positive action to meet women’s needs, help women overcome disadvantage or encourage women to participate in sports where they are underrepresented.

Charities: Section 193

The promotion of community participation in healthy recreation is recognised as a charitable purpose, as is the advancement of the physical education of young people. In order to be recognised as a charity, the sport or game must be capable of improving physical health and fitness or mental skill, and the club must have an open membership. That is, “access to the club’s facilities must be genuinely available to anyone who wishes to take advantage of them.”²¹

While most community charities for sports and games are mixed sex, some are single sex. For example:

• She Plays To Win is a charity whose aim is to encourage more girls to learn, play and benefit from chess. It provides facilities, competitions and training for girls to play chess.
• Stratford Town Women and Girls FC is a football club for women and girls that is also a registered charity.

What the law says

Charities that limit their benefits just to women and girls or just to men and boys can be lawful. Charities must follow their objects.

Sport is defined under section 3(2)(d) of the Charities Act 2011 as “sports or games which promote health by involving physical or mental skill or exertion”. Charities must pursue their charitable objects.

Single-characteristic charities are allowed by Section 193 of the Equality Act 2010. This provides that charities can be established which restrict the provision of benefits to people who share a protected characteristic, where this is justified either as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim or for the purpose of preventing or compensating for a disadvantage linked to the protected characteristic.

Participation as a competitor: Section 195

Whether someone is eligible to compete in a particular sporting event is a matter of rules. As the International Olympic Committee has said: “Competition is fair when all competitors are alike with respect to the characteristics that define the category.”²² Predictability and consistency are important because all the people on each side (and the referee and record-keeper) need to know exactly what the rules are, and that all players are eligible and playing by the same rules.

The most common way to organise sports competitions is single-sex. There are also other ways of organising sport that provide variety and interest, giving opportunities for men and women to play together while securing fairness for women and between teams:

• Many sports have the option to be organised as mixed-sex pairs: doubles in racket sports, mixed pairs in figure-skating and synchronised diving.
• Mixed teams in relay and volleyball have rules regarding the number of men and women, or the maximum number of men competing at one time.
• There can also be rules about the different roles played by men and women in a mixed team. In mixed hockey, for example, some teams use a convention that a penalty flick may be taken only by a female player. In mixed netball a team is allowed only three male players on court at any one time, and only one man in each of the three zones (goal, centre and defence). In rowing, racing crews are single sex but the coxes can be either sex. In mixed rowing races, a minimum of half the crew must be female. In co-ed cheerleading teams both men and women act as “bases”, but only women act as “flyers” in acrobatic stunts involving one set of athletes lifting and throwing the other into the air. These roles require different skillsets and body types.

Sometimes, in order to advance opportunity for women, sex-based rules are complex:

• Sex-number rules – Ocean sailing competitions use rules that incentivise skippers to bring on female crew members. For example, in 2023 the 44Cup, which requires three amateurs in a crew of eight, introduced rules that a professional female sailor can be counted as an amateur and that the overall crew weight allowed for a mixed crew is 730kg compared with 680kg for an all-male crew.²³ The Ocean Race (previously the Whitbread round-the-world race) limits all-male teams to seven sailors. But two additional female team members are allowed. A boat can race with a crew of five men and five women or with 11 women.²⁴
• Some junior leagues and local fun tournaments and festivals operate sex-specific age rules designed to enable women and girls to participate in team sports despite sometimes being low in numbers. This is particularly important for girls and young women as there needs to be a continuous locally accessible pathway for them to grow up playing the sport. For example, North Middlesex Cricket Club²⁵ says that “girls up to 17 years of age may play in boys’ league matches in a team 1 year below their own chronological age group.  In the U13 and U15 boys’ cups, girls must play in their own age groups…. A male player may only play junior cricket for one Middlesex club and may not represent any other club in another county in their junior competitions. Girls may play in MJCA Girls’ competitions for one Middlesex Club and play in MJCA Boys’ competitions for a different Middlesex Club, providing their Girls’ Club does not have a team in the same league as the Boys’ Club that they play for.”

These rules are not discretionary. Nor do they allow a team to play a man while pretending he is a woman, or undermine opportunity, fairness and safety for women.

What the law says

A wide range of sex-based rules are lawful in competitive sport, to secure fairness and safety.

Section 195(1) states that a person does not contravene the Equality Act:

“so far as relating to sex, only by doing anything in relation to the participation of another as a competitor in a gender-affected activity.”

This means that the setting and applying of single-sex and complex sex-based rules can be justified as lawful in a “gender affected activity”.

Gender-affected activity is defined in s.195(3) as:

“a sport, game or other activity of a competitive nature in circumstances in which the physical strength, stamina or physique of average persons of one sex would put them at a disadvantage compared to average persons of the other sex as competitors in events involving the activity.”

Subsection 4 says:

“In considering whether a sport, game or other activity is gender-affected in relation to children, it is appropriate to take account of the age and stage of development of children who are likely to be competitors.”

“My daughter was shocked to find that at an U12 girls cricket festival, she was forced to play against a male. He was much taller and visibly stronger. Some of the girls on my daughter’s team were only 9 years old. She was upset, saying it was grossly unfair. It made a mockery of the tournament and could have been really dangerous. Worse still was that the club stated that ‘all competitors were eligible to play’ which clearly was incorrect and went against the Supreme Court ruling.”
Parent, north-east England

The competition exception is particularly wide-ranging. It is not limited to a particular kind of duty bearer (it can be used by associations, service providers, employers, educational institutions and others) or only to single-sex situations (it also allows mixed doubles and teams) and it does not require the kind of justification (“a proportionate means to a legitimate aim”) needed for a programme of positive action. It provides sports officials at every level with the immediate reassurance they need that if they apply clear sex-based rules they will not be opening themselves to potential liability under the Equality Act.

“Activity of a competitive nature” is a broad term likely to be given its everyday meaning, encompassing any activity in which participants compete, based on a shared understanding of the applicable rules, standards and criteria for winning or losing (or for comparative rankings).

A wide range of sports are likely to meet the criterion of being “gender-affected”. In Haynes v Thomson and Goodwin on behalf of English Blackball Pool Federation,²⁶ the sport of pool was judged to be one in which the average woman was at a disadvantage compared to the average man. The judge said: “In sport, a small but clear advantage can make the difference between winning and losing.”

Participation of a person as a competitor is likely to include questions about qualification, selection, authorisation or permission to participate in particular categories or events, or the terms or basis on which such participation takes place – including the setting and enforcement of rules relating to participation in general, or their application or other determination of the basis of participation for particular events.

Although there have been few cases where s195 (1) has been tested in court, the most likely interpretation of the scope of the exception (“doing anything in relation to the participation of another as a competitor”) is that it applies where the action in question is an effective means of enabling fair and safe competition. This would allow both for separate-sex sports and for mixed doubles or mixed-sex teams with a specific sex ratio.

It would not allow, for example, for a coach to select players for the men’s team based on skill and for the women’s team based on attractiveness, or for a club to allocate the best equipment or pitches to men’s teams.

Section 195 also includes a specific exception to claims of “gender reassignment” discrimination, in case that is needed – such as excluding a female competitor who has taken testosterone (a performance-enhancing drug) from competing in a women’s event.

Employment: Section 159 and Schedule 9

Some roles in sport may be limited to men or to women where this is a genuine occupational requirement. A ballet company may seek to fill a certain number of roles for men and women. A men’s professional football team will only employ male players, and a female professional team will only employ female players.

Other roles such as CEOs, managers, coaches and referees must be open to both men and women. But in practice they remain dominated by men. For example, of the 16 teams in the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup, only three had a female head coach. 79% of women coaches believe they experienced discrimination as a result of their sex, making it their most substantial career barrier.

National governing bodies have begun to fund dedicated female coaching programmes and are being pressed to understand cultures of discrimination and harassment.²⁷

What the law says

Employers should treat men and women fairly and equally and can take positive action where it is a proportionate means to a legitimate aim.

Schedule 9 provides that where there is an occupational requirement to have a particular protected characteristic, it is lawful to do so if it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

Where people having a protected characteristic are at a disadvantage or are under-represented, Section 159 permits an employer to take that protected characteristic into consideration when deciding whom to recruit or promote.

This can be done only where the candidates are equally qualified. The section does not allow employers to have a policy or practice of automatically treating people who share a protected characteristic more favourably than those who do not have it. In these circumstances; each case must be considered on its merits.

Any action taken must be a proportionate means of addressing such disadvantage or under-representation.

The public-sector equality duty requires women’s interests to be considered

The Equality Act permits single-sex sporting activities and facilities, and individual women and girls are protected against unlawful direct or indirect sex discrimination or harassment by sporting bodies, including national governing bodies, clubs, businesses and charities.

This means girls and women could bring a claim of indirect discrimination if these facilities are not provided for them alone.

But the Equality Act goes further than this in relation to public bodies.

The public-sector equality duty (PSED) aims to make sure that public authorities think proactively about avoiding unlawful sex discrimination and about meeting the needs of groups that are disadvantaged or suffer inequality related to protected characteristics, including women and girls.

The PSED does not dictate a particular outcome, but requires that public bodies consider the impact of policies at the design stage and evaluate their outcomes.

While a policy of mixed-sex sport can be lawful, it is likely to disadvantage – and may result in unlawful indirect discrimination against – women and girls, unless their needs are considered in the design of the activity, facility or programme. Often the best way to ensure that women and girls are equally well served in sport is to provide female-only activities and competitive categories, alongside male or open sporting opportunity.

The five UK sports councils, as well as local authorities and universities, schools and colleges in the public sector are covered by the duty, for example when providing or funding sporting infrastructure, activities, development pathways or athletic bursaries, and when monitoring the outcomes of their policies. Although sports national governing bodies (NGBs), and other private-sector partners such as Parkrun,are not directly subject to the public-sector equality duty, those directing public funding to them are. Supporting actions such as “She Rallies” in tennis and “Reaching Higher” in football are part of how the sports councils, via the NGBs, are delivering on their public-sector equality duty towards women and girls.

Public bodies, and those they fund, must also consider the needs of groups that share other protected characteristics including age, race, disability and gender reassignment. But they should not become confused between the different characteristics when setting policies or monitoring outcomes.

The law is clear

“It is important that the EA 2010 is interpreted in a clear and consistent way so that groups which share a protected characteristic can be identified by those on whom the Act imposes obligations so that they can perform those obligations in a practical way.”
Supreme Court, 16th April 2025

 On 16th April 2025, following a legal challenge by the grassroots women’s group For Women Scotland, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the terms “sex”, “woman” and “man” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a person’s innate biology, not to the concept of gender identity or the holding of a gender-recognition certificate (GRC).²⁸

The function of the definition of “sex” in the law is to provide a coherent foundation for the legal provisions which recognise that women and men as groups have different shared experiences and needs that relate to biological differences as well as to social structures.²⁹ This judgment makes clear that the law recognises women (in other words, female people) as a coherent group with particular needs and vulnerabilities. The Supreme Court ruled that any interpretation of “woman” that included some male people would render the law “incoherent and impracticable to operate”.

Sports are also run as systems that require coherence and practicality. Sports councils and national governing bodies have recognised the need for positive action and specific investment based on their understanding of women’s lives and needs. They will not be able to achieve their goals for promoting women’s inclusion, opportunity and excellence if they dilute this understanding by considering males who identify as women as part of the group. Including those males in programmes that need to be female-only undermines their effectiveness for women and girls.

The judgment makes clear that recognising the two sexes as distinct biological categories is essential for the proper functioning of the Equality Act exceptions that allow separate-sex spaces and single-sex services, associations, charities, competitive sport and the operation of the public-sector equality duty and positive-action provisions.

On the exception on participation as a competitor (section 195), it said:

“We consider that this provision is, again, plainly predicated on biological sex, and may be unworkable if a certificated sex interpretation is required….”

“…a biological definition of sex would mean that a women’s boxing competition organiser could refuse to admit all men, including trans women regardless of their GRC status. This would be covered by the sex discrimination exception in section 195(1).”

On the public-sector equality duty and positive-action provisions, it said:

“In the case of both sets of provisions [PSED and positive action] the purpose of addressing the particular needs, disadvantages or participation levels of women as a group with the protected characteristic of sex, is undermined if women as a group includes trans women … (in other words biological men…).”

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“The embarrassment and shame from being regularly beaten by an unfit male in my sport wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the feeling of worthlessness and loss of hope when letters to CEOs remained unanswered; not even worth an acknowledgement of the email or letter. If I did get replies, they were centred on the feelings of the males excluded from the female category; the impact on my own mental health and the self-exclusion of women were ignored.
“Some sports organisations updated their policies but with great sorrow at having to ban males from the affirmation they enjoyed in the female category. Often CEOs announced they had to contact and provide support, even personal phone calls, to the males, not their female membership. My sports either refused or were reluctant to enforce their new, lawful policy, making it difficult and laborious to prove ineligibility. It couldn’t be any clearer how little the CEOs of these organisations think of women’s feelings and their right to safe and fair sport.”
Competitive female runner, north-west England
 

Why the law has been misunderstood

Despite high-level commitments recognising the disadvantages and barriers still faced by women in sport, the sports councils and governing bodies have allowed a misunderstanding of the law to undermine opportunity, safety, fairness and inclusion for women in sport, and to create a hostile environment for those who champion women’s sport based on the recognition that women are female.

It started with the best of intentions. In 2011 the government launched a one-page charter Tackling Homophobia and Transphobia in Sport. The founding signatories included the Lawn Tennis Association, Rugby Football Union, Football Association and England and Wales Cricket Board. They pledged to challenge “unacceptable behaviour” in sport.

In 2013 the Sports Councils Equality Group, made up of the five UK sports councils, published guidance on Transsexual People and Competitive Sport. It misunderstood the law. The guidance advised national governing bodies:

“NGBs must not restrict the participation of a transsexual person in competitive sport unless this is strictly necessary to uphold fair or safe competition; any other restriction would amount to direct discrimination.”

This is simply wrong, as the Supreme Court has since made clear. On competitive sport the Supreme Court says that Section 195:

“…creates a complete exemption in relation to the prohibition against sex discrimination in sport in relation to the participation of a competitor in a sport that is a gender-affected activity.”

Excluding trans-identifying men from women’s sport is not “unacceptable behaviour”. It is lawful and fair. The law is based on average differences between men and women as coherent groups. Match officials and sports organisers cannot be expected to judge whether it is fair or safe to include a particular male participant “as a woman” at any level in sport. There is no legal basis for them to do so, and they should never have been asked to.

However, in 2013 the UK sports councils said:

“NGBs should treat a transsexual person as belonging to the sex in which they present (as opposed to the biological sex they were born with) unless this might give the transsexual person an unfair advantage or would be a risk to the safety of competitors which might occur in some close contact sports. Any negative effect of restricting the participation of transsexual people must be mitigated as far as possible, to permit as much inclusion as is fair and safe.”

They went on to define “transphobia” or “transphobic discrimination” as:

“discriminatory, abusive or negative language or behaviour that is directed towards anyone who comes under the umbrella term of transgender…. The behaviour may include a reluctance or refusal to provide access to services to the same extent as that provided for a non‐transsexual person.”

It told each NGB to work out its own policy on this basis. But judging the fairness and safety of including males in female sport on an individualised basis was impossible (particularly given that any reluctance to include them in women’s activities was judged as transphobia), so NGBs adopted policies based on self-ID, such as:

“All Participants should be referred to as the gender that they inform you they are.” (British Cycling)

“You must therefore accept them in the gender they present.” (Lawn Tennis Association)

“Players who identify as Non-binary Gender may participate in the gender category of rugby that they feel most comfortable with.” (Rugby Football Union)

NGBs combined these policies with codes of conduct and “zero tolerance” policies that led to anyone who complained or pointed out the risks and unfairness to women being disciplined for transphobia.

By 2019 several NGBs were reporting problems and asking the sports councils for help. In response, in 2020 the Sports Councils Equality Group commissioned a review of the scientific evidence for differences in average strength, stamina and physique between women and transgender males. It concluded that competitive fairness cannot be reconciled with self-identification into the female category. However, it did not go as far as mandating a return to clearly protecting women’s sport. Instead it passed responsibility down the line, telling NGBs themselves to decide whether to prioritise fairness and safety for women or inclusion for transgender males in the female category. This prompted many, but by no means all, sports bodies in the UK to revise their female and transgender eligibility policies, though some limited this to elite levels.

Since the Supreme Court ruling, several more sports’ national governing bodies have revised their rules to bring them back into line with the law and protect the integrity of the female category.³⁰ But some are holding out, and some have not yet set clear sex-based rules for recreational and community-level sports, even though that is where the vast majority of people participate and compete.

None have expressed regret about the low value they placed on fairness and safety for women when they adopted gender self-ID policies contrary to the law.

And none have revised their zero-tolerance policies regarding “misgendering” to replace them with more sensible policies protecting trans-identifying people from abuse but recognising that their sex is relevant in sport. This makes it risky and difficult in practice to challenge individuals who seek to compete in opposite-sex events or use the wrong changing room, particularly in community and recreational settings.

The government has not provided clear leadership, instead saying that it is up to each governing body to set its own rules.

Some governing bodies and sports organisers continue to include trans-identifying men in dedicated provisions for women.

Lawn Tennis Association guidance for venues encourages local clubs to consider what is more important: “ensuring absolute fairness in the competition or making trans people feel included”. Its guidance for officials states that it “strongly encourage[s] venues to start from a presumption of being inclusive for trans”. It also permits trans-identifying males to access “all other LTA products, programmes, services and grants which are targeted towards or allocated to women”.

The Royal Yachting Association has adopted a similar approach across the UK.

In its new policy, released in March 2026, England Squash lists events that offer “meaningful competition”, which must follow sex-based rules. All others, including club, school, university and even second-tier national schools championships, are to be “inclusive”. The implication is that results in these events are meaningless.

Parkrun is a charity that operates a free timed 5km run every Saturday in locations around the UK. It publishes age grade scores, which reflect a runner’s time as a percentage compared with the world record for their age and sex. Sorting the results by age grade gives a single ranking for the event across men and women of all ages. These statistics help motivate people, whether they are aiming to come in first, second or third on raw time, to perform well for their age and sex category, or simply to track their own performance over time.

However, Parkrun explicitly asks people to register not as either “male” or “female” based on sex but by selecting one of four “gender” options.³¹ By running in the female category, male runners can get their age grade scores inflated by as much as 18%. This boosts their position in Parkrun’s age grade rankings, often to the top on the day or even all-time.

The first-place position in the “female” category may be taken by a man, and women’s finish positions in the female category are rendered unreliable by the inclusion of men listed as women.³² Numerous records in the female category are held by men (Parkrun stopped publishing records in February 2024 but they are still published on the 5k app, which uses Parkrun data). Parkrun results feed into Power of 10, a national ranking system run on behalf of UK Sport, so that males registered as female at Parkrun can rank as top women nationally.

The Breeze initiative by British Cycling aims to get women into the saddle and enjoying non-judgemental female camaraderie. Advertised as “for women of all abilities across the UK“, with smiling pictures of female cyclists in countryside locations, Breeze rides are inclusive of trans-identifying males. Some rides may have as few as two participants, and trans-identifying men may also be instructors. This means that women may be turning up for a ride in a secluded location expecting to meet other women and instead be met by a man.

Breeze ride leaders and participants have explained how this deters some women. British Cycling’s response has been to make explicit on the website that this may happen, saying: “With inclusion at its heart, the Breeze programme has also always been open to transgender females and non-binary participants who most closely identify as female.” Nonetheless, a woman will not know before meeting for a Breeze ride whether there will be a male rider or leader, because this is not disclosed in advance.

The Bridge is a women-only gym in Southwark operated by a charity, The Bridge Central (formally the YWCA central club). It seeks to make fitness, movement and wellbeing more accessible to more women. But it interprets women as including “trans women”. This means that women specifically accessing its “female only” facilities may experience unexpected and unwanted contact with men.

English Bridge Union selects national teams for home nations and international tournaments. Bridge is not deemed to be a sport, but male players dominate the rankings. Running women-only tournaments can be justified as a positive action for female participation and opportunity. But the EBU includes men who identify as women in its England women’s team.

The sports councils have not withdrawn or apologised for their bad guidance. Nor have they created new guidance or training that protects women’s sport based on a clear recognition that sex matters. This creates unnecessary uncertainty and acts as a barrier to proudly supporting and celebrating women’s sport at every level.

Indeed, the sports councils continue to collect data for equality which categorises people by gender identity instead of sex. In November 2024 Sport England produced a report entitled Diversity in Sport Governance.³³ It does not consider board diversity by sex but only by self-declared gender, asking respondents to: “Please select which gender you best identify with.” The options given are male, female, non-binary, self-describe and prefer not to say. Appointing men who identify as women on to boards to speak “as women” does not serve the purpose of increasing female visibility and voice. As the For Women Scotland case concluded, it does the opposite.

Sport England’s Active Lives survey to track participation in sport at all levels also collects “gender” (male, female, other), including from schoolchildren.³⁴ If this is intended as a proxy for sex, there can be no “other” category.

Sports organisations that undertake equality impact assessments without remembering that “trans women” are men will fail to spot that they have policies that are detrimental to women, and will punish women who point this out.

Those that seek to avoid the controversy by making sporting activities and facilities mixed sex undermine opportunities for women and girls. This is already an issue in schools, which are abandoning provision for girls with the idea that mixed sport is more inclusive. It is not.

“Having missed out on a top female spot at a Parkrun due to being beaten by a man, I am disappointed by the failure of Parkrun to realise how unfair their gender policy is. It is leading to the exclusion of women who want the chance to take part in a category that isn’t also open to men. I have been fortunate enough to compete in running at an elite level where steps are taken to ensure fairness. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that people should be given the same access to fairness, regardless of what level of sport they are participating in. Women deserve fairness.”
Claire Hallissey, Olympic marathon runner, competed in 2012

Sports bodies risk legal liability

The judgment of the Supreme Court made clear that exceptions which permit different treatment based on sex apply on the basis of biological sex. An organisation which admits trans-identifying men into a service or programme badged as being “for women” is no longer operating within the “gateway conditions” of the relevant exception and risks losing the protection against legal liability that such exceptions give.

These organisations are risking liability for discrimination and harassment against women based on sex by not following the law if they encourage men to be included “as women” in women’s activities, facilities or competition.

The organisers would risk claims both for direct sex discrimination (in relation to the differential treatment of non-trans members of both sexes) and for indirect sex discrimination brought by women placed at a particular disadvantage by having to compete against trans-identified men.

Public bodies also risk judicial review of the lawfulness of their policies, and of their compliance with the public-sector equality duty and obligation to make decisions rationally and lawfully.

Charities whose purposes are restricted to benefitting women are not permitted to extend those benefits to men, whether or not they have done so in the past. Trustees have legal duties and can be held responsible for the consequences that flow from a breach and for any losses that a charity incurs as a result.³⁵

In a contact sport, the sports provider could also face a personal injury claim from any woman who suffers an injury as a result of playing against a trans-identifying man. Compensation for personal injury can be recovered under the Equality Act, and such a claim could also be brought as a freestanding claim under common-law negligence principles.

Importantly, sports organisations have safeguarding responsibilities that depend on having clear rules and standards of conduct, including being honest about what sex people are. A misunderstanding of the Equality Act should never have been allowed to undermine this responsibility. There could be liabilities from inadequate protection from harm.

Under s.111 of the Equality Act, it is unlawful for organisations to instruct, cause or induce acts of discrimination by their clients, association members, employees and so on. The sports system is a highly connected chain of cascading rules that are strongly enforced from the top in order to secure fair competition. Liability also flows upwards. A harassment or discrimination claim against a sport organiser following a discriminatory policy could lead to claims against the federation and governing body that endorsed the policy.

Getting back on track

Protecting women’s sports is the right thing to do

Women who are seeking a career in sport or to excel in amateur competition have a short window in which to develop their skills and fitness and to pursue their goals within the sport. It is unjust and unreasonable to expect them to divert their energy from the pursuit of sporting excellence to fighting legal battles simply to get their governing body to maintain fair, safe rules for women’s sport, as the law requires.

It is up to the sports councils, pursuant to the public-sector equality duty, to ensure that the national governing bodies they recognise serve both women and men, avoid engaging in unlawful sex discrimination and advance equality of opportunity between the sexes.

The Supreme Court judgment confirms that the law supports women’s sport. As the government embarks on a Decade of Change for women’s sport,³⁶ it should bring the sector together around a clear, confident understanding of the law and of the interests of women and girls in sport.

The sports councils do not have to wait for political leadership, regulatory pressure or individual legal cases. Standing up for fairness, safety and inclusion for women and girls in sport is simply the right thing to do. It is straightforward, fair, popular and lawful.

It is also now aligned with regulations set by international sporting bodies such as the IOC and World Athletics that are returning to clear sex-based rules.

Allowing men to take women’s places in sports programmes and competitions is neither safe nor fair.

Policies shaped by a misunderstanding of the protected characteristics in the Equality Act are likely to be unlawful.

It’s time for leadership

Recognising that women and girls need and deserve dedicated provision in sport should never have been difficult or controversial. Women-only categories in sport are the main inclusion measure for women, since without them there would be little opportunity to play fairly (and, in some sports, safely).

Sports should be inclusive, but trying to include people into opposite-sex sports is precisely the wrong way to think about equality and inclusion. Sports bodies should make sure they welcome people who identify as transgender into sports and facilities for their own sex.³⁷

Consecutive governments and the sports councils have misunderstood the Equality Act and created a hostile environment for women in sport as a result.

They should now take five steps to put this right:

1. The Minister for Sport should call for opportunity, fairness and safety for women and girls to be respected at every level of every sport: from community changing rooms to elite athlete programmes, and all levels in between.
2. The Sports Councils Equality Group should withdraw its 2021 “trans inclusion” guidance and recognise that the correct approach to trans inclusion is inclusion within the correct sex category.
3. The sports councils should make a joint statement of commitment to women’s sport and produce clear, simple guidance recognising that, for the purposes of protection against sex discrimination and harassment, and for advancing equality of opportunity for women at every level, woman means female and man means male.
4. Individual sports councils should bring their data-collection surveys and registration data into line with the Equality Act and the reality that sex is immutable and binary.
5. The sports councils should ask national governing bodies and others in receipt of public funding to sign a fairness pledge to protect women’s sport at every level and to use sex-based categories in their equality impact assessments and data collection.

If the sport system will not rectify its own errors, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) should use its statutory powers to take action.

The sports councils, the EHRC and the governments and parliaments to which they answer should act to protect women’s sport. It should not fall to individual women or grassroots women’s-rights groups to spend the next decade bringing individual legal cases to bring the whole sport system into line with the Equality Act.

Organisations with a mandate to promote sport for women and girls should celebrate the Supreme Court judgment and not shy away from calling out the harm that “trans inclusion” policies have done in diverting the focus of the sport system away from promoting female sporting participation and excellence.

Female athletes should be spending their time competing on the field, not fighting in court for basic rights and dignity.

Sports bodies should be spending their resources celebrating and championing women’s sport, not trying to defend actions that undermine legal protections against sex discrimination for women and girls.

Annex: The culture of fear in sport

It is sometimes claimed that women do not mind about the women’s category and women’s activity in sport being made “trans inclusive” and that no one is complaining. The reality is that many women have been trying to complain, but no one is listening to them. The Sports Councils Equality Group project report (2021) described an atmosphere of intimidation and fear.

“The overwhelming majority of people who considered fairness and safety could not be achieved with transgender inclusion into female sport did not feel confident to voice these opinions.”

“Other athletes said that they had been warned not to discuss this topic by their national governing body and had been threatened with sanctions such as non-selection if they disobeyed.”³⁸

In 2024, campaign group Fair Play For Women published first-hand reports from 35 sports that revealed many ways in which women and girls are being adversely affected.³⁹ Many spoke of the pressures against speaking up.

“They also easily out-ran us all, and afterwards I looked around at my fellow competitors in stunned amazement – but they all kept their eyes trained on the ground.” (athletics)

“The whole team has been told to not leave any comments on social media regarding this issue (for or against). A coach has also left the team for his views against it.” (football)

“Arguably more difficult was the cult of silence around it. I know one woman who kept losing to the same trans rider and so eventually quit, and many others who have been seriously demoralised – and yet so few speak out for fear of being labelled a bigot.” (cycling)

“I have written to the sport’s governing body raising my concerns regarding the number of ‘non-binary men’ now playing a women’s sport and the decline in women wanting to play at a competitive level or any desire to return to the sport due to the number of men now playing. I have not received a reply or any acknowledgement.” (roller derby)

“I have been personally negatively affected by being sent death threats and appalling abuse because I speak up in defence of fair and safe sport for females. I’ve lost work because I speak up.” (athletics)

Sex Matters wishes to thank the legal experts who reviewed this document to confirm its legal accuracy.

Thanks also to SEEN in Sport for providing women’s testimonies.

1. Sex means whether someone is male or female. Gender reassignment is defined as relating to a person who is “proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person’s sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex”. It has recently been confirmed by the Supreme Court that this does not affect the terms used to describe the sexes.
2. For example, Jane Couch successfully sued the British Boxing Board of Control as a qualification body in 1998 for sex discrimination for refusing to license female boxers.
3. A similar duty applies to Sport Northern Ireland under Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998.
4. International Olympic Committee (2026). IOC Policy on the Protection of the Female (Women’s) Category in Olympic Sport and Guiding Considerations for International Federations and Sports Governing Bodies.
5. This Girl Can and UK Active (2021). As told by the 51%.
6. Brown, Shaw and Shaw (2024). ‘Sex‐based differences in track running distances of 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1500m in the 8 and under and 9–10‐year‐old age groups’, European Journal of Sport Science.
7. Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation (2009). Barriers to sports participation for women and girls.
8. Vitality (2024). Active Women, Healthy Lives: Understanding Barriers to Women’s Participation in Physical Activity.
9. Women in Sport (2026). Let Her Dream 2025: The Rise of the Gender Dream Deficit in Sport.
10. This Girl Can and UK Active (2021). As told by the 51%.
11. This Girl Can and UK Active (accessed May 2026). Safer Spaces to Move Resource Hub.
12. Everyone Active (accessed May 2026). ‘Abbey Leisure Centre women’s only gym’.
13. England Rugby (2024). RFU design guide to female toilet provision.
14. This Girl Runs (accessed May 2026).
15. LTA Tennis for Britain (2025). She Rallies Plan 2025–2029.
16. The FA (2024). ‘Reaching Higher: the FA release 2024–28 strategy for women’s and girls’ football’.
17. One Wales (2023): Welsh Rugby Union Strategy.
18. English Cricket Board (2025). State of equity in cricket report.
19. Scottish Cycling (2024). Women & Girls Strategy.
20. English Chess Federation (accessed May 2026). ‘Women’s Chess – Community Page’.
21. Charity Commission (2003). Charitable Status and Sport.
22. International Olympic Committee (2026). ‘FAQ about the IOC policy on the protection of the female (women’s) category in Olympic sport’.
23. 44Cup (2023). ‘Julia Miñana: Rule Change Boosts Female Crew Participation in 44Cup’.
24. The Ocean Race (2016). ‘Race changes rules to attract world’s best female sailors’.
25. North Middlesex Cricket Club (2026). ‘5. Age Qualification/League Eligibility’, Junior Section Info 2026.
26. K01CT207, Canterbury County Court.
27. Women in Sport (2026). Reimagining Sport Coaching: Designing a System That Works for Women.
28. For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16.
29. Ben Cooper KC has written a helpful briefing on the implications of the Supreme Court judgment.
30. Sex Matters (accessed May 2026). ‘Sports timeline’.
31. Parkrun Support (2025). ‘1.3 Gender categorisation’.
32. With thanks to the Olympian Mara Yamauchi, who tracks male participation in the female category in Parkrun.
33. Sport England and UK Sport (2024). Diversity in Sport Governance.
34. Sport England (2024). Active Lives Adult Survey November 2022-23 Report.
35. Murray Blackburn Mackenzie (2026). Losing focus: Women’s charities and the UK Supreme Court ruling.
36. UK Government (2025). ‘Government teams up with experts to supercharge women’s sport by the 2035 FIFA Women’s World Cup’.
37. Insofar as it is safe and fair. Women who are taking testosterone may not be able to compete in the women’s category.
38. Carbmill Consulting (2021). Project report: SCEG Project for Review and Redraft of Guidance for Transgender Inclusion in Domestic Sport 2021.
39. Fair Play For Women (2024). How ‘inclusion’ in sport is harming women and girls.

The post Getting back on track appeared first on Sex Matters.

• Read the full report.
• Read the case studies.

The post Everyday cancellation in publishing – summary report appeared first on Sex Matters.

“An astonishing report that lays bare how a once open-minded publishing world has allowed a minority of activists to bully it into so far abandoning its core principles that it has begun to work, not only against its own ethos, but also against its own interests.”

Anne Fine OBE, author and second Children’s Laureate

“This is vital, disturbing research. For years, publishing has been collectively culpable of purveying an ideology that contravenes biological fact – something that’s particularly concerning in children’s publishing, where the industry has colluded in making rejection of the most fundamental aspect of any human body into an exciting adventure that’s bouncy and bright and cute and fun. This report gives the publishing industry a clear roadmap back to lawful workplace policies and creative, even unorthodox commissioning. Leaders in publishing must take note.”

Lionel Shriver, author

“The publishing industry’s reputation as one of the last precious havens of thought, speech, debate and critique has been all but demolished this past decade, thanks to an ideological status quo which has thrived on a collective silencing of women’s legally protected sex-based rights and realities. It’s difficult to fathom the long-term impacts of unending abuses, bullying, gaslighting, ghosting and strategic cancellations – both public and private – of any woman within publishing who dares to publicly resist the demolition of women’s existence as a sex, and of children’s safeguarding. But we begin with these findings and these testimonies. This is the first investigative report into the impact and tactics of a cancel culture that so many within the industry will deny even exists. It’s time for everyone to sit down now, and listen.”

Onjali Raúf MBE, author

“When history looks back on the epidemic of collective lunacy that was the trans cult, special odium will attach to psychiatrists, counsellors and teachers who warped the minds, and surgeons who mutilated the bodies, of vulnerable people in their care, especially children. But lesser culprits will not escape blame, and high on the list will be publishers who, contrary to their normal editorial judgment, censored or even cancelled brave authors critical of the cult. Authors who asserted scientific truth in the teeth of fashionable ideology. Authors who stood up for real women, or stood up to the bullies who sought to intimidate them. I know many publishers, and I hear multiple stories of relentless pressure from junior colleagues, and of abject capitulation to it. But anecdotes demand proper substantiation, and this splendid document provides it in spades. Books accepted for publication are subsequently cancelled; books that would normally be accepted are turned down; authors who survive the gauntlet to publication find themselves mysteriously shut out of literary festivals and the media, even when their sales figures are high. The evidence is overwhelming and compelling, and this report leaves the reader in no doubt. I hope it will be widely read and discussed throughout the book industry, and I expect it to be a major influence in the coming turn of the tide.”

Richard Dawkins FRS, author and Emeritus Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, University of Oxford

“This report depressingly shows how censorship and abuse has been adopted, quite incredibly, as the weapon of choice by some activists in publishing. While too many of those who should know better have simply gone along with it. Story after story in the report shows how the industry has turned those who don’t toe one ideological line into heretics. No need to burn their books, they just don’t publish them. All to the detriment of good reads, challenging ideas and the very purpose of books and writing. Let’s hope the report is the chequered flag at the finish line of this shameful period in publishing.”

Simon Fanshawe OBE, author and diversity specialist 

“Freedom of expression should be the cornerstone of publishing. But this important report lays bare the extent to which freedom of expression – particularly for female authors and employees – has been undermined in relation to gender and sex in the publishing industry, and how it’s been to the detriment of everyone, imposing significant personal costs on women who’ve dared challenge gender identity belief systems, but also compromising the plurality that’s so important to the arts and publishing in a liberal democracy.”

Sonia Sodha, columnist, author and broadcaster

“The report details so many instances of unlawful behaviour, and outrageous overreach after injustice after plain stupid cruelty. This pattern of bullying people into acquiescence has to be acknowledged. It’s there right across the creative industries, where gender ideology trumps freedom of thought and free expression every time. This report is a welcome first step in disrupting the monoculture that has taken over the publishing world.”

Sonya Douglas, artist, author and poet

Acknowledgements

Sex Matters, SEEN in Publishing and Matilda Gosling are grateful to the interviewees who contributed their time, experiences and thoughts to this research; to the many other people within the industry who provided ideas, connections and background information; to equality-law specialist Peter Daly of Doyle Clayton Solicitors for checking the legal content of this report; and to the donors who made the research possible. The author Jane Harris came up with the concept for the research, liaised with representatives from SEEN in Publishing to get it off the ground, and did endless work behind the scenes to find funding and gather information. We owe her our particular thanks.

Introduction

This report outlines how gender-identity beliefs have affected the general environment in publishing, including relevant policies, training and language; how the resulting culture feeds into commissioning decisions, sales and marketing, unlawful treatment and abuse of individuals who hold gender-critical views; and the impact of this environment and resulting culture on individuals and the broader industry. It concludes with recommendations on how to ensure lawful treatment of individuals, support free speech at all levels, and build a rich, pluralistic and financially viable working culture. 

Language used in this report

“Sex” refers to biological sex. 

The words “women” and “men” refer to adult human females and adult human males. Occasionally the word “transwoman” is used in interviewee quotes; this refers to men who identify as women.

The term gender is ambiguous, as it can be defined in at least three different ways: as a synonym for sex, as gender identity, or as the social roles assigned to men and women. Its multiple definitions limit its usefulness as a concept.

Gender identity has no basis in law (the protected characteristic is “gender reassignment”) but is defined by those who believe in it as a person’s inner sense of gender – whether they feel like a man, a woman or something else.

“Gender-identity beliefs” are used to refer to the belief system that everyone holds a gender identity that may vary from their sex, with downstream implications that include a belief that men can self-identify into female-only spaces and that children can be born into the wrong body. “Gender-identity ideology” and “gender ideology” are used in some direct quotations from interviewees.

Gender-identity beliefs represent the view that everyone has an internal sense of gender that may vary from their sex. People with gender-critical views, who constitute the majority of the British population, believe that there are two sexes, and that nobody can change sex. UK equality law reflects this position, as clarified by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in April 2025. The law also protects people from unlawful discrimination on the basis of their gender-critical beliefs.

“Gender critical” has been used as shorthand for people who critique gender-identity ideology. They hold a range of views linked to the idea that sex is biological, binary and immutable, and that it matters in life and law. UK equality law reflects this position, as clarified by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in April 2025. Not everybody interviewed for this report would use this term; some might prefer “sex realist” or “gender sceptical”, while others might not attach any label, since these views are mainstream. “Gender critical” has been selected as it is the term used in the Forstater ruling that affords legal protection against unlawful discrimination to those who hold these beliefs. 

The research

This research investigates the working environment for authors, agents and publishing staff who believe that sex is binary and immutable, and that it matters in life and law. It was commissioned to investigate widespread but anecdotal reports that publishing has become a hostile environment for people who hold gender-critical beliefs.

The report is based on interviews with 25 people working in publishing, consisting of 10 authors, 10 current or former employees of publishing companies, two agents, a funder, a festival director and a representative of SEEN in Publishing.¹ Most of the interviewees chose to be anonymous to avoid harm to their careers, wellbeing or safety.² Seven of the 25 interviewees chose to be named. Gillian Philip is a former children’s author, Jenny Lindsay and Magi Gibson are poets and authors, Matthew Hamilton is an agent, Rachel Rooney is a former children’s author and poet, Sibyl Ruth is a former editor and Ursula Doyle is the former publisher at Hachette’s imprint Fleet. 

A review of publicly available policies and statements, a social-media review and an analysis of published books also informed the report. Further information was sourced through individual requests. 30 organisations were assessed in detail as part of this research: 21 publishers, three agencies, the Society of Authors, the Publishers Association, Publishing Scotland, the Society of Young Publishers, Arts Council England and Creative Scotland. Full details of the research approach are outlined in the annex. 

Highlights

Publishers have made poor commercial decisions guided by ideology, not markets. There is a vast gulf between books commissioned on gender-identity beliefs and what actually sells: the analysis done for this report on trade non-fiction books shows that the average book about women sells seven times more copies than the average book based on gender-identity beliefs. Gender-critical books sell, on average, nine times more. Commissioning editors have run scared of bold, brave, interesting books that reflect a diversity of ideas and that readers want, and instead commissioned books that fit the beliefs of their junior staff. 

Helen Joyce received a £20,000 advance for her book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, which went on to sell over 23,000 physical copies in the UK and over 100,000 internationally. Munroe Bergdorf, by contrast, received a six-figure sum for Transitional, which sold fewer than 3,000 copies in the UK.

Abuse of those with gender-critical views in publishing has been relentless. People – usually women – have received death and rape threats. Others in the industry have threatened them with reputational damage and loss of work, have used slurs and insults against them, and conflated their views with transphobia, homophobia, racism and other forms of bigotry. Gender-critical individuals working in publishing have been accused of wanting the deaths of trans-identifying teenagers and working towards genocide. There have been industry calls for those with gender-critical beliefs to be demonised, and they have been labelled as fascists for thinking that there are two sexes.

In 2020, the former children’s author Gillian Philip added the hashtag #IStandWithJKRowling to her Twitter (now X) profile. She was then subjected to an extreme 24-hour social-media pile-on that included death threats. Philip’s contract was immediately terminated by her publisher with the tacit support of her agent. 

Mainstream media outlets have compounded the problem. Coverage of published books was perceived by our interviewees to be biased towards those based on gender-identity beliefs. It is notable that gender-critical books have sold so well despite this apparent bias – analysis conducted for this research shows that in non-fiction, the average gender-critical book sells 10,000 more copies than the average book based on gender-identity beliefs. 

Journalists on BBC Radio 4’s flagship women’s-affairs programme Woman’s Hour have not interviewed best-selling gender-critical authors about their books, despite the issues they cover being so relevant to women. By contrast male gender-studies academic Grace Lavery has been interviewed, despite selling only 1,723 copies of Please Miss – A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis. So has Juno Dawson, a male transactivist who also identifies as a woman. Dawson has depicted womanhood as a submissive sexual identity: “I knew I wanted to be ‘the woman’ when it came to sex… It was a conscious urge to get fucked, be penetrated as a woman would be.” It is surprising that somebody with such a perspective, which arguably undermines the position of women in society, has been platformed on a programme about women instead of authors who argue for women’s rights. 

There has been huge bias not only in commissioning, but also in which books receive publicity and which authors are platformed. Some interviewees perceive investment in publicity to be lower in some publishing houses for books and authors that reject gender-identity beliefs. Venues have sometimes refused to allow gender-critical authors and others in the publishing world to speak. When they have received a platform, gender-critical speakers have often been subjected to relentless attempts by transactivists to deplatform them. These attempts have sometimes been successful. 

In 2023, protestors at the Edinburgh launch of Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader physically attempted to prevent people entering the venue and shouted “Shame on you!” at those who did so.

Several authors withdrew from the 2025 Oxford Literary Festival after an announcement that Helen Joyce would be discussing her book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality with fellow gender-critical author Julie Bindel. Joyce and Bindel’s event was the only session to sell out, and it did so within 24 hours. A separate event featuring the philosopher and author Constantine Sandis, organised after he said that he would not share a stage with Joyce, reportedly sold fewer than 100 tickets.

Another author was invited to chair a literary event. The invitation was later rescinded. A subsequent subject access request revealed that a publicist from her own publisher had contacted the event organisers to demand her removal due to her supposedly “anti-trans” views. 

Women in publishing have found themselves at the sharp end of this belief system. They appear more likely to be publicly gender-critical. Being asked to state pronouns in email signatures or to use “inclusive” language that ignores female realities can make some women feel that they are being required to align with a belief system with which they fundamentally disagree. 

Policies about women in publishing often fail to centre actual women. One publisher’s menopause policy is “inclusive of all gender identities including trans and non-binary employees”. Another targets everyone, “whether you’re a cis woman, a trans man, intersex or non-binary”. Women have occasionally been dehumanised: one publisher put out a journal paper entitled “Trans women, cis women, alien women, and robot women are women: they are all (simply) adults gendered female”.

Gender-critical lesbians and gay men working in publishing lack staff groups that advocate for their needs and rights based on their same-sex orientation. People who are same-sex attracted have been told that heterosexual men identifying as women are lesbian, and that heterosexual women identifying as men are gay. Lesbian, gay and bisexual members of staff who perceive a conflict between their own rights and what are presented as trans rights have no representation in publishing houses. No staff networks were identified that focus exclusively on LGB issues or that represent the views of those lesbians and gay men who do not believe that members of the opposite sex can self-identify into their dating pool. 

Employment law and other relevant legislation are frequently contravened by publishing houses. Examples of potentially unlawful behaviour include:

• Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) policies that fail to consider the protected characteristics of sex and religion or belief, while focusing on gender identity (which is not a protected characteristic) or the poorly defined concept of “gender”. Of the 30 organisations reviewed for this research, only four correctly cite the protected characteristics of sex and gender reassignment across their publicly listed policies. There is a wider failure to balance the needs and rights of all employees and workers, focusing only on those who have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment and ignoring those with other protected characteristics. 
• Allowing trans-identifying staff to use toilets that align with their gender identity, not their sex. This breaches the legal requirement to provide single-sex toilets in the workplace and turns single-sex spaces into mixed-sex spaces. 
• Surveys that conflate sex and gender identity, rendering the data meaningless. This also means that there is no obviously lawful purpose for its collection under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
• Failure to sanction abusive social-media posts by employees against other members of staff, from accounts that clearly link to their place of employment. This sometimes contrasts with draconian and unlawful sanction against staff whose social-media output challenges gender-identity beliefs.

One publisher’s trans-inclusion policy, for example, mandates the use of trans-identified colleagues’ pronouns, suggesting that mistakes are corrected and that repeated failure to use chosen pronouns may be “regarded as harassment” and dealt with accordingly. This may represent unlawful discrimination against employees who hold gender-critical beliefs and who do not feel comfortable manifesting the belief that a person can become a woman or man (or neither) through a process of self-identification. Staff at another company were told that they may need to use different pronouns depending on the day or week: a colleague might be he/him on a Monday and they/them on a Thursday.

Funders, literary venues and representative bodies also appear to be acting unlawfully in some cases. 

Training and advice in the sector has been exceptionally poor. One person was informed that an employer could not find a trainer who could deliver accurate equality-law training. A creative industries organisation incorrectly names the Act of Parliament on which it trains people, calling it the “Equalities Act”. The Publishers Association has based its data-collection guidance on Stonewall advice, which states that sex and gender are the same thing, that gender and gender identity are the same thing and that data on sex should not be collected. 

A criticism of SEEN in Publishing, a sex equality and equity network for publishing professionals, was that its organisers chose to remain anonymous, but reactions from the industry – including naming it a “vile TERF publishing group” (commissioning editor) and a “nasty, anonymous, hate-filled little network” (editor), and telling its members to “get fucked” (publisher) – show why it has been necessary for them to do so. “I was really scared,” said a representative of SEEN in Publishing of her decision not to reveal her identity. She pointed out that most of the abuse directed online at the network had been sent from social-media accounts that were linked to their employers in the publishing industry. It is striking that calling people disgusting, nasty bigots can be done in full daylight, while joining a network that believes in the material reality of sex requires secrecy to protect those joining it from the perpetrators of this open abuse.

The promotion of gender-identity beliefs in children’s publishing is widespread and its ramifications are serious. Children who identify as trans are more likely than other children to have underlying vulnerabilities such as autism, poor mental health, a history of abuse or having grown up in care. They are several times more likely to grow up to be lesbian, gay or bisexual. They need support to feel comfortable in their bodies. Children’s books, on the other hand, paint a shiny, sparkly world of trans identities that supposedly fix deep-seated underlying challenges, resolve bodily hatred and create enduring joy in the form of “trans euphoria”. 

These publications are steeped in stereotypes. The blurb for the book I Am Jazz, for example, reads:

“From the time she was two years old, Jazz knew that she had a girl’s brain in a boy’s body. She loved pink and dressing up as a mermaid and didn’t feel like herself in boy’s clothing. This confused her family, until they took her to a doctor who said that Jazz was transgender and that she was born that way.”

Jazz Jennings is now an adult who has had several transition-related surgeries and experienced post-surgical complications, as well as many other health issues. 

The impact of this hostile environment and the harms it has caused to those in the industry who hold gender-critical beliefs has been immeasurable. Interviewees mentioned stress and poor mental health, fears for their own safety and the safety of their families, physical ill-health and financial catastrophe. Loss of work has been the biggest professional impact.

One person was affected so badly she felt suicidal. Other examples of health effects include stress-related illnesses, panic attacks and symptoms such as high blood pressure. One interviewee experienced migraines so severe she had to lie on the floor at work, vomiting into a bucket. 

Several of the named interviewees in this research have lost book and employment contracts, speaking engagements and other means of generating income. Rachel Rooney stopped writing after two and a half years of cross-industry bullying, much of which took place online. Jenny Lindsay lost clients, speaking engagements and other works after her hounding. In May 2025, Ursula Doyle reached a settlement in her case against her former employer, Hachette, for discrimination on the grounds of her gender-critical beliefs. Gillian Philip was fired after she was swarmed on social media. Sibyl Ruth’s contract as an editor was effectively terminated after she posted online about her lawfully held beliefs. 

These losses are cumulative, as people who are seen as industry disruptors or troublemakers are less likely to get work in the future. 

Overview

Key findings

Gender-identity beliefs have become dominant in publishing, and the silencing of opposing views has created a false impression that few people disagree with them. This belief system has created a working environment that has throttled plural perspectives and truly diverse commissioning. Discrimination towards and harassment of gender-critical staff, authors and agents have had tangible, negative effects on people’s health, safety and livelihoods. 

The resulting chilling effect and legal, financial and reputational harms can be reversed with lawful policies and a commitment to diversity of thought. 

The environment in publishing 

HR and EDI policies: the diversity, inclusion, discrimination and harassment policies of organisations within the publishing industry frequently signal inclusion and protection on the basis of gender and gender identity, ignoring sex-based rights. 

Some organisational policies omit any consideration of the need to ensure protection from unlawful discrimination on the basis of protected philosophical belief. More broadly, there is a lack of regard to the Equality Act 2010 in published organisational policies and reports. 

The trans-inclusion policies reviewed for this research contravene UK law by allowing self-identification into purportedly single-sex spaces. They potentially cause unlawful discrimination against gender-critical staff in publishing by compelling them to use terminology with which they disagree, as well as unlawful discrimination against lesbian, gay and bisexual staff and against those who have protected religious beliefs.

“I raised concerns about some of the content. They didn’t respond. I wasn’t included in any more emails or given any more drafts of the policy. I was stonewalled.” Publishing employee

Editorial and free-speech policies: editorial documents such as style guides often use a gender-identity lens. Language that erases women is common. Organisations have made limited public commitments, so far, to freedom of speech or expression. 

“Avoid assuming someone’s gender based on their appearance or name, as some people may not identify as a man or a woman, but would instead prefer to choose their pronouns, commonly: he, she, they or ze… You should respect the way people wish to identify themselves. If you aren’t sure which pronouns to use, just ask them!” Academic publisher’s Inclusive Language Guide

There has nevertheless been more progress made on stated support for freedom of speech than on other relevant internal policy areas, such as those ensuring protections on the basis of sex and belief. 

Facilities: some organisations reviewed for this research offer employees toilet provision that is not compliant with the law. 

Converting accessible toilets into gender-neutral provision has significant real-world consequences for staff who have health conditions or other disabilities when there is insufficient provision to meet their needs. It is likely, in some cases, to constitute indirect sex discrimination, as the impact on women of not having accessible facilities is bigger than the impact on men. 

The role of representative bodies: the industry is affected by template policies and reports put out by representative bodies such as the Publishers Association, some of which are incorrect in law. EDI policies are sometimes used to advance ideas of social justice rather than to ensure legal compliance. 

Examples of good and lawful policies do, however, exist. 

Data collection and analysis: there is widespread confusion in data collection and analysis – as seen, for example, in questionnaires about the characteristics of industry freelancers – when it comes to sex and gender identity. This confusion results in category overlap and missing data. 

Poor industry practice on data collection and analysis has been informed by equally poor sector-wide guidance. Funders sometimes require organisations to collect and report data based on ill-defined or even meaningless categories, leading to scenarios in which, for example, staff are classified according to whether they are “male”, “female” or “other”. 

“The experience of pay discrimination often arises from things like taking time off to have children. That’s about sex.” Publishing employee

There are concerns that poorly designed questions may be used to identify dissenting staff and authors.

Training and consultancy: EDI training tends to be delivered by organisations that lack a sufficiently comprehensive understanding of UK law. 

“They couldn’t find anyone to deliver equality law training as the law was.” Interviewee

Staff are sometimes offered training in trans awareness or trans inclusion, but no instances were found of training that might support the needs of gender-critical staff. Gender-identity focused topics receive more attention in training than topics focused on women, and language describing women is sculpted to fit the belief system in a way that language describing men is not.

Training content is sometimes incorrect – for example, that sex is a spectrum and assigned at birth, and that puberty blockers are reversible and safe. 

Internal culture: staff occasionally face disciplinary actions for their views, and authors and freelancers face loss of work. 

There is a cross-sector pattern of ignoring concerns raised by gender-critical members of staff or authors. This is accompanied by a seeming inability to learn from what has gone wrong, and a tendency to blame individuals rather than looking at broader systemic problems. 

Strongly held beliefs about the primacy of gender identity over sex lead some people to act in ways that would be exceptional in most other workplace scenarios. Examples include sending unsolicited abusive messages and chronicling instances of an author’s supposedly unsound beliefs. 

“Despite being aware I protested Section 28 back in the 80s, I was told by [my publisher] over the years that some considered me transphobic and homophobic. I was sent screenshots of my posts as an example of wrongthink.” Rachel Rooney

A third of the 30 focus organisations of this research are publicly linked to transactivist organisations such as Stonewall, the Proud Trust, All About Trans, Gendered Intelligence and Mermaids. 

There appears to be a widespread assumption across publishing that it is acceptable in the workplace to abuse and harass people who have gender-critical beliefs, and blacklists and blocklists have contributed to a hostile environment for people in the industry with gender-critical views. 

Pockets of good practice exist, however, even in publishing firms that have made questionable decisions in other parts of the business.

Language: the language used by publishers about people who hold gender-critical beliefs is often inaccurate and lacks balance. 

When language is designed to be inclusive of trans and non-binary identifying staff, it frequently achieves the exclusion of staff with gender-critical beliefs and women. 

Staff networks, groups and unions: there are more staff networks in publishing that cover trans issues than there are staff networks dedicated to women. 

Lesbian, gay and bisexual members of staff who perceive a conflict between what are advocated as being trans rights and their own rights have no representation at all. 

“People assume that those groups speak for everyone, but there are a lot of gender-critical lesbians who won’t be in that group, or will be silent if they hold those views.” Funder

Staff networks have often been a key driving force in the mainstreaming of gender-identity beliefs within organisations, and networks and unions have sometimes actively worked to silence people with gender-critical views.

Public statements and campaigns: some publishers have signed up to contested political statements that contribute to an inhospitable working environment for gender-critical staff, agents and authors. Even expressing gender-critical beliefs is harmful, according to some industry commentators. 

An open letter published in The Bookseller and signed anonymously by people from across the industry implied that gender-critical views should not be published. It falsely elided the expression of those views with previous victimisation of “homosexuals, Jews, disabled people, people of colour, Muslims, suffragettes, even left-handed people in our past”.

[After conflating concern about the erosion of single-sex spaces with transphobia:]
“If you are a publisher or an organisation that is aware that you are providing a platform for these fearmongering, discriminatory views to be expressed, and for that bias against a minority in society to perpetuate, then please consider very carefully why you have allowed that to happen and not acted when the matter came to light. How will your actions appear in the clear light of history?” 2021 open letter published in The Bookseller

Literary competitions and other initiatives: initiatives that would once have been targeted at women have been expanded to include writers who identify as non-binary (who are either male or female) and anyone who self-identifies as a woman (males and females). 

“As a Prize which celebrates the voices of women and the experience of being a woman in all its varied forms, we are proud to include as eligible for submission full-length novels written in English by all women. In our terms and conditions, the word ‘woman’ equates to a cis woman, a transgender woman or anyone who is legally defined as a woman or of the female sex.” Statement by the Women’s Prize Chair of Trustees

Some gender-critical authors believe they have been frozen out of literary competitions. Children’s literary competitions have promoted books and authors that celebrate gender-identity beliefs.

The Society of Authors (SoA): the SoA has, in the view of many gender-critical people working in publishing, perpetuated a gender-identity belief system in the sector and failed to stand up for the interests of authors who have been subjected to abuse from transactivists. 

“Don’t engage with [gender criticals], just block them.” Post liked by the SoA’s X account, 2022

Other parts of the industry: The Bookseller has, so far, failed to cover what has been happening in publishing in any great depth, and concerns have been raised that gender-critical authors may not have been reviewed or otherwise featured in the trade press on the basis of their beliefs. 

“The Bookseller has largely done what most senior people in the industry have done – keep their heads down, don’t attract attention, don’t say the wrong thing and hope nobody comes for you.” Publishing leader

Other parts of the industry, including distribution, warehousing and bookselling, also appear to be part of the problem.

The chilling effect

Representation of relevant issues and book sales: the publishing industry vastly over-represents books based on gender-identity beliefs compared with books about women. The relative imbalance would matter less if it was what the market wanted, but analysis conducted for this report suggests that it is not. This shows that the average trade non-fiction book based on gender-identity beliefs sells only 14% of the copies that the average book about women sells, and only 11% compared with the average gender-critical book. 

Average number of books sold by focus area

These figures suggest that the considerable overrepresentation of books based on gender-identity beliefs is driven by ideology, not markets.

Commissioning decisions: the commissioning environment underpins this contradiction between book sales and the type of book that gets published. 

Commissioning editors have sometimes turned down gender-critical book proposals due to a stated dislike of their content, rather than for commercial reasons. Some responses to proposals by Kathleen Stock for Material Girls and Helen Joyce for Trans said that editors would not be able to progress the books internally. Others mentioned personal anxiety about the topic. A soft censorship also emerges from the commissioning environment. 

“As an ally to the trans community I find Stock’s view deeply problematic and dangerous.” Written feedback from an editor on Kathleen Stock’s proposal for Material Girls

There is a need to recognise strengths, too: there are pockets of positive, plural commissioning in the industry.

“There was a meeting about a book on a controversial topic, not about sex and gender, and at that meeting, there were slurs about TERFs and colleagues saying we shouldn’t publish TERFs.” Publishing employee

Book publicity and marketing: several authors believe that their books were not given sufficient publicity and marketing support on the basis of their beliefs. This is almost impossible to evidence in most cases, but some likely examples were found, including an author whose publisher stopped tagging her into book publicity on social media. There are perceptions of a converse over-promotion of books based on gender-identity beliefs. 

“Gillian Anderson read [my book] The Problem With Problems as part of a money-raising campaign for Save the Children. It was a coup. [A transactivist social media account] contacted Save the Children and said I was all these awful things, as a result of which they removed the video.” Rachel Rooney

The chilling effect is not limited to publishers and media; it extends through into distribution and sales channels. Levels of stocks and positioning of books in shops clearly affect sales, and there are multiple reports of gender-critical books being moved to the wrong place, hidden or not stocked for ideological reasons.

Funding: organisations may believe they must publicly subscribe to gender-identity beliefs, or at least not challenge them, in order to access funding. 

As in publishing more generally, the environment within funding bodies can lead to individual persecution and loss of work. This contributes to the broader chilling effect. 

There has been a homogenising effect on language, too, that often departs from observable categories such as male and female. 

Where individuals and organisations receive funding for projects that are arguably prejudiced against people who hold gender-critical views, some observers assume that such positions are endorsed, or at least accepted, by the funders in question.

Deplatforming and other forms of removal: gender-critical authors and other speakers have been deplatformed from events linked to the publishing industry, and open engagement between speakers and their audiences at festivals and other events has been curtailed. Event cancellation, threatened cancellation and disruption are further issues. Venues sometimes turn down requests to host events that feature gender-critical authors. 

“They threatened us. They said they were going to stop us getting into the venue, and would harass and harangue us… It was a terrible storm with terrible bullying, and no support from anyone in the Scottish literary world.” Magi Gibson

Content warnings and public distancing are other forms of more subtle deplatforming. Authors and other freelancers have found themselves quietly removed from company websites. There have also been calls not to give work to people because of who they follow on social media.

Public abuse and harassment: staff from major industry organisations, including funders and large publishers, have participated in targeted harassment of people in the industry with gender-critical beliefs. Some authors have been subjected to concentrated, extreme abuse that has included rape and death threats. 

Harassment sometimes takes the form of vexatious complaints. Being closely watched and policed for language or behaviour also contributes to a hostile environment. 

“Witnessing the Jenny Lindsay affair was a real shock. I am ashamed to say I did not speak out or help her publicly. I have a deep sense of shame about that, as she was destroyed. Because she was so effectively destroyed, I thought that it would happen to me.” Author

Social media can give a skewed impression of general sentiments in the sector or more generally, but it causes significant damage to individuals at the receiving end of harassment and abuse. 

“New PSA, book industry folks. I don’t care who you are, how I know you or how ‘powerful’ you might be, if I notice you following ‘G.C’ people aka Transphobic bigots, I will contact you to call it out and unfollow you if you don’t support ‘ALL’ of the LGBTQ+ community.” 2023 social-media post by a digital-content lead in publishing

Examples of social-media harassment perpetrated by people in the publishing industry against authors, agents and publishing staff who hold gender-critical views are given in full later in this report. These examples conflate gender-critical beliefs with transphobia, racism and other forms of bigotry; imply radicalisation; state that gender-critical views represent hate; link gender-critical beliefs to sexual fantasy and a desire for people who identify as trans to die; equate gender-critical beliefs with a threat to safety; position being gender-critical as supporting tradwifery, Nazism and genocide; target reputations and professions; make other threats; use slurs and insults; and implicitly support unlawful behaviour. 

Silence: the widespread adoption of gender-identity beliefs in publishing has led to required adherence to a contested monoculture, with penalties in place for those who deviate from it. Several interviewees said they had colleagues who held similar beliefs, but that those colleagues would not say anything publicly or in the workplace due to fear of potential consequences. 

People who have suffered after speaking out about this issue often find that the usual systems of social and professional support are not available to them. Proffered support has sometimes been removed when supporters themselves have been attacked. 

“I have seen what’s happened to some women and some men who have spoken out, and I can’t risk that.” Publishing employee

The silencing of non-aligned perspectives can give employers a false impression that everyone believes in gender identity.

Children’s and young adult publishing: the promotion of gender-identity beliefs in children’s publishing is widespread. This ideological marketing to children risks extensive psychological and physical harm. 

“One of the things that disturbs me most about the whole subject is the indoctrination aspect…. It’s very strange to me that gender ideology should make itself most felt in the area that young children are reading it, on sex changes and body modification.” Matthew Hamilton, literary agent

An industry-wide charter appears to have contributed to this gender-identity focus in children’s publishing, as have exam boards’ curricula and academic publishing in the form of textbooks. An ecosystem supportive of gender-identity beliefs and hostile to gender-critical positions in schools, libraries and bookshops further embeds this belief system.

Academic and scientific publishing: gender-identity beliefs may be even more tightly bound to academia than it is to publishing, which affects authors employed in universities and staff working for academic publishing companies. The culture is unfriendly to those who do not align to gender-identity beliefs, and bullying is widespread. 

“These academic women were saying ‘trans women are women’ and ‘no debate’. I had no idea if transwomen are women but ‘no debate’? We are academics! Debate is written into the DNA. That’s when I started asking questions.” Author

Ideology has, in many disciplines, replaced scientific reason and empirical evidence. There are serious problems with academic publishing and peer review. Author submission guidelines in hundreds of scientific journals state incorrectly that sex is a spectrum. Journals may be rejecting important research papers because of the opinions of their authors.

Scottish publishing: several of the more egregious examples in this report of discrimination and harassment against people with gender-critical beliefs took place in Scotland, where the institutional landscape has been shaped by the government’s support for transactivism. 

“Gender-critical writers in Scotland have been cancelled in all sorts of ghost ways for years. We have had our careers derailed. We’ve been made worse than persona non grata. We have been made whipping boys for having perfectly reasonable and legal views that we have a right to hold.” Magi Gibson

SEEN in Publishing (SP): SP, whose membership cuts across the political spectrum, was set up in the wake of clear-cut cases of bullying, online pile-ons and other cases of harassment of gender-critical authors, publishing employees and others across the industry. 

The backlash to the announcement of SP’s inception was instant and intense, and illustrated that discrimination against and harassment of people with gender-critical views in the industry are live, tangible issues. 

SP organisers would like to reach a point at which people in the industry can speak freely about their beliefs, whether these relate to sex and gender identity or other issues. They hope the industry will reach a point at which SP can cease to exist.

“I would like to leave publishing in a better place. It’s been a good career to me, and I’ve been so horrified by what I’ve seen in the last five years. It’s not the industry I joined or the one I want to leave behind.” SEEN in Publishing representative

The impact

Personal impact on authors, agents and staff: the personal impact on those who have been harmed by the pervasiveness of gender-identity beliefs in publishing has been immeasurable. 

The biggest effects have been to cause stress and poor mental health, and to create fears for personal safety and the safety of family members. Physical ill-health has been another substantive impact of the hostile environment. 

“I don’t know a single woman who has been in the public eye and hounded who hasn’t had digestive issues and cancer scares and all those things that are part of living in flight and flight for so long.” Jenny Lindsay

Cancellations, deplatforming and loss of work have financial consequences, as well as effects on family life. Anger, loss and disappointment were common themes. Some interviewees said that their personal experiences have strengthened their belief that gender identity is an inappropriate belief system around which to build workplace structures.

Professional impact on authors, agents and staff: loss of work has been the biggest professional impact. A less immediately cataclysmic but related effect has been the erosion of professional networks that gave people career security. 

Some people have lost the ability or will to be creative. Other effects include time wasted through having to engage with this belief system, professional hypervigilance and worries about unforeseen consequences. Many interviewees have made compromises in the course of their work. 

“Some people do think I am a Nazi bigot and think I want to murder trans children or whatever it is they believe that middle-aged women think… It’s been a pretty poisonous thing. I don’t know what it has to do with books and reading and that lovely experience of sharing in other people’s thoughts and ideas.” Festival director

Gender-critical people working in publishing have not always experienced a negative impact as a result of their beliefs, and some who have spoken out do not regret having done so.

Legal, financial and reputational damage and risk: organisations in publishing are putting themselves at legal and reputational risk through a range of unlawful policies and activities; in some cases, this risk has converted to active damage. Several settled legal cases have shown the financial and reputational costs to organisations that have breached the Equality Act 2010 by enabling a hostile environment for people who hold gender-critical beliefs. 

“The protected characteristics are a shield to protect everyone, not a sword to advance the causes of certain groups.” Funder

Employers in publishing sometimes describe gender-critical beliefs as transphobic; it is likely that this represents unlawful harassment of staff who hold these beliefs.

Organisations frequently fail to balance the needs and rights of employees and workers who have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment with the needs and rights of employees and workers who have different protected characteristics. They also frequently ignore unlawful or abusive statements made by their own staff. 

Public-sector organisations allied to publishing, such as funders, are bound by the public-sector equality duty and risk unlawful behaviour if they fail to uphold it. Literary venues and representative bodies sometimes appear to be acting unlawfully too. 

Litigation is costly for all parties.

Ripple effects: the endemic problems in publishing caused by this belief system have ripple effects, including consequences for:

(a) what we think and believe through the language and images that are used on the page 

(b) other groups of people, and especially children who have grown up in an environment in which it is normalised for them to believe their bodies must be wrong if they do not fit stereotypes for their sex 

(c) scientific knowledge and progress.

“The language you use is so bound up in the argument you make. It’s been a fight about language, and it’s not trivial what language you use.” Publishing employee

The future of publishing

There are signs that the culture is improving, although the backlash to the Supreme Court ruling puts this in doubt. It is possible that more court cases will need to play out to effect real change. Change is also likely to be driven by the market, and by more people with gender-critical beliefs gaining confidence to speak up following clarification of the meaning of the word “sex” in law.

“When organisations realise the financial and legal risk, they will stop doing it.” Publishing employee

Overview of conclusions and recommendations

Conclusions

1. The views of people who believe in the material reality of sex are protected in law, are based on evidence and reflect the views of the majority of the British public. 
2. Freedom of expression and lawful treatment of employees, authors and other freelancers is good for publishing, the creative industries more broadly and wider culture. 
3. There have been serious failures in law, policy, safeguarding, training and data collection. 
4. Culture and language in publishing have contributed to an environment in which people who believe in the material reality of sex have been cancelled, harassed and abused with impunity. 
5. These failures have created tangible, significant personal and professional detriments, as well as a wider culture of fear. 
6. Organisations have also created legal, financial and reputational risks and harms by acting unlawfully. 
7. Funders, unions and other industry bodies have often exacerbated these harms instead of fixing them. 
8. The situation in children’s publishing is particularly concerning. 
9. A sustainable industry is based on markets, not ideology. 
10. Clear leadership is required to course-correct. 

Sector-wide recommendations

• Ensure that internal policies, processes and training are compliant with the Equality Act 2010. 
• Make a clear commitment to freedom of speech both internally and in commissioned work. 
• Aim for institutional neutrality.
• Stand up to abuse and other forms of harassment perpetrated by staff. 
• Review diversity policies. 

Organisation-specific recommendations

Publishers and agencies: move back to seeking and commissioning interesting, challenging books that reflect a plurality of ideas and perspectives, and reflect what people want to buy and read. End cancel culture within their organisations and put in place robust policies to ensure the abuse of people with gender-critical beliefs, as well as those with other protected characteristics, is not tolerated.

Scientific publishers: centre evidence and knowledge, and remove all policies that stipulate that papers must be based on a belief in gender identity.

Funders: specify that an institutional commitment to free speech is a condition of public funding, and uphold the Nolan Principles.³

Industry bodies: ensure that sector guidance is accurate and lawful, and commit to fair treatment of different groups that have lawfully held beliefs.

Media: commit to more balanced reporting on issues of sex versus gender identity, and ensure that books written by gender-critical authors get fair coverage based on the quality of their books, not their content or their authors’ views. This recommendation is of particular relevance to The Bookseller.

SEEN in Publishing: engage with the Publishers Association, CIPD or other relevant bodies to encourage them to develop a suite of template policies. These should encompass EDI, HR and freedom of speech specific to publishing. Template policies should be Equality Act-compliant and easily adaptable by individual organisations.

The beliefs and their importance

The beliefs

Gender-identity beliefs

Gender-identity beliefs represent the view that everyone has a gender identity that may vary from their sex. Sometimes this sense aligns with being a man or a woman; for other people, they may feel like neither and identify as non-binary or genderqueer. People who subscribe to this belief system generally believe that identity is central to decision-making: that, for example, gender identity takes precedence over sex when it comes to who uses which changing room or who is classified as a woman when it comes to sport, or that children have an inherent, unchanging sense of gender identity that should be affirmed, potentially – when it is different to their sex – through medical treatments. 

This set of beliefs is also known as gender-identity ideology, gender-identity theory, trans ideology, gender-identity ideology and transgenderism. 

It is the position of this report’s author and its sponsors that a plural society in which a variety of views can flourish is positive. The risk comes when a contested set of ideas is used as the basis of workplace policy and culture, which can have a negative impact on individuals and erode the rights of other groups. 

Gender-critical beliefs

People with gender-critical views hold the view that sex is real, binary and immutable. This position is generally seen by those who hold it to reflect objective reality rather than representing a belief system. 

The law
The definition of sex that governs equality, discrimination and inclusion law in the UK is based on biology, not identity or paperwork, as confirmed in April 2025 by the Supreme Court.⁴

For those who are gender-critical, and some who are not, the concept of gender identity is distinct from the concept of sex. Many people believe that they only have a sex, and that the concept of gender identity can only ever be based on stereotypical beliefs about what it means to be a man or a woman, many of which are reductive, sexist or both. 

Sex is not always held to be relevant: in many situations – such as a person’s day-to-day working environment in many jobs, say – it may be unimportant that somebody’s self-described identity varies from their sex. At other times, such as when it relates to the provision of single-sex spaces, jobs involving health and social care, safeguarding or compelled speech, it matters. 

These views are not transphobic. The poet Magi Gibson reflected the experience of many gender-critical people working in publishing when she pointed out: “I said repeatedly that I wanted trans people to be protected and to have full human rights like the rest of us.” A key challenge for gender-critical staff and freelancers working in publishing is a widespread assumption that their views are driven by bigotry rather than a different philosophy or understanding of reality. 

Such an assumption may also undermine the extent to which senior leaders in publishing take seriously the evidence set out in this report. This section therefore briefly sets out some key perspectives showing that concerns about the enactment of gender-identity beliefs in publishing are generally driven by evidence, as well as a desire to balance rights and minimise harms for all groups. 

1. Sex is real, and it matters. There are biological differences between men and women, such as in muscle mass, bone density and height. These differences support arguments for sport to be separated by sex on the basis of fairness, safety and inclusion. Sport is not inclusive if the female category includes men: women are excluded from sport if male physical advantages enable men who identify as women to take positions on women’s sports teams or podiums, or if women self-exclude due to safety concerns.⁵

As well as this physical male advantage, men (including men who identify as women) are significantly more likely than women to perpetrate sexual assault and other forms of violence, supporting arguments for single-sex changing rooms, residential accommodation, hospital wards, rape-crisis centres, prisons, and other services and spaces. 

Evidence shows that sex differences are not mitigated by identity. The opposite may, in fact, be true, as identity claims can be used by malign actors to enter female spaces. 62% of male prisoners who identify as women or a different gender identity have been convicted of a sexual offence,⁶ compared with 22% of male prisoners overall.⁷ These figures suggest that either (a) there is greater sexual violence among trans-identifying populations or (b) that perpetrators of sexual violence are more likely to pretend to be trans for lighter treatment or access to female spaces. The underlying reason makes little difference to the women who experience this male-pattern violence. The reality of male offending causes fear and trauma for some women who encounter men in female spaces, whatever their reasons for being there. 

These points are relevant to publishers, agencies and other organisations that allow men to self-identify into female spaces.

In many other situations, sex is unimportant. The biological reality of sex has no impact on clothes, hair or other aspects of presentation. It is commonly held by those with gender-critical beliefs that people should be able to present themselves in any way they choose, so long as it is lawful. 

2. There is no high-quality evidence to suggest that “transitioning” children supports their long-term wellbeing, alongside mounting evidence that both social and medical transition cause harm. While children cannot change sex, social transition is used to describe changes to name, chosen pronouns, clothing and hairstyle adopted by some gender-questioning children, while medical transition describes the puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones prescribed to children to make them appear more like the opposite sex. Medical transition, in adulthood, occasionally involves surgeries. 

There are many underlying vulnerabilities in childhood trans identification. Teenagers who identify as trans are more likely to have a variety of mental-health problems, including anxiety, depression and eating disorders, and to have self-harmed.⁸ They are at least eight times more likely than other teenagers to be on the autistic spectrum,⁹ eight times more likely to have been in care,¹⁰ twice as likely to have experienced sexual abuse and almost twice as likely to have experienced psychological or physical abuse.¹¹ 

If an innate gender identity could be recognised by young children that remains unaffected by the brain changes and identity development of adolescence, factors such as growing up in care, having a neurodevelopmental condition or having been abused should be unrelated to trans identification. It should, presumably, also be relatively equally split between girls and boys – but it is not. In the final year of referrals made to the former Gender Identity Development Service, referrals were more than twice as high among girls.¹²

Lesbian or gay teenagers may identify out of their sex due to societal homophobia or to gender non-conformity being linked to damaging stereotypes of what it means to be a boy or a girl. Trans-identifying teenagers are ten times more likely than others to be same-sex attracted.¹³ 

Taking puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones is linked to known long-term harms, including heart complications,¹⁴ lower bone density¹⁵ and (for girls) vaginal atrophy.¹⁶ There is no good evidence yet to show that physical transition of trans-identifying teenagers improves their mental health.¹⁷

These points are relevant to children’s publishing. Many books teach gender-identity beliefs to children of all ages. Some imply that feelings of physical discomfort can be cured by transition, normalise aspects of physical transition like mastectomy scars, or wrongly state that puberty blockers are safe and reversible.

3. Promoting gender-identity beliefs over observable facts reduces girls, women, boys and men to nothing more than a set of stereotypes. If being a girl or woman, or a boy or man, is unrelated to sex, then it becomes defined by stereotypes about personality traits, interests, aptitudes, clothes and looks. 

This has a particular impact on women: when they are defined as a sub-set of a stereotype, they cannot clearly describe their female-specific experiences of menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth, menopause, male violence, unequal treatment due to their sex, or a panoply of other core aspects. Being asked to state pronouns in email signatures or to use “inclusive” language that ignores female realities can make some women feel that they are being required to align with a belief system with which they fundamentally disagree. 

And if being a woman or man is about personality, interests or looks, what does this mean for the aspects of personhood that may stray from the constriction of expectation?

These points are relevant to the prevalence of gender-identity beliefs across publishing as a whole, but more particularly to the people – often middle-aged women – who do not subscribe to it. 

While not held by everyone who believes in the material reality of sex, some other views are common to people with this perspective:

• Everyone’s human rights matter, including the human rights of trans-identifying people. Problems only arise when extra rights are requested that would erode the rights of other people – for example, the right of women to have single-sex changing rooms or the right of lesbians to form an association that does not include men. The asserted rights of those with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment sometimes conflict with the asserted rights of those who hold the protected characteristics of sex, sexual orientation, belief and religion, and such conflicts require careful resolution. 
• People of all perspectives have the right to express lawful opinions without being subjected to abuse, harassment or unlawful discrimination. They also have the right to work in an environment that is not hostile to them because of their protected beliefs. Publishing was built on ideas, diversity and freedom of speech, and will be worse off until we can return to these enlightenment ideals. 

The vast majority of the British population shares gender-critical perspectives. YouGov polling in 2025 found that 58% of the British public believe that men who identify as women should not be allowed to use women’s changing rooms, 74% believe that men identifying as women should not participate in women’s sports and 65% believe that puberty blockers should not be made available to children under the age of 16.¹⁸

Why the adoption of gender-identity beliefs in publishing matters

There are a number of reasons why the widespread adoption of gender-identity beliefs matters:

It inverts reality. “Everything is connected to this,” said the ex-publisher Ursula Doyle. “It’s not a political disagreement. It’s a fundamental disagreement about what is real.” While this issue affects few people in terms of wanting to be the other sex, its implications affect everyone. There is also an inversion of reality through the ways in which issues are sometimes presented by transactivists. Some state, for example, that gender-critical people are trying to erase trans people, when most, if not all, of those who believe in the material reality of sex also believe that everyone should have full human rights.

Single-sex spaces are lost. Several interviewees mentioned the need to protect women in prison from male offenders and female athletes from unfair, unsafe male competition. The poet Magi Gibson, who has worked with women’s groups for 35 years, said: “I gained an understanding of what it feels like to feel very vulnerable and more vulnerable than many of us would in certain situations.” Once a single-sex space contains one person who is the opposite sex, it is logically a mixed-sex space. At that point, no person can lawfully be excluded on the basis of their sex, regardless of gender identity. 

Women’s experiences are erased and their needs are subsumed when other people’s desires take priority. “I felt that women had been erased from company communication,” said Doyle. The word “woman” occurred only once in her former employer’s menopause policy, and then with the prefix “cis”. “Women didn’t have anything of their own in that organisation,” according to Doyle. “It affected my sense of absolutely everything.”

Children are taught that a sense of bodily discomfort may mean that they are trans. The world of children’s books has promoted this belief system over the last few years and imparts its messages from picture books through to young-adult literature. A sense of bodily discomfort is common, especially over the course of puberty, but some books are leading children to equate this discomfort with a need to alter themselves medically and permanently. 

“I have always worked with children with special needs. It is ingrained in me that you don’t tell a child they are intrinsically wrong in any way.” Rachel Rooney

It creates a monoculture. Seeing the world through a single, contested lens leads to poorer internal decisions as well as a less interesting literary corpus. It means that people are judged on what they believe, not on the quality of their work. “One of the things that was happening was the abandonment of the distinction between how you might do a piece of work and what you think elsewhere,” said the author and former editor Sibyl Ruth. “It almost feels like an ownership of the soul. If you have one incorrect thought, it’s like it’s a virus and your whole personality is contaminated.”

It has a tangible, negative impact on health and livelihoods. Online pile-ons, cancellations and workplace discrimination have an enormous personal toll, as this report sets out. 

Interviewees mentioned earlier proposed legislative changes around self-identification of gender identity in both Scotland and the UK as other reasons for speaking out, as well as honesty. According to one publishing employee: “I would rather be true to what I believe and be disliked.”

How we got here

As this report makes clear, gender-identity beliefs have taken hold in publishing to such an extent that freedom of speech has been undermined, many workplace policies are unlawful, gender-critical staff and authors have been subject to harassment and unlawful discrimination, and the resulting chilling effect is seen throughout the industry. This section sets out interviewees’ beliefs about how such a situation has arisen.

There has been an overspill from broader culture. Publishing has been subject to some of the broader forces that have led this belief system to insert itself into the police, the NHS, schools and many other sectors. After Stonewall’s successful campaign for lesbians and gay men to have equal marriage, trans rights were seen as the next civil-rights frontier. Trans-activist organisations, including Stonewall, caused “no debate” to become a requirement in many discussions about trans identification.”People were coming into discussions saying ‘How dare you debate trans lives?’” said Gibson. “But it was actually women’s rights that I was interested in.”

“I went along with it, but I couldn’t get the doubts out of my head. The ‘no debate’ rhetoric put me off. There is a massive change in the way that we are organising society and thinking of humans, and… debating it is thought of as fascist.” Author

Other social-justice movements played into the environment in publishing, partly driven by the desire of people working in a uniform industry to diversify alongside the accompanying historical sweep of individualism and identity politics. “It’s been an ideological shift from universities and America with the social-justice shift and the introduction of EDI,” according to an agent. “Some of that is good, but a lot of it is ideologically rigid.”

Publishing has become increasingly politicised, and there is a linked assumption that everybody believes the same thing. “If you are a believer, then that is fine – everything is jolly and celebrated,” said an agent. “If you aren’t, you are stepping outside that norm and it is… heretical.”

“Lots of people who’d fought women’s rights campaigns were finding that they were being branded as far right.” Funder

The people who hold these beliefs see them as progressive and tend to hold themselves up as being good. “The prevailing narrative is ‘Be kind’,” according to a publishing employee, which contrasts markedly with some of the behaviour outlined in the rest of this report. “The charitable thing is to think there is some horribly misplaced idealism going on,” said Sibyl Ruth. “Some people think the arts sector has been taken over by evil bullies, but I am trying to cling onto a more positive view of human nature.”

This “good people” narrative is reflected in the funding environment too. “People are very respectful and polite,” according to an Arts Council employee, and they are swept up in ideas of themselves as good and kind. “It’s a miasma, a world that you walk through, the air that you breathe.” This positive self-perception of employees who hold supposedly progressive political views is at odds with the atmosphere it produces, which is one of fear and potential vilification if people do not adhere to the expected belief systems.

“We have a set of agreed values, and there is a danger that we have become a priest class there to advocate a certain set of values to the benighted peasantry.” Funder

This belief system has transmogrified into groupthink. It plays out in particular over social media. When people like or repost content that abuses or otherwise harasses people with gender-critical views, children’s author and poet Rachel Rooney explains it as “partly protection racket, partly a power grab and partly virtue signalling”. The groupthink has led to an environment in which free speech has become coded as being right-wing, according to the agent Matthew Hamilton, and there is little curiosity about opposing views. “Whether it’s being gender-critical, conservative or a sceptical old-fashioned left-wing critique of the new left, there is fear around it,” he said. 

“People feel empowered to have those views and to feel confident about speaking them. For someone with my views, it is the opposite… It’s a bit like being on the wrong side of any other package of issues. People like me see what happens to women – or men – who were brave enough to stand up and the impact that had on their careers and personal lives. And we’ve thought, ‘Well, I’ll keep quiet on this one’.” Publishing employee

The particular demographic represented by staff working in publishing – predominantly middle-class and white – has informed the proliferation of this particular set of ideas. Diversity of thought has been lacking. “A lot of people don’t have much real-world experience,” said an agent. “It’s quite idealistic… There are a lot who have been through the university system where [gender-identity ideology] is an expected belief.” Publishing is also female-dominated; some interviewees suggested that women, in certain cases, are socialised into trying to express the right opinions and gain approval from others.

Absence of diversity has facilitated a supposedly progressive mindset, sometimes informed by people’s desire to counter their own privilege, that lacks understanding of real-world implications. “There are a lot of people who will never know anyone in a prison or a refuge,” said a publishing employee, “and are happy to give away my rights and my daughter’s rights.” Another interviewee commented: “A lot of the gender ideology stuff is held onto by people who feel apologetic about their own privilege.”

It was pointed out separately that many people who identify as non-binary or trans are also middle-class and white: gender identity allows them to cast aside their mantle of privilege. 

Leaders in publishing have sometimes let the narrative be driven by young, ideological members of staff. Younger employees tend to understand social media and know how to use it to turn issues into lightning rods. This pattern may also be an overspill from a parenting culture in which adults abdicate decision-making to their children. “Senior leadership team people have parented their children in this way,” suggested a publishing employee. “They are almost extending that into the workplace.” Young staff sometimes enter employment expecting that they will have immediate power and authority, possibly due to a combination of this parenting style and an increasingly student-centred university environment. Hearing their voices is positive, according to an author; acceding to their demands is not. Young dissenters to this worldview may find it hard to speak out given the tone of the debate.

“The workplace is not a democracy, but they don’t want to come out and say so… We’ve lost sight of there needing to be some adults in the room.” Publishing employee

Part of the drive by younger members of staff to determine policy may be informed by their working conditions. Those who want to be paid well to do a job may choose to work in financial services, whereas those who are driven by values and belief systems may see low pay in publishing as an acceptable trade-off for doing a job that prioritises their principles. According to an author: “Half the reason why these people have become so fanatical is that they are so disempowered and so poorly paid… It’s not just about righteous indignation. It’s part of a wider generational battle.” 

“In publishing, one of the compensations for not getting paid very much is that you are allowed to have influence on political and social matters. It’s almost like part of the contract. People in senior roles have taken on a supposedly liberal-minded cohort of people who are feeling the pinch, don’t have the life they expected and are pretty angry about the state of the world. Some of their anger is being channelled into this issue. If you have empowered yourself by getting rid of a book on the list you don’t like, you feel better about yourself. ‘At least I am changing the world’. It makes it worth not being paid very much.” Publishing leader

Loud voices are as much an issue as youthful ones. “People with very strong opinions can have an influence out of all proportion,” according to a leader in publishing. “Once you are in management or an ancillary role where you can get into a mess, it is far easier to say nothing.” An Arts Council employee said that lots of people in senior positions in the organisation were gender-critical, but “we had allowed a situation to develop where the tail, the minority, was wagging the dog”.

There are other management failures, too, many of which are explored further in the rest of this report. There has been a failure to ensure that internal policies are lawful and to respond appropriately to abuse and harassment in the workplace, a failure to act quickly enough and a failure to protect freedom of speech. “A lot have a maddening interpretation of neutrality,” according to the poet and author Jenny Lindsay. “‘We don’t get involved in contentious issues.’ But the issue at stake is not whether you agree. It’s about freedom of speech, and they absolutely should be taking a stand about that.”

“The top publishers are not exactly go-getting city dynamic aggressive businessmen. It was very genteel. They didn’t want to confront it. If they’d stood up the first time it happened and said, ‘No, we’re not going to cancel this author or drop this book,’ it wouldn’t have got so bad – but they didn’t and that was fatal.” Gillian Philip

The reality of getting a book to market is another factor. “For a book to work, it needs everyone onside,” according to Hamilton. “The books that make everyone feel good and happy to be associated with them, it’s easier to make work. It’s another reason why problematic books don’t happen.” This microcosmic example of the need to get on is reflected in the broader industry. Publishing is, broadly speaking, a small sector that is focused in London. “It’s like a village,” according to Matthew Hamilton. There is a network of dinner parties and festivals that provides the industry’s social glue. The people who attend them talk with an assumption that everyone else will agree with their views. “You can talk about TERFs¹⁹ and right-wingers,” said Hamilton, “and nobody will disagree. If they do, they stay quiet.”

Undertones (and, sometimes, overtones) of misogyny and ageism play into the gender-identity worldview that has captured publishing. Interviewees gave examples of men and women in publishing who have made similar statements about their opinions or commissioned similar types of books; it tends to be the women who experience heat and abuse. Hamilton highlighted the experience of Douglas Murray, whose book The Madness of Crowds heavily critiques gender-identity beliefs. “When this book came out, we thought: ‘Buckle up, here we go,’ but there was absolutely no problem.” He contrasted Murray’s experience to those of female authors Helen Joyce and Kathleen Stock, both of whom have experienced high levels of abuse from inside and outside publishing.

Ageism is present for both sexes. According to a male author, young people think, “‘We have discovered a new way to be. We are creating the world afresh. Step aside, Grandad.’ It is healthy. But they don’t have the life experience we have, or understand how things have progressed and how there used to be a much healthier, more open climate. Partly because of ageism, they dismiss our views.” There is, however, a pernicious interaction of misogyny and ageism experienced by some gender-critical women. “Maybe it’s nothing new that middle-aged women are disregarded,” said a festival director. “It’s just a new way to disregard us.”

“It struck me that the reason middle-aged women have got stuck in is that they understand the risks involved and safeguarding in a way that younger women don’t, and men don’t [understand this] because they are men. Your life experience is used against you to mean that you are an old bag – not that you have some relevant experience and you know the dangers.” Ursula Doyle

The shape of publishing

The environment 

Policies

Companies’ internal HR and EDI policies

Diversity, inclusion, discrimination and harassment policies frequently highlight inclusion and protection on the basis of gender and gender identity, ignoring sex-based rights. As figure 1 shows, most publishers that list relevant policies tend to omit sex altogether, while a minority cite it in some places but not others. A few publishers (generally the smaller, independent ones) do not publicly list human resource or equality, diversity and inclusion policies. Of the 30 organisations reviewed for this research, only four correctly cite the protected characteristics of sex and gender reassignment across their publicly listed policies. 

Figure 1. Policies relating to representation, equal opportunity or protection from unlawful discrimination: sex and gender reassignment

* lists gender/gender identity but not sex
** lists both sex and gender reassignment

In some cases, organisations refer to “gender” while probably meaning “sex”: some make separate reference to “gender” and “gender identity”. The problem with talking about gender rather than sex is that it can be interpreted in at least three different ways: as a synonym for sex, as the social roles associated with being male or female, or as gender identity. Lack of clarity in language risks staff charged with legal compliance failing to understand that they have legal duties to protect their staff from unlawful discrimination on the basis of sex and, separately, on the basis of gender reassignment. This undermines legal protections for everyone. 

In other cases, organisations have an explicit focus on gender identity to the exclusion of sex. One publisher has described itself, for example, as “a place where anyone of any background, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, gender identity, age, physical ability, or socio-economic status can thrive, feel comfortable, and be heard and accepted”.²⁰ This avoidance of sex as a category may occur more in employers that have prioritised gender-identity beliefs in their EDI initiatives. According to a publishing employee: “Gender ideology is packaged together with [EDI] efforts to change things in a way that’s been quite unhelpful.”

Some organisational policies omit consideration of the need to ensure protection from unlawful discrimination on the basis of protected philosophical belief. Gender-critical beliefs are recognised as a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010,²¹ meaning that employers risk unlawful discrimination if they treat gender-critical employees less favourably than other employees as a result of their beliefs. The relevant protected characteristic in the Equality Act is “religion or belief”. As figure 2 shows, however, fewer than half of publishers and agencies publicly list both religion and belief in their policies, and six incorrectly list only religion. If organisations cannot correctly name the category under which staff and others are protected from discrimination, it seems reasonable to assume that how to protect that group has not been properly considered.

Figure 2. Policies relating to equality or protection from unlawful discrimination: belief

“I don’t think they have any [policies to protect people on the basis of gender-critical belief]. Because of the atmosphere, it would be very difficult to be the person who suggested that – because the orthodoxy is that if someone identifies [their gender] in a particular way, you have to respect that.” Publishing employee

There is, more broadly, a lack of regard to the Equality Act 2010 in published organisational policies and reports. Of the 30 organisations reviewed, half fail to mention the Equality Act in their policies. Nine refer to the act in relation to something other than equality policy (retrospective pay-gap reporting, for example), and only six refer to it in policies relating to equality or protection from unlawful discrimination.

Some organisations have prioritised trans-identified applicants for traineeships and volunteering positions over and above those less well represented in the industry. People identifying as trans make up around 1% of the publishing workforce,²² which is probably higher than the population as a whole²³ – in other words, they are not under-represented. Implying the opposite, a publisher-sponsored proofreading course was advertised “for trainees from backgrounds traditionally under-represented in publishing – including, but not limited to, Black, Asian and ethnically diverse candidates, disabled people, neurodivergent people, and transgender and genderfluid people”.²⁴ The Society of Young Publishers encourages “people of under-represented communities to apply”, to include “trans and non-binary people”.²⁵

In the first example, there was no mention made of potential trainees from lower socio-economic backgrounds, who make up around four in ten of the general population but only two in ten of people working in publishing, nor of men, who make up only three in ten of the publishing workforce.²⁶ Positive-action schemes are only reasonably necessary if they are targeted at genuinely under-represented groups.

Reports that purportedly demonstrate organisational “inclusion” sometimes focus on trans inclusion but overlook women. One publisher’s recent report into equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging, for example, highlights its support for trans and non-binary employees, research on transgender rights and its status as a Stonewall Global Diversity Champion. There is cursory mention of “women” linked to an online jobs platform in India and work on “gender equality”, but there is no mention of the words “female” or “sex”.²⁷

Inclusion statements often focus on gender, not sex, which may signal to current or prospective gender-critical employees, authors and other relevant individuals that their views are not recognised. One international publisher’s inclusion statement states: “We know that creating and sustaining an inclusive work environment is critically important from the boardroom down regardless of race, gender, gender identity or reassignment, age, disability, religion or sexual orientation.”²⁸ The two most relevant protected characteristics to gender-critical staff – sex and belief – are not mentioned. There is often a disconnect between publishers’ stated commitments to inclusion and belonging, and their failure to consider how the working environment might be hostile to gender-critical staff. 

“People were insisting to me that their position on gender was one of neutrality. The HR director had pronouns in her email signature, then there was the trans-inclusion policy in itself and the fact that there wasn’t a women’s network because that would offend transwomen. The window of what was considered neutral had completely moved.” Ursula Doyle

Sometimes creative submissions suffer from the same limited identitarian lens. On its manuscript submissions page, for example, one publisher states: “We are committed to working with and supporting writers, illustrators, and other creative partners from all walks of life, regardless of race, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, nationality, religion or belief, age, social or economic circumstance.”²⁹ This statement gives a veneer of inclusion for those who may not notice the omission of “sex”. 

Relevant policies have not always been supplied to the people expected to adhere to them. Sibyl Ruth received an email from a desk editor for her then-client a month after she had sent the tweet that led to her dismissal (see chapter 6 on professional impact for a fuller discussion about this), stating that she was emailing “a reminder of our values and our policy on equality”. The email said: “As a freelancer… you are acting as an ambassador for our company and our values, so it’s important to always be aware of what these are.”³⁰ Ruth said these values had never been shared with her. “They had made it up afterwards,” she said. Her contract was a technical document; it referred to information in an accompanying company handbook that was never supplied. “I don’t know if it ever existed,” she said. “It may have been a generic contract.”

At least six focus organisations (Creative Scotland and five publishers, including two of the “Big Five”) have policies or guidance on trans inclusion and transitioning at work.³¹ These are not in the public domain, but two of them have been shared with the author of this report. In a section on discrimination, bullying and harassment, one says, “Transphobic behaviour may include… persistently using incorrect pronouns or someone’s ‘deadname’ (former name), or otherwise refusing to acknowledge someone’s identity.” The other mandates the use of trans-identified colleagues’ pronouns, suggesting that mistakes are corrected and that repeated failure to use chosen pronouns may be “regarded as harassment” and dealt with accordingly. These policies may represent unlawful discrimination against employees who hold gender-critical beliefs and who do not feel comfortable manifesting the belief that a person can become a woman or man (or neither) through a process of self-identification. 

Both policies state that staff can use facilities that align to their gender identity. This contravenes the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, which state that employers must provide either single-sex facilities or unisex facilities (lockable cubicles with self-contained sinks).³² Allowing self-identification into purportedly single-sex facilities makes them mixed-sex.

“I raised concerns about some of the content. They didn’t respond. I wasn’t included in any more emails or given any more drafts of the policy. I was stonewalled.” Publishing employee

Some interviewees also critically discussed their employers’ trans-inclusion policies. Ursula Doyle viewed her former company’s trans-inclusion policy as driven only by the transactivist agenda. “It contained no mention of women’s rights or gender-critical points of view, and no acknowledgement that those arguments even exist. The company claims that inclusion and plurality are central to its mission, but that didn’t appear to be the case here.” 

Another publishing employee was aware that concerns had been raised about her company’s trans-inclusion policy, which had been developed by a staff network, when it was still in draft form. The company later changed some of the language, including the phrase “sex assigned at birth” (sex is observed, not assigned), but retained its policy of self-identification into what should have been single-sex facilities and its prohibition of using sex-based pronouns for staff who wanted colleagues to use different pronouns when speaking about them.

“The culture is around promoting queer and trans issues. We have the Progress flag flying at work at the moment, as it’s been LGBT+ history month. You can have the flag in your email sign-off, but you can’t put in equivalent flags for other political or ideological issues.” Publishing employee

It is not just trans-inclusion policies that compel speech. Two interviewees said they had worked with male colleagues who identified as women. In both cases, they were expected to speak about them as women. “It’s not hurting me,” said one person, “but it feels like compelled speech having to call someone who is a man a woman.” Another said that she was asked to cast aside reality. “For everyone who had worked with him, suddenly they had to flick a switch and deny everything they knew.”

Staff at one company were told that they may need to use different pronouns depending on the day or week: a colleague might be he/him on a Monday and they/them on a Thursday. In another case, training on the organisation’s sexual-harassment policies included the warning that repeated misgendering represented grounds for dismissal. This demonstrates a striking internal contradiction: sexual harassment tends to be perpetrated by men, and yet its victims are required to refer to some men as women. In any event, misgendering is never sexual harassment.³³

When individuals choose not to state their pronouns in email footers, biographies or meetings, it can be used as a signifier of wrongthink. An author who works in a university commented: “Not having pronouns in your bio is a clear act of defiance, as you have to go out of your way not to put them on. The refusal is the offence.” Her EDI team sends periodic messages encouraging pronouns to be stated for the purposes of equality and diversity.

“[Stated pronouns] are understood to be the orthodoxy without it being nailed down in official documents.” Publishing employee

These policies can appear cheap and easy to put in place. Mandating the addition of pronouns to email sign-offs, for example, is straightforward and has no immediate financial cost (companies may not factor in the medium-term costs of losing good will and increased staff attrition or legal cases). 

Gender-identity beliefs have also migrated to policies that are meant to be about women. One publisher’s menopause policy is “inclusive of all gender identities including trans and non-binary employees”.³⁴ Another offers support and guidance “to all colleagues experiencing menopausal symptoms, regardless of gender identity or gender expression”³⁵ and one more targets everyone, “whether you’re a cis woman, a trans man, intersex or non-binary”.³⁶ The first two fail to centre women and the third uses the term “cis”, which many women reject on the basis that it defines them as a sub-category. Policies relating to experiences that affect only women may land badly when they are presented on the basis of gender identity, not sex: women cannot identify their way out of sex-specific biological processes.

Consultation on internal policies is sometimes skewed. HR and EDI departments may check policies and language with transactivist organisations and internal LGBT groups, but fail to consult organisations that might provide legal authority or offer balance to ideological input. One publisher has consulted on self-reporting of gender with its Pride Network and Trans and Non-Binary Working Group but not, obviously, with any groups representing women.³⁷ “You have to keep reminding them at every step that it’s not just about those groups,” said an interviewee from a different publisher. “EDI is also about women.”

Editorial and free-speech policies

Editorial documents such as style guides often take a gender-identity lens. One such guide for academic books states: “Individuals should be referred to by the gender they identify with and their chosen name and pronouns.”³⁸ Another publisher’s guidance on gender equality states that it is “designed to be respectful of all genders: female, male and non-binary. We aim for a balanced reflection of gender identities, in proportion to their visibility in the societies in which we operate… [Publisher name] recognises that gender is a spectrum.”³⁹ It does not say what happens if its staff do not recognise this. 

A different academic publisher has developed an “inclusive language guide” that includes an array of gender-identity terms, including cisgender, agender, gender-queer and gender-affirming surgery, and an explanation of “ze/hir” pronouns. It says: “Avoid assuming someone’s gender based on their appearance or name, as some people may not identify as a man or a woman, but would instead prefer to choose their pronouns, commonly: he, she, they or ze… You should respect the way people wish to identify themselves. If you aren’t sure which pronouns to use, just ask them!”⁴⁰

“I did try to say that we shouldn’t be enforcing one set of beliefs on authors. It’s valid if authors are gender-critical and believe in biological sex.” Publishing employee

Language that erases women is common. An interviewee gave the example of women being referred to according to whether they menstruate, not by the word “women”, in her company’s internal communications. “I have to remind myself to say ‘women’,” she said. “You end up training yourself not to do this.”

Organisations have made limited public commitments, so far, to freedom of speech or expression. As figure 3 shows, half of the 30 focus organisations have made a relevant public commitment; of these, two thirds have added a caveat,⁴¹ made a commitment only for some people (for example, talking about freedom of expression when it comes to authors but not making a similar commitment for staff) or committed to free speech in a way that implies they have done the opposite.⁴² Only five organisations have made a full, unqualified commitment to allowing or defending a plurality of perspectives. 

Figure 3. Stated support for freedom of speech or expression

For those on precarious contracts, there is an inherent tension between client expectations that are arguably anti-free speech and the anticipated benefits of working independently. Sibyl Ruth, who – as mentioned earlier – was let go from a freelance contract on the basis of her gender-critical beliefs, said: “There is a paradox between apparent independence and the control an employer might seek in the way that you work… You were independent but at all times a brand ambassador for the company.”

There appears to be more positive movement, so far, on supporting free speech than there has been on other relevant internal policy areas. In 2021, an anonymous managing director of one of the largest publishers was quoted in The Guardian as saying that it is a “necessary inevitability” that books will be published containing viewpoints with which some of his staff actively disagree. “It is complicated,” he said, “but also, I think, quite stimulating.”⁴³ 

Positive but isolated examples include a publisher’s statement, made in response to a staff threat to stop work on a book written by JK Rowling, saying: “Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of publishing. We fundamentally believe that everyone has the right to express their own thoughts and beliefs. That’s why we never comment on our authors’ personal views and we respect our employees’ right to hold a different view.”⁴⁴ The chief executive has also told a House of Lords committee that new publishing employees must be told they will have to work on books written by people with whom they do not agree.⁴⁵ (The same publisher has separately made public commitments to gender-identity beliefs.) 

A concern was raised, though, that free speech in publishing may have become more restricted since the early part of the decade when these examples took place.

Facilities

Some organisations offer legally compliant toilet provision; others fail to comply. Provision is compliant when it is single-sex or unisex, offering individual lockable cubicles with an internal sink. It is non-compliant when people using unisex facilities have to share a sink, and when single-sex provision is effectively made mixed-sex by allowing people to select whether they use male or female toilets according to their identity. As highlighted in the section on HR and EDI policies, at least two publishers have a trans-inclusion policy that allows staff to use facilities that align with their gender identity, thereby allowing male people to use female single-sex facilities and vice versa. Only two trans-inclusion policies were reviewed, so the actual number may be far higher. This is unlawful, as is the provision of one author interviewee’s publisher that comprises gender-neutral toilets with open-plan sinks.⁴⁶

Several publishers offer compliant unisex facilities.⁴⁷ Women who would prefer the provision to be single-sex can find these uncomfortable. “You can hear the person in the loo next to you really clearly,” said one interviewee. An author, talking of visiting the unisex toilets in her publisher’s offices, said, “Men pee differently to women. [The toilets] were covered in urine and stank.”

“Everyone hates gender-neutral loos. It’s the maddest policy.” Author

Converting accessible toilets into gender-neutral provision has significant real-world consequences for staff with health conditions or other disabilities. The accessible signage on the doors of a toilet for disabled staff was removed at one publisher, opening its use up to all staff and restricting access for an interviewee with a relevant disability. “A trans colleague was using the same facility,” she said. “I assumed they didn’t want to use facilities with a disabled sign and the organisation was trying to accommodate their needs. That’s right and proper, but it should be additional, not taking away from accessible loos.” 

The removal of this signage meant that more people used this toilet, restricting her access and meaning that she sometimes needed to use the general-access toilets. “Often that’s perfectly fine,” she said, “but sometimes it isn’t. I need washing facilities in the same space.” This is an example of a supposedly anti-discrimination policy directly causing discrimination. 

The role of representative bodies

The industry is affected by template policies and reports put out by representative bodies. The Publishers Association has developed an Inclusivity Action Plan to which 21 founding organisations have signed up. While it has some positive elements, including a link to an ACAS template that accurately lists the Equality Act’s protected characteristics in reference to avoiding unlawful discrimination, the plan asks publishers to aim for their workforce to reflect national demographics by “gender”. There is no mention of sex.⁴⁸ 

Information that is incorrect in law is sometimes put out by these organisations: the Publishers Association, for example, states in its Understanding Author Diversity Report that “gender” is one of the protected characteristics.⁴⁹ “Gender” is not a protected characteristic in the Equality Act. The relevant protected characteristics are “sex” and “gender reassignment”, alongside age, disability, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, and sexual orientation.⁵⁰

Organisations are sometimes correct in certain areas but undermine this accuracy in others. Publishing Scotland’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy makes a commitment to fair treatment and protection from discrimination⁵¹ on the basis of the nine (correctly cited) protected characteristics, but in the same document goes on to state that it has provided training on gender and gender identity “in accordance with the requirements of the law and good practice”.⁵² And while the Arts Council correctly outlines the protected characteristics in its Equality Objectives,⁵³ its guidance to national portfolio organisations on producing equality action objectives and plans omits “sex” and “belief” from its definition of diversity (which covers most of the other characteristics) and states, wrongly, that “gender (sex)” is one of the protected characteristics.⁵⁴

Creative Scotland points out that it is covered by the public-sector equality duty (PSED),⁵⁵ which obliges public-sector organisations to “advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it” and to “foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it”.⁵⁶ On the same webpage, Creative Scotland says that it is a corporate member of Stonewall and a Diversity Champion, of which more later. Membership of an organisation imbued with gender-identity beliefs does not obviously appear to support Creative Scotland’s adherence to the PSED. 

Creative Scotland’s commitment to its statutory obligations is also undermined by other outputs. An equality impact assessment of a funding programme states that “consideration should be given to inclusion of organisations which programme art and cultural activity that represents and serves people who identify with [the] protected characteristic [of gender reassignment],” despite offering no evidence that those with this characteristic are under-represented in the funding they receive nor requiring similar commitments in relation to the protected characteristics of sex or belief.⁵⁷

EDI policies are sometimes used to advance an agenda that prioritises ideas of social justice rather than centring the law. The Society of Young Publishers, for example, states: “Equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) policies, aiming to ensure fair treatment and equality of opportunity for all regardless of their background, are… an important way to build a more just publishing industry.”⁵⁸ There is no mention of “sex” (other than the consensual kind) on its website, and no mention of “belief” in its coverage of EDI. It does, on the other hand, mention non-binary identities in its inclusion coverage. The Equality Act 2010 is mentioned once on its website in relation to making reasonable adjustments for people with a disability, but with no discussion of protection from unlawful discrimination at work.

Examples of good and lawful policies do exist. The Industry-Wide Commitment to Professional Behaviour in Bookselling and Publishing, which has the backing of the Booksellers Association, The Society of Authors, the Publishers Association and the Association of Authors’ Agents, states: “We celebrate and actively promote diversity and inclusion in all its forms, including and not limited to the nine protected characteristics cited in The Equality Act 2010,” which it goes on to cite correctly.⁵⁹ 

Data collection and analysis

There is widespread confusion in data collection and analysis when it comes to sex and gender identity, resulting in category overlap and missing data. The recently published government-commissioned Independent Review of Data, Statistics and Research on Sex and Gender makes clear that sex and gender identity should not be combined in a single question, the word “gender” should be avoided due to its multiple meanings, and default questions should be about sex.⁶⁰

There are lots of examples in publishing that do not align with this guidance. None were found that do. One of the Big Five publishers, for example, reports separately on “gender” and “trans identity”, which overlap. Its question on gender has the options: women, men, use own terms, non-binary or gender queer, questioning or prefer not to say. It does not report on sex.⁶¹ There are some situations in which publishers appear to collect only data on gender identity,⁶² leaving open the question of how people who do not believe in gender identity can answer a question about their gender identity.

One publisher defended its decision to collect data about only gender identity, not sex, by saying that the HR system already had data on the latter. “By allowing this you are not giving off any vibe that your company is a home for gender-critical people,” said an interviewee.

Some organisations employ fuzzy definitions when it comes to reporting on the pay gap between men and women. One company said in its 2023 Gender Pay Gap Report: “Some of our staff are non-binary, and so, due to the limitations of the government reporting rules, they are excluded from the gender pay gap data.”⁶³ This is lawful – the Government Equalities Office states that employees who do not self-identify as either “gender” can be excluded from calculations⁶⁴ – but it does not support accuracy of pay-gap reporting. A male who transitions late in life will do so having experienced the advantages of salary and promotions held by men up to that point. His salary will therefore artificially inflate the figures for women’s pay. A publishing employee commented: “The experience of pay discrimination often arises from things like taking time off to have children. That’s about sex.”

Three publishers have made caveats in their pay gap reporting like this one: “The regulatory requirements for gender pay gap reporting require us to include only employees who identify as men or women. We recognise that gender is wider than this and are committed to supporting and respecting all colleagues’ gender identity.”⁶⁵

Poor industry practice on data collection and analysis has been informed by equally poor sector-wide guidance. The Publishers Association Inclusivity Action Plan refers publishers to its author data-collection toolkit, which the organisation suggests is used to collect supply-chain data on authors as well as researchers, peer reviewers, editors, suppliers and freelancers. There is no question on sex, while there are two questions on gender identity:⁶⁶

• Which of the following best describes your gender? Male | Female | In another way | Prefer not to say | Non-binary

• Do you consider yourself to be a trans person? Yes | No | Prefer not to say

These make the resulting data meaningless. The inclusion of “male” and “female” in the first question means that some people will answer it on the basis of sex; the use of “gender” and the inclusion of options other than male/female means that others will answer it on the basis of gender identity, with no way of knowing on which basis individual responses that say male or female have been given. It is possible that sex could be reverse-engineered using the second question, but it seems (a) unlikely that publishers will take steps to do so without guidance and (b) likely that gender-critical staff will self-exclude from the first question, meaning a potentially sizeable chunk of missing data. 

The document also states that the focus of linked research became “advice and guidance on best practice for gathering author data relating to protected characteristics”. It incorrectly gives two of these protected characteristics as “gender” and “gender identity”. Publishers may therefore believe they are following best practice in gathering linked data, when some of the concepts given a legal veneer by the document have no basis in law.

These data issues inform the operations of many publishers and, as a result, the environment that their staff, authors and other individuals must navigate. At the time of writing, 29 publishers were signatories to the Publishers Association Inclusivity Action Plan, including 14 of the 21 included in the online review for this piece of work: Bloomsbury Publishing, Bonnier Books, Cambridge University Press, Canongate, DK, Faber & Faber, Hachette, HarperCollins, Pan Macmillan, Pearson, Penguin Random House, Profile Books, Simon & Schuster and Taylor & Francis (Informa).⁶⁷

Funders sometimes require organisations to collect and report data based on ill-defined or even meaningless categories. Creative Scotland requires the organisations it funds to report on the “gender” of its staff and volunteers, leading to some fairly extraordinary reporting in which it breaks down artistic directors across the arts sector into “male”, “female” and “other”.⁶⁸ 

In addition to asking about gender identity of staff, Arts Council England asks some funded organisations to report on “intersex” as a category within “sex”, implying wrongly that people with disorders of sexual development represent a third sex in addition to male and female⁶⁹ (such disorders are rare, and everyone who has one is still either male or female).⁷⁰ A recent Arts Council survey for freelancers, conducted in partnership with the University of Essex, asks whether respondents are female, male, non-binary or prefer to use other language. It includes a separate question about whether respondents’ gender identity is the same as their sex registered at birth, but no question on actual sex.⁷¹ 

Both these surveys, flawed as they are, are improvements on an earlier workforce survey aimed at Arts Council-funded organisations, which specified that the term “male” includes “female to male trans men” (i.e. women) and that “female” includes “male to female trans women” (i.e. men).⁷²

In one case, a consultation on data collection with staff networks led to inaccuracies. The original version of the staff survey had two questions: one on sex, with a binary male/female option, and one on gender identity. This made it, according to an interviewee, fully inclusive of everyone. A staff network consultation led to the first question then being changed to “gender recorded in official documents”, as well as the incorrect claim that posing the question in this way is a requirement of UK law (“gender” can currently be amended on some official documentation without a gender-recognition certificate, making it effectively doctor-accredited self-identification). 

There are concerns that poorly designed questions may be used to identify dissenting staff and authors. “It is patently obvious that a vast number of authors are middle-aged women of my persuasion,” said one interviewee. “They were winkling out all of these things.”

“These were ludicrous, intrusive, turkey-voting-for-Christmas questions… used to whittle out people like me. I am a pieceworker, a freelancer. They have no right to this information.” Author

Organisations unaffiliated to the sector have influence on data collection practices. One publisher, for example, attained certified B Corp status in 2024⁷³ – defined as being a leader in “the global movement for an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy”.⁷⁴ One of the B Corp standards relates to justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, a requirement for which is that “The company collects data on gender identity for people-related business processes and measurements. The company uses this for disaggregated data analysis and internal reporting.” There is no linked requirement to report on sex.⁷⁵

The Publishers Association’s template author survey is based on guidance and wording provided by Stonewall,⁷⁶ contributing to the dearth of meaningful industry data. While the original documentation used to inform the Publishers Association’s survey design is now missing from Stonewall’s main website, a document co-authored by Stonewall Scotland with the same title, Getting Equalities Monitoring Right, states:⁷⁷

“Public authorities are obliged to monitor the gender of their staff to report back on the pay gap. It’s absolutely vital to ensure that this isn’t restricted to male and female, but is inclusive of non-binary identities.” 

This is incorrect. Official pay gap data looks only at differences between men and women, and non-binary people are all either men or women.⁷⁸

“UK law treats sex and gender as the same thing… When it comes to monitoring questions, it is better to use the term gender rather than the term sex. This will help to make it clear to people that you are asking them to tell you about their self-perception of their gender rather than about their biological sex.” Getting Equalities Monitoring Right

UK law does not treat sex and gender as the same thing. “Gender” is occasionally used as a synonym for “sex”,⁷⁹ including in the “gender pay gap”, which does not help with clarity.⁸⁰ The Equality Act is clear, however, that sex is a distinct characteristic when it comes to protection from unlawful discrimination. Organisations cannot monitor their treatment of women compared with men if they are collecting data on something else entirely.

“The technical term for someone’s self-perception of their gender is their gender identity… But it’s absolutely fine to use the term gender instead on forms, particularly for staff or service users, as this is more widely understood.” Getting Equalities Monitoring Right

This guidance advises organisations to ask about gender, not sex, and here says that the term gender represents gender identity – in other words, it advises organisations to ask only about identity, not biology. Gender identity is not a protected characteristic; organisations that follow this guidance, and that lack a lawful reason to collect data on gender identity, are likely to fall foul of the General Data Protection Regulation by requesting unnecessary personal information.

Training and consultancy

EDI training is sometimes delivered by organisations that lack a sufficiently comprehensive understanding of the law. Staff at Publishing Scotland have received training on equality, diversity and inclusion from a specialist organisation called Creative Access.⁸¹ A training course offered by Creative Access is called “The Equalities Act and Positive Action”, badged under the theme of “Inclusivity and the Law”.⁸² It is arguable that organisations should not be relying on legal training that misnames the key Act of Parliament upon which UK equality law is based, which is the Equality Act. (Creative Access, incidentally, also co-created the Publishers Association’s Inclusivity Action Plan.)⁸³

“They couldn’t find anyone to deliver equality law training as the law was.” Interviewee

Poor training and absence of training mean that many organisations in publishing lack an understanding of the Equality Act 2010, linked case law and what these mean for the workplace. According to Sibyl Ruth: “People may be getting very misleading training. The Equality Act is about balancing competing rights, not about taking one protected group and prioritising their interests.”

“One of the things I couldn’t believe was the total lack of training on the Equality Act. There was no mention of it, and protected characteristics were constantly being misrepresented.” Ursula Doyle

Staff may be offered training in trans awareness or trans inclusion; no instances were found of training that might support the needs of gender-critical staff, such as how to avoid unlawfully discriminating against staff who hold a protected philosophical belief. One publisher’s training academy, for example, gives four examples of diversity and inclusion training: conscious inclusion, LGBTQ+ issues, disability inclusion and trans awareness.⁸⁴ An interviewee said that freelancers contracted to her organisation were made to do and pay for this “ideologically driven” training, which cost £1,500, otherwise they would not get any more work. “I thought it was unethical and awful,” she said.

Staff training on trans inclusion or awareness across the sector has been run by All About Trans, Gendered Intelligence, Inclusive Minds, Stonewall, the Other Box, the Transgender Alliance (Scottish Trans) and We Create Space.⁸⁵

“The [trainer] was saying we were really privileged, we cis people, as we are at ease with our gender and it matches our sex. I was really upset by that. I thought me and some of the other women in the audience probably had some of the worst experiences we ever had because we are female.” Publishing employee

Some of the content of trans-awareness and trans-inclusion training is incorrect. An interviewee described a session she had attended that said sex was a spectrum and assigned at birth, and that puberty blockers were reversible and totally safe. “It was full of misinformation and inaccuracies,” she said. “They were also saying some out-there stuff, like in Key Stage 1 [ages five to seven], all children should be having sex education that addressed the concept of transition so they could access cross-sex hormones at the earliest opportunity.” Other staff members who were parents felt unable to push back, despite feeling upset.

As well as taking up training time that has little to balance it, trans-focused training can undermine the provision of the limited training that is available on topics that are relevant to women. An organisation that delivered trans-awareness training also put on a session on the menopause, according to an interviewee; she did not attend the latter session because she did not want to attend training on female-specific issues run by “a company who thinks men can become women”.

Gender-identity focused topics generally receive more attention than topics focused on women, and language describing women is sculpted to fit the belief system in a way that language describing men is not. One interviewee attended inclusion training at which a status of red, amber or green was given to a variety of hypothetical workplace situations. Anything linking to sexism was coded green (acceptable) or amber (a moderate issue), while anything linking to trans issues was coded red (a severe issue). In other words, discrimination on the basis of sex was seen as less bad than discrimination on the basis of gender reassignment.

In other training, gender-identity beliefs have entirely replaced EDI training content that would once have focused on sexism in the workplace. Language that promotes this belief system is frequently used by trainers and other external consultants, with women often coming off worse. A publishing employee was asked by an external consultant whether she was connected in a professional network to “men” or just “people who menstruate”. “Men get to be men, and we get to be people who menstruate,” said the interviewee.

Culture and language

Internal culture

Staff sometimes face disciplinary actions for their views, and authors and freelancers face loss of work. Gillian Philip, Jenny Lindsay, Sibyl Ruth and Rachel Rooney have all lost work, and Ursula Doyle has reached a settlement in her case against Hachette. These are just some of the stories in the public domain. Many more people feel unable to speak out because of these examples, and because they see what happens internally. One interviewee, for example, has a colleague who was disciplined by her line manager for saying in a workshop that it was full of disinformation.

There is a cross-sector pattern of ignoring concerns raised by gender-critical members of staff or authors. These concerns relate to some of the issues already covered in this report, including use of language, training and issues with data capture. In-person conversations are usually polite but no action follows; concerns raised by email may never receive a response. In many cases, concerns are met with a firm closure of the conversation. No examples were given by interviewees of raising concerns that had led to nuanced discussions about how to balance competing rights, ensure diversity of thought and remain within the law. 

Double standards are frequently at play, as are competing demands. Rachel Rooney was called to a meeting a few years ago with one of her publishers at which she was asked not to post on social media in support of organisations like LGB Alliance or Transgender Trend, and not to raise her concerns about drag-queen story hours. Rooney countered that one of the publisher’s staff members, also in the meeting, was posting about Mermaids, Stonewall and other organisations to which she objected. “’How can you do that when I can’t?’” she asked them. “They couldn’t really answer. They said I was representing the company more than he was, which I felt was untrue.”

“Despite being aware I protested Section 28 back in the 80s, I was told by [my publisher] over the years that some considered me transphobic and homophobic. I was sent screenshots of my posts as an example of wrongthink.” Rachel Rooney

The children’s author Gillian Philip, who was one of several people writing books under the pen name Erin Hunter, had a similar experience. Philip’s contract was terminated by HarperCollins and Working Partners after she used the hashtag #IStandWithJKRowling on social media. She was told that she had associated her political opinions with Erin Hunter, even though she was expressing them on her personal account and there was nothing in her contract to say that she was forbidden to do so. She checked the accounts of other Erin Hunter authors, some of which included highly political content: it appeared to be an issue only when it came to Philip and her gender-critical beliefs. 

Staff are sometimes placed in impossible situations in their attempts to balance the competing demands of workplace requirements and not completely eschewing reality. Staff in one publishing company were told they could use the word “woman” but they had to qualify it. No details were given on the form this qualification should take. “No matter what I did, there was the potential for conflict,” said an interviewee.

There is a seeming inability to learn from what has gone wrong, and a tendency to blame individuals rather than look at broader systemic problems. In one organisation, a workshop was held at which a children’s book was used as an example of best practice. This book had been subjected to heavy public criticism and accusations that it was inappropriate for young children, which led to its removal from schools. Following internal complaints, the workshop organisers conceded that they had not fully considered organisational risk. “But nobody goes back to the team and says, ‘We shouldn’t have included this’,” said an interviewee. “Wrong information never gets corrected or addressed.”

Instead of considering that there may be issues in the broader environment that need fixing, blame is sometimes targeted at individuals who raise concerns about gender-identity beliefs in publishing. Rooney, for example, was blocked on social media by her publisher’s publicist because he did not like the views she was expressing. She was then accidentally copied into an email from her editor to the publicist, apologising to him that Rooney’s views could not be changed and that she had upset him. This culture may be facilitated by a reluctance of managers and leaders in publishing who themselves hold gender-critical beliefs to speak about them. An author said of her Big Five publisher: “Some extremely senior people there have told me privately that they agree with my views.”

“Every Scottish literature organisation… didn’t see it as their issue to sort. They were treating it as a ‘you’ problem rather than a systemic one.” Jenny Lindsay

The issue of sex and gender leads to extraordinary social and workplace behaviours. The manager of one interviewee found a public example of somebody criticising her position and offered to send it to her. “On another topic, would you go to a colleague and say ‘I have encountered someone who really hates you’?” she asked. “It made me really unsettled.” Later, when they no longer worked together, the same manager sent her an unsolicited text message describing her views as hateful and fascist. An author recounted a breakdown in her relationship with her editor following a number of conversations in which he sought out details of her views in order, she believes, to use these against her later. “He would ring me up and ask me for information,” she said. “What I thought was him being onside was him garnering information about me as being trouble… I told him everything, not realising how dangerous that was.”

A third of the focus organisations are publicly linked to transactivist organisations such as Stonewall, the Proud Trust, All About Trans, Gendered Intelligence and Mermaids. Much of the work of these organisations has been discredited. Stonewall, for example, advocates unlawful policies such as “trans employees can use male and female toilets where these align with their gender”,⁸⁶ and trustees of Mermaids were found by the Charity Commission to have mismanaged the administration of the charity.⁸⁷ Many partnerships between publishers and these activist organisations are nominally designed to create a more inclusive environment for staff, but they may have achieved the opposite. In some cases, these links have had a widespread negative effect on the sector, as was the case with the Stonewall-informed sector-wide survey guidance highlighted earlier in the section on data collection and analysis. Stonewall’s influence extends into the funding landscape.⁸⁸ Stonewall even hosted an event for one publisher explicitly aimed at women.⁸⁹

Another publisher invited the transactivist charity Mermaids to edit an educational article on the law and freedom of expression ahead of publication, requesting that it suggest changes to content it deemed to be offensive.⁹⁰ The Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion has also been highlighted,⁹¹ which offers a quick guide to non-binary equality in the workplace and a video entitled “Gender Identity 101 – Creating Trans-Inclusive Workplaces”. As mentioned elsewhere, there is naturally no issue with trans inclusion per se. Workplaces should be designed to ensure all employees feel included, where practicable and reasonable. But “trans inclusion” has become a shorthand for gender-identity beliefs and, potentially, the exclusion of women and gender-critical employees through (for example) treating trans-identified staff as the opposite sex. 

An institutional focus on gender-identity beliefs contrasts sharply with the fact that sexism in the workplace is still rife and has not yet been properly addressed. One publishing employee was interviewed for a promotion at which she was asked (by a man) if she was planning to get pregnant again. This was unlawful behaviour that she did not feel able to challenge. “Even in a female-dominated workplace you would be seen as a troublemaker,” she said.

There appears to be a widespread assumption across publishing that it is acceptable to abuse and harass people who have gender-critical beliefs in the workplace. One interviewee said that staff were reported for hate speech after they said that sex was binary and that freedom of speech is important. Another interviewee made a confidential complaint about a trans-inclusive policy that served to exclude women, which was then leaked. “People started talking about this dreadful TERF who put all these comments on the document,” she said, “and that wasn’t it awful we have this awful transphobe getting involved?”

“It’s so appalling that anybody should be bullied. I’m pretty tough… It’s for other people I’m really worried about who don’t have the experience and the resources and so on.” Author

Harassment sometimes takes place at a distance from the person at whom it is targeted, and sometimes it takes place by proxy. Rooney, for example, was called “bigoted” by the convenor of a creative-writing workshop for children’s writing, which she was told by somebody attending the event. This creates reputational damage without an opportunity for immediate challenge and repair. An employee at one publishing company said that she has heard and seen comments by colleagues denouncing JK Rowling for her gender-critical beliefs and activism.

“If you have a conversation with someone at a book event and someone says something negative about JK Rowling, I don’t go there. I nod and change the subject. I am not going to tear into JK Rowling to pacify the other person or send a signal. If I were to say, ‘What do you mean? Why is JK Rowling a cunt?’ – and I have heard that language – that is fraught with peril.” Author

Insubstantial material often informs in-person experiences of abuse and harassment. An author who works in academia signed a couple of public letters of support for other authors, which was enough to spark a student protest. “Such deviation from the norm is seen as a possible transphobic act,” she said.

Blacklists and blocklists have contributed to a hostile environment for people in the industry with gender-critical views. A group who called themselves the “Young Refuseniks” compiled a list of gender-critical people in publishing to avoid. They later retracted it, but there are fears that similar lists still operate privately, contributing to a reluctance from some people to speak out. “I would like to say things about men in women’s sports and women’s changing rooms,” said one author. “It is common sense, but somehow saying that online could lose you your job.” Another said that she had seen people in her own publicity team like and repost the blacklist before it was retracted.

“I know there is a list of TERF editors going around… It’s a social tool. It’s a tool to intimidate. Even to declare knowledge about the list as an insider is to intimidate. One person is on that list simply for following me [on social media].” Rachel Rooney

Pockets of good practice exist, even in publishers that have made questionable decisions in other parts of the business. One interviewee mentioned a brewing revolt at one of the publishers of Rowling’s books, saying that early and successful action was taken to end it (this refers to a publisher’s statement that free speech is the cornerstone of publishing, and it is covered earlier in this report). “That company did lay down the law and the world didn’t end,” he said. 

Language

The language used by publishers about people who hold gender-critical beliefs is sometimes inaccurate and lacks balance. An academic publisher defined the term TERF as believing that “feminism should not include supporting the rights of transgender people,” giving the example: “She was labelled a TERF and accused of spreading hate about trans people.”⁹² The same organisation has published journal articles describing “extreme” gender-critical views pejoratively⁹³ and dehumanising the female experience: “Trans women, cis women, alien women, and robot women are women: they are all (simply) adults gendered female.”⁹⁴ Publishers have the right, of course, to publish these articles, and freedom of speech applies just as much here as it does to people with gender-critical beliefs. The issue, though, is that these articles are not part of an environment in which alternative perspectives are welcome or, often, even possible. 

Another academic publisher published a roundtable discussion as a journal article entitled “Anti-gender movements and their implications for trans-specific healthcare for children in Europe”. The paper wraps gender-critical feminists into its definition of “anti-gender campaigners”, which it says “have been working consistently to influence public opinion and advocate for legislative and political action against the fundamental human rights of trans and gender diverse people”.⁹⁵ 

As highlighted above, it is generally believed by people with gender-critical beliefs that human rights apply to everybody – it is the awarding of additional rights or privileges that may conflict with the rights of other people that is at issue. Affording additional “rights” to trans-identifying people may compromise the human rights of others, including women’s rights to single-sex spaces, the rights of lesbians and gay men to be same-sex attracted, and the right of children to grow up without unnecessary and irreversible medical treatment that has long-term negative side effects. Suggesting that people with gender-critical beliefs, including feminists, advocate against any group’s fundamental human rights is a significant misrepresentation of what they believe and how they act, and a further example of a hostile environment.

Inappropriate language and actions are sometimes led by the people who have oversight of and accountability for EDI or HR policies. The legal case of former diversity relationship manager Afreena Islam-Wright v Arts Council England revealed that she had compared gender-critical briefs to those of racists:⁹⁶

“If I came to work one day, and attended a drop-in session where staff members were openly making racist statements, and asking [the Arts Council] what protection would be offered to them as race critical staff members – I would feel terrified. I can’t imagine what my trans and [non-binary] colleagues are feeling right now. I’m very concerned that gender critical staff members make funding decisions, and believe it is of the utmost importance that trans awareness training is delivered.”

The Employment Tribunal ruled in Islam-Wright’s favour, citing her lack of knowledge as part of the reason she had been constructively dismissed on the basis of these comments: she was “unclear about the nature and extent of protection for beliefs such as gender critical views under the Equality Act 2010”.

When the language of inclusion is designed to accommodate trans and non-binary identifying staff, it frequently achieves the exclusion of staff with gender-critical beliefs and women. The diversity and inclusion lead of an academic publisher has spoken of “cisgender” privilege,⁹⁷ which may be news to those who feel excluded from dialogue, spaces and even language describing their sex. 

Sometimes this tension between inclusion and exclusion is apparent in a single sentence. One publisher says, for example: “We value the positive impact the trans and non-binary community have towards enriching our culture and content and we are committed to creating an inclusive working environment where all our people feel safe, valued, and supported.”⁹⁸ Where such a commitment translates – as it has done with this publisher – into mandated pronoun use and mixed-sex toilets that are meant to be single-sex, there are severe limits on some staff (those with protected gender-critical beliefs) feeling safe, valued and supported. The same publisher goes on to say: “We want you to feel fully accepted and comfortable in a workplace where you feel free to express yourself.” This does not appear to include the free expression of beliefs that counter the monocultural organisational commitment to gender identity.

Staff networks, groups and unions

There are more staff networks in publishing that cover trans issues than there are staff networks dedicated to women. Of the 30 focus organisations, ten make public reference to a Pride or LGBT+ network, while only seven refer to a women’s network. Of these seven, none are clearly defined on the basis of sex rather than gender identity. Some of these seven are explicitly not just for women – one is “for all who identify as women”⁹⁹ and another is “for all genders”.¹⁰⁰ This leaves women in publishing with limited company-level representation of their needs and rights. The same is true in academia. An academic author commented: “I could not set up a women’s group as transactivists, and specifically trans-identified males, would try to join.”

Lesbian, gay and bisexual members of staff who perceive a conflict between their own rights and what are presented as trans rights have no representation at all. Section 12 of the Equality Act 2010 defines sexual orientation on the basis of sex.¹⁰¹ Conflict arises when people who are same-sex attracted are told that a heterosexual man identifying as a woman is a lesbian, or that a heterosexual woman identifying as a man is gay. No staff networks were identified that focus exclusively on LGB issues. There are no staff groups representing same-sex attracted staff who do not wish to be represented by people advocating that people of the opposite sex can self-identify into their dating pool. 

“People assume that those groups speak for everyone, but there are a lot of gender-critical lesbians who won’t be in that group, or will be silent if they hold those views.” Funder

Publishers’ LGBT staff networks have frequently shown support for gender-identity beliefs, further implying that LGB people who view this belief system as homophobic lack representation. Responding to the launch of SEEN in Publishing, for example, the Pride networks of three publishers released a joint statement saying:¹⁰²

“We feel strongly that publishing should be a safe and inclusive space for all, including our trans and non-binary authors and colleagues. We stand in support of any LGBTQ+ colleagues that have been negatively impacted by this news and are here to assist those impacted by the announcement.”

Staff networks have often been a driving force in the mainstreaming of gender-identity beliefs within organisations. When Ursula Doyle was at Hachette, she criticised the actions of some of the networks. Changing the Story and Hachette Pride, for example, invited the transactivist organisation Gendered Intelligence to lead a workshop but failed to balance this with a gender-critical speaker. An employee at a different publisher lined up a speaker to discuss the importance of allowing heterodox opinions, but even this was shut down by other network chairs.

“Those of us who are gender critical or sex realist at work are very accepting of other people’s views. We don’t want to stop people for whom that is relevant having talks for them. We just want there to be space for other views and beliefs.” Publishing employee

Doyle was told that company leaders were unable to give the supposedly independent networks instructions. “They have a sponsor on the main board. Meetings are held on company premises in company time. [Network] chairs get an extra salary,” said Doyle. “It is disingenuous at best to claim that they are independent of management.”

“One of the times there was a controversy over JK Rowling speaking out, the Pride network issued a list of resources we could access if we felt threatened or unsafe. One was Mermaids, which I don’t feel company networks should be endorsing.” Publishing employee

Networks and unions have sometimes actively worked to silence people with gender-critical views. On one publisher’s internal communications platform, statements were made by both the Pride network and the union condemning the company’s publication of a gender-critical book. Some staff members posted in support of the book’s publication and freedom of speech, but their comments were deleted. After these individuals complained about the removal of their comments, a company representative said there was nothing they could do, as it would be seen as organisational interference if they were to act. It was felt, however, that in different circumstances, something would have been done. “If someone had posted something racist,” said an interviewee, “they would have taken it down instantly.”

Staff at Arts Council England previously felt unable to establish a group based on gender-critical beliefs due to fears of controversy. According to an independent review into EDI at the Arts Council, gender-critical staff had previously considered establishing a women’s network that aligned with beliefs around the material reality of sex, but the perceived controversy this would attract meant that they did not do so. This led Nous Group, the authors of the review, to comment: “It is not appropriate that a group, which shares a protected characteristic, feels unable to set up an employee network.”¹⁰³

Since the review, a network has been established around the idea of sex as a protected characteristic. A women’s group still has not been established, according to the Arts Council interviewee, who said that potential network members had wanted to discuss childcare, menopause and other issues that affect women, but such a group would be seen as “verboten”.

Public statements and campaigns

Some publishers have signed up to contested political statements that have contributed to an inhospitable working environment for gender-critical staff, agents and authors. A 2020 open letter signed by people from across the industry – including publishers, editors-in-chief and publicity directors – said:¹⁰⁴

“This is a message of love and solidarity for the trans and non-binary community. Culture is, and should always be, at the forefront of societal change, and as writers, editors, agents, journalists, and publishing professionals, we recognise the vital role our industry has in advancing and supporting the wellbeing and rights of trans and non-binary people. We stand with you, we hear you, we see you, we accept you, we love you. The world is better for having you in it. Non-binary lives are valid, trans women are women, trans men are men, trans rights are human rights.”

The slogan “trans rights are human rights” sounds positive on its face: of course people who identify as trans should have human rights, as should everyone. The problem arises through over-reach of the slogan. It has been used to argue, as above, that males can be women and females can be men. The statements “trans women are women” and “trans men are men” are core tenets of the gender-identity belief system. They imply that men who identify as women and women who identify as men must be treated as the opposite sex. These ideas have serious implications for women’s safety, privacy and dignity in spaces that are meant to be single-sex, as confirmed by the recent Supreme Court ruling, and for the safeguarding of children. And any employer that treats people as the sex with which they identify in all circumstances risks acting unlawfully.

While individuals clearly have the right to believe and advocate for these positions, employers should arguably be aiming for a more neutral position on something so contested and political. At an organisational level, two publishers signed up to a public statement in 2020 stating that trans rights are human rights¹⁰⁵ (although both appear to have removed their names in the interim).¹⁰⁶ The Group HR Director of a different publisher has said: “We believe trans and non-binary rights are human rights and diverse gender identities and expressions are accepted, visible and celebrated within our company.”¹⁰⁷ The Society of Authors, despite its stated commitment to freedom of expression and its representation of members with diverse opinions, hosts a “Stop Funding Hate” guide on its website that includes the hashtag #TransRightsAreHumanRights.¹⁰⁸ (For a more detailed discussion on the Society of Authors, see the following section.)

One publisher has implied that a gender-identity focus in children’s books is about acceptance, with no recognition that staff, authors, parents or other interested parties might have safeguarding concerns about a set of ideas that potentially sets children on a lifelong medical pathway. It has published a UK article about books being banned in the United States on the grounds of gender identity alongside (for those with gender-critical beliefs) more widely accepted concerns about censorship linked to race and sexual orientation. “This is a terrifying development,” said the article, “that removes access to these important works from anyone who can’t afford to purchase them, or anyone who struggles to find acceptance within their home and looks to books to find acceptance.”¹⁰⁹

Industry commentators sometimes say that expressing gender-critical beliefs is harmful. An article in the Publishing Post on cancel culture, for example, says that “we need to differentiate mistakes from sustained harmful behaviour”. Discussing the removal of Baroness Nicholson’s position with the Booker Foundation as honorary vice-president and JK Rowling’s so-called “transphobic” tweets, the piece said: “The first openly apologised for any harm [she]’d caused and expressed a desire to learn, whereas the second has continued in her beliefs, despite many people telling her how harmful it is.”¹¹⁰ It was not recognised that there might be an alternative lens through which to view Rowling’s position – that, for example, harm can be caused by including men who identify as women in rape-crisis services or by medicalising vulnerable teenagers.

An anonymous open letter published in The Bookseller implies that gender-critical views should not be published and elides the statement of such views with previous victimisation of “homosexuals, Jews, disabled people, people of colour, Muslims, suffragettes, even left-handed people”. The letter says: “Publishers will excuse themselves from responsibility by saying: ‘It is right that we publish all views’.” (The later section on representation and published books makes clear how far many are from doing so.) After conflating concern about the erosion of single-sex spaces with transphobia, the letter goes on to say:¹¹¹

“If you are a publisher or an organisation that is aware that you are providing a platform for these fearmongering, discriminatory views to be expressed, and for that bias against a minority in society to perpetuate, then please consider very carefully why you have allowed that to happen and not acted when the matter came to light. How will your actions appear in the clear light of history?”

Other parts of the industry

Literary competitions and other initiatives 

Initiatives that might once have been targeted at women have been expanded to include non-binary writers (who can be male or female) and anyone who “self-identifies” as a woman (males and females). The agency WME, for example, has sponsored the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize for “unpublished and unagented women and non-binary writers based in the UK and Ireland”.¹¹² According to the Cambridge college that runs the prize, it “is renowned for championing and launching the careers of exceptional women writers”.¹¹³ Since 2020, the Women’s Prize for Fiction has been open to men who identify as women. In a statement, the then Women’s Prize Chair of Trustees – who now runs one of the Big Five publishers – said:¹¹⁴

“As a Prize which celebrates the voices of women and the experience of being a woman in all its varied forms, we are proud to include as eligible for submission full-length novels written in English by all women. In our terms and conditions, the word ‘woman’ equates to a cis woman, a transgender woman or anyone who is legally defined as a woman or of the female sex.”

The final line of the statement said: “The Trustees of the Women’s Prize Trust would like to reassert that we are firmly opposed to any form of discrimination or prejudice on the basis of race, sexuality or gender identity.” Discrimination on the basis of sex – women no longer having a high-value prize that is open only to women – appears to have been of less concern to the trustees.

This issue is not restricted to prizes. The organisation ForthWrite, for example, was set up “to enable mothers of young children to write creatively”; it offers creative-writing workshops to “anyone who identifies as a woman”. Its funders include Arts Council England and the Heritage Fund.¹¹⁵

One publishing company made a transactivist statement, signed by its publisher and associate publisher, linked to the 2020 announcement that the Women’s Prize for Fiction would now include men who identify as women. The statement, still (at the time of writing) available on its website, calls for reform to gender-recognition laws and further revisions to the rules of the Women’s Prize, saying that writers of fluid identities are excluded from it. It also says: “The law… conflates all people born ‘of the female sex’ as women, erasing any person who was assigned female at birth and is not a woman.”¹¹⁶ Nobody’s sex is assigned at birth: it is observed. Men are not women.

Some authors appear to have been frozen out of literary competitions. Rachel Rooney, for example, won or was shortlisted for one prize for three consecutive collections of her poetry but, after she was publicly accused of transphobia on the basis of her gender-critical beliefs, the prize organisers did not engage with her subsequent collection. “My fourth collection didn’t get one like or retweet from them,” she said. Gender-critical authors have been ostracised from literary competitions for at least five years; the magazine Mslexia dropped the author Amanda Craig as a competition judge in 2020 after she signed a letter supporting Rowling.¹¹⁷

Competitions have frequently promoted children’s books and authors that advance gender-identity beliefs. The 2025 shortlist for the Carnegie Medal for illustration, for example, includes Homebody by Theo Parish.¹¹⁸ This is a children’s book with a female character who identifies as non-binary, wears a breast binder and searches online for answers to the question “Why don’t I feel like a girl?”. Lots of girls do not align with the stereotypes ascribed to their sex and might feel drawn to this question. They might want to identify out of their sex because they have experienced sexual abuse or because of societal homophobia, or they may simply reject the stereotypical view of what it means to be a girl. Most teenagers and young women who use breast binders experience back and chest pain alongside shortness of breath.¹¹⁹ Binding can also cause fractured ribs, muscle wastage and respiratory infections.¹²⁰

While Homebody’s publisher states that it is for teenagers aged 14 and above, it is illustrated in a way that appeals to the younger reader and has been included in competition lists for younger age groups. The UK Literacy Association’s shortlist for information books for 3- to 14-year-olds, for example, includes Homebody.¹²¹ It is also inappropriate for teenagers, for the reasons stated above. Concerns about the book’s suitability were raised by SEEN in Publishing and communicated to the Carnegie Awards’ executives. In Carnegie’s response, some concerns were brushed aside and others, including teaching packs that refer teachers on to organisations such as Mermaids that have demonstrated serious safeguarding failures, were not addressed.¹²²

The Society of Authors (SoA)

The SoA has, in the view of many gender-critical people working in publishing, promoted gender-identity beliefs in the sector and failed to stand up for the interests of authors who have been subjected to transactivist abuse. Its hosting of the slogan #TransRightsAreHumanRights has already been discussed. Its former management committee chair also signed the aforementioned 2020 public letter,¹²³ which was separately backed by the Society of Young Publishers.¹²⁴ As highlighted earlier, commitment to the rights of individual groups is fine, except when demands that are wrongly presented as rights harm other people’s rights. 

Other actions of the SoA’s former management committee chair included reposting a call on social media to block “any [gender critical] that you see”.¹²⁵ When an author on Bluesky called for SoA members to ensure a gender-critical candidate was not elected in upcoming elections (“She is a committed, obsessed, transphobic campaigner who will pitch the SoA against trans people”),¹²⁶ the then-chair of the management committee did not call out this abuse. She agreed with a post discussing “horrible TERFs”, said how much nicer it was on Bluesky than Twitter, and then commented, “As Chair, I can’t direct anyone HOW to vote, but it’s important that as many people as possible DO vote, to ensure maximum representation of all our members.”¹²⁷

“I’ve seen [the then-chair] say things online that are horrible… She has 10,000 people following her and because they agree, that’s what everyone thinks. It became distorted very quickly.” Author

This former committee chair made several statements saying that her personal views did not affect her work or the work of the SoA. On (what was then) Twitter, for example, she said: “My personal feelings about the gender-critical movement don’t affect my belief in free speech, or what I do for the @Soc_of_Authors.”¹²⁸ However, the SoA (which is “there to support you no matter what type of author you are”)¹²⁹ failed to defend authors such as Gillian Philip and Rachel Rooney when they were experiencing public abuse and attacks on the basis of their gender-critical views. 

Threads attacking Rooney, for example, were liked and retweeted by several SoA committee members, yet the SoA responded to Rooney’s request for help by saying that it could not get involved in personal disputes between authors.¹³⁰ Rooney eventually made a subject access request. This revealed that the SoA had decided to play down the fact that her trade was being affected. “They could exonerate themselves on the fact that none of this happened on SoA territory,” said Rooney. “It happened in the public domain.” There were, however, posts on the SoA’s Facebook page attacking her and even accusing her of terrorist propaganda.

“I wrote to ask them to cease and desist, yet they continued. They framed the smear campaign as author disputes, but it mainly happened behind a block, so I had no right to reply.” Rachel Rooney

The SoA eventually investigated itself and found itself to have acted with even-handedness and in line with its principles. In a statement, the SoA said that it “does not hold or express any view on gender criticism, although that seems to be the main basis of these complaints”.¹³¹ The SoA’s critics may have raised the odd eyebrow at the findings of its self-investigation, including the author who posted a screenshot of the SoA X account liking a post saying, “Don’t engage with [gender criticals], just block them”.¹³²

Other parts of the industry 

The Bookseller, which is the main industry journal for British publishing, has so far failed to cover the issues raised in this report in any great depth. “If you were a commentator on what goes on in any sector,” said a publishing leader, “I think it would be legitimate to comment on the tensions within that sector with different people who have different ideas.” Citing high-profile cases of victimisation in publishing, he suggested that it would have been legitimate for The Bookseller to commission pieces explaining both sides of the debate, and to ask questions about censorship and whether publishers are in an ideologically distinct position from the majority of their readers.

The toxicity of the environment may be affecting, in part, what The Bookseller’s editors decide to publish. When it printed a piece about the launch of SEEN in Publishing, the journalist who wrote it was attacked to such a degree on social media that her byline was removed. 

“The Bookseller has largely done what most senior people in the industry have done – keep their heads down, don’t attract attention, don’t say the wrong thing and hope nobody comes for you.” Publishing leader

Other parts of the industry, including distribution, warehousing and bookselling, also seem to be part of the problem. With the exception of bookselling, they often sit in the background and are subject to little scrutiny. There is little publicly available information on distribution and warehousing company policies, although interviewees provided some examples of decisions these companies have taken that have affected the general environment when it comes to issues relating to sex and gender; these are touched on in the following section. 

The chilling effect

Representation and published books

Representation of relevant issues

The publishing industry vastly over-represents books based on gender-identity beliefs compared with books about women. Analysis conducted for this research shows that almost as many non-fiction books based on gender-identity beliefs are published as non-fiction books about women. Within the focus publishers and imprints, 432 titles were found for the former and 617 for the latter. Women and girls make up half the population, and gender identity represents a niche belief system. 

This relative imbalance would matter less if it reflected what the market wants – but as the following section shows, books based on gender-identity beliefs sell, on average, only 14% as many copies as books about women do. Moreover, they sell, on average, only 11% of the copies that gender-critical books do. These figures suggest that gender-identity beliefs have taken root in publishing to such an extent that they have distorted day-to-day operations, and that commissioning is driven by ideology, not markets. The ideological drive contributes to the hostile environment for gender-critical staff and authors in publishing. It is also bad for business.

Book sales

The average book based on gender-identity beliefs sells around 10,000 fewer physical copies than the average gender-critical book in the UK, and around 8,000 fewer copies than books about women, according to the analysis done for this report. Data on book sales were gathered¹³³ for all mapped non-fiction trade books based on gender-identity beliefs and published by the 21 focus publishers. These were compared with a random sample of 80 of the mapped books about women, as well as all non-fiction gender-critical trade books (this latter category was for all publishers, rather than the focus 21, as there are so few published books in this area). Books published since January 2025 were excluded as sales figures will not yet be significant. Some books will inevitably have been missed; this was an indicative analysis rather than a full bibliometric study. Other caveats are outlined in the appendix to this report. 

Figure 4 shows, however, such a striking general pattern that any missed books would be unlikely to change the results significantly. As highlighted elsewhere, the issue is not that books based on a belief in gender identity are being published: a plural, diverse, healthy industry publishes books from a range of perspectives. The issue is that they are so overrepresented when the market does not support this, contributing to an environment in which gender-critical perspectives and voices are denigrated. Figure 4 also demonstrates a healthy appetite for gender-critical books, perhaps reflecting how mainstream this perspective is (as the YouGov polling referred to earlier demonstrates).

Figure 4. Average number of books sold by focus area

Figure 5 shows the distribution of book sales by focus area (gender-critical books are shown using absolute numbers as there are too few of them to use percentages). This makes clear that even removing high-selling outliers would show a similar trend. 

Figure 5. Breakdown of units sold by focus area

Commissioning decisions

“It’s by no means a blanket broad cancellation, but you can feel the chill.” Matthew Hamilton

The commissioning environment underpins this contradiction between book sales and the type of books that get published. A publishing employee put some of this down to a commitment to focus on EDI. “Lots of this is well-intentioned and beneficial,” she said, “but it trickles down into commissioning.”

“There was a meeting about a book on a controversial topic, not about sex and gender, and at that meeting, there were slurs about TERFs and colleagues saying we shouldn’t publish TERFs.” Publishing employee

The market for gender-critical books has been under-rated by publishers to an alarming degree. Material Girls by Kathleen Stock and Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality by Helen Joyce were both bestsellers, with combined UK sales of 45,000 (and international sales of 173,000).¹³⁴ When their book proposals were originally sent out, however, ten editors turned them down because they felt that the market for them would be too small. “This is an incredibly important issue that will garner plenty of coverage and intense debate,” ran a sample comment, “but the sales numbers will be on the smaller side.”¹³⁵ An interviewee from one publisher said that little thought is given to the market in commissioning decisions made by her company. “We are meant to make market-driven decisions,” she said, but they do not. 

“While some people really don’t like criticism of gender ideology in books, a significant chunk of potential readers do. No book is aimed at everybody, whether it’s controversial or entertainment or information. There is a healthy appetite for this kind of thing.” Publishing employee

Another reason to turn down these ultimately very successful books included a stated dislike of their content. In written feedback on Stock’s book proposal, an editor commented: “As an ally to the trans community I find Stock’s view deeply problematic and dangerous.” Another said “[Publisher name] prides itself on putting work into the world that has positive effects and consequences, so this project is definitely not for us.” Someone else remarked, this time in reference to Joyce: “I’m familiar with Helen Joyce’s journalism and feel that often what she writes is dehumanising towards trans people as well as being based on flawed science and scaremongering.” Others mentioned personal anxiety about the topic. 

Five publishers would not even read Stock’s proposal. Hypocrisy is sometimes a factor in commissioning decisions, believes Matthew Hamilton: “Publishers are ready to set aside their progressive ideals when there is a best-selling writer like Douglas Murray.” As shown by the sales figures above, both Stock and Joyce went on to become bestsellers, so perhaps this point relates more to authors who have not yet got the weight of a successful book behind them. 

“I hope [this strong market] will give publishers, in a climate where it’s incredibly competitive trying to sell books and make money, reassurance that there are great opportunities to publish gender-critical work precisely because there has been a degree of censorship or bullying not to publish such work, so readers are starved of it.” Publishing employee 

In other cases, editors felt that they would not successfully be able to progress the books internally. “While I thought this was good,” wrote one editor of Joyce’s proposal, “and should get a lot of attention as well, I think it would generate a lot of ire from certain quarters in-house.” Another editor turned it down because she worked with trans-identifying authors. Hamilton has heard of editors that have not progressed gender-critical books because they do not want to have a fight with their publicity directors or other colleagues. 

Susanna Rustin’s book Sexed: A History of British Feminism was also turned down by one editor due to a belief that it would be resisted by colleagues: “I just don’t feel completely convinced I could get it through.” Despite her proposal being described by editors as “fascinating”, “illuminating” and “articulate and impassioned”, it was turned down by more than 20 publishers – including the editor who had originally suggested she write it. Another editor commented: “This space feels so loud and opinionated.”¹³⁶

“I didn’t manage to place [a gender-critical non-fiction project] despite the enthusiasm of editors who were overruled. They wanted to publish and were told that they couldn’t… They were overruled by a shareholder who had vetoed it because of its subject.” Publishing leader

Editors have to choose whether the downsides of publishing a gender-critical book are worth it. One publishing employee gave the example of a gender-critical author who had contacted her about a potential book. She spoke to a colleague in a different department, who said: “I don’t think we would want to take this on because we have been told to avoid controversy.” 

A book may not even make it to the submissions stage given the current climate. One author, who has not made his views on sex and gender public, put a sympathetic gender-critical character into the sub-plot of a novel he was writing. He ensured balance through a similarly sympathetic trans-identifying character. The author wanted readers to be able to explore the issues through the characters’ debate. His agent told him that nobody would publish a book containing this, even though it was a minor plot line and a zeitgeist issue. She gave two reasons: publishers’ fear of backlash and the fact that the gender-critical character was sympathetic. “It’s her job to be honest with me about the climate,” said the author. “But it did shock me. That’s when I realised how stifling and threatening publishing had become.”

Some editors have told Hamilton that they privately agree with gender-critical perspectives being put forward in book proposals, making comments like: “Off the record, I am completely behind you and support you, but I don’t want to have the fight and to be labelled a transphobe or for it to be used in any way politically – that I have become a difficult employee, or that I am not respecting vulnerable people within the corporate workforce.” Hamilton believes this issue extends beyond sex and gender. “For any writer who writes for The Spectator or UnHerd or goes on a podcast that challenges the progressive orthodoxy, that will apply,” he said. “The trans thing feels particularly charged.” 

There is also an occasional fear of lawfare in publishing houses. A publishing employee mentioned a book proposal on a similar topic to another book that had previously been legally challenged. “The decision-maker in question was… extremely worried about the commercial impact on the company,” he said. “He was not motivated by a partisan, political stance – it was a perfectly human reaction to being in a tough situation.”

Internal publisher wranglings led to Julie Bindel’s proposed book being dropped after verbal agreements on a deal. The book was about feminism, not trans-related issues, but members of staff threatened to leave because of Bindel herself on two recent occasions. “You become the enemy, a toxic person,” said Bindel. “Even if I am talking about countering child sexual abuse, domestic violence and femicide, and nothing at all to do with the arguments about gender ideology, they will stop you from being published.”

A few years previously, Bindel had a book agreement with a small feminist publisher. After a positive acquisitions meeting, Bindel, her agent and the editor met in a pub. The editor showed great enthusiasm, saying that she couldn’t believe Bindel would consider being published by her organisation. Bindel warned her about push-back; having already experienced post-acquisitions cancellations, she told the editor that she could not go through this again. “We are feminists,” said the representative. “You have a huge reputation, don’t worry.” 

However, after this meeting, Bindel was met with silence. The editor eventually informed her agent that the book proposal was being sent out to an academic who would review its suitability before the publisher made a final decision on whether to commission it, a process that does not tend to happen outside academic publishing. This took place after she had been told that getting internal sign-off would be just a formality. According to Bindel, the academic reviewer “did this patronising take-down of my views on [sex and gender identity] and said that I shouldn’t be allowed to say that there is antagonism between the aims and objectives of anti-male violence feminism and transwomen”. Bindel pulled out of the deal.¹³⁷

There are decisions made about gender-critical books where we can be less certain about the underlying reasons. Professor Alex Byrne had a contract to write a book on sex and gender identity with Oxford University Press. After he submitted his manuscript, he was told that he had not dealt with the subject in “a sufficiently serious or respectful way” and that the book would not be published. A spokesperson for Oxford University Press, which has published two books by the gender-critical Australian academic Professor Holly Lawford-Smith, said that “OUP does not advocate through its publications for any particular views or beliefs”. Byrne disagreed, saying: “There is clearly a faction in OUP somewhere which disapproves greatly of publishing books that are on the gender critical side.” His book was eventually published by Polity.¹³⁸

“I was still on the books with [my publisher]. The editor there was really excited about my new book and gave it a good review, then out of the blue said, ‘Unfortunately we are not going to publish [author’s name] any more. She’s not making us any money and the publishing world has changed.’ …I don’t know for sure if it had any roots in gender ideology, but it was a coincidence that around the same time, I was being accused of transphobia [at my place of employment].” Author

There is a soft censorship that emerges from the commissioning environment too. According to one interviewee, people can say in acquisitions meetings that they like a proposal but it is not for them, and then those types of books stop being put forward. “It’s a very subtle chilling effect, and then writers don’t write those books and a whole ecology disappears,” the interviewee said. “But it’s nebulous. It’s hard to pin down. Everybody feels it to be true. Nobody will be able to prove it.”

“I also know of authors whose books weren’t specifically about gender identity, but who touched on [a gender-critical understanding of it] in various ways, who then had those parts edited out… This would seem to me to prove a widespread understanding that it was generally thought to be a forbidden topic, or why would editors want to edit it out?” Publishing leader

Some books that are presumably commissioned for readers interested in women and feminism weave in threads of gender-identity beliefs – for example, defining women to include men who identify as women. In Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, for example, author Cat Bohannon discusses “trans men and non-binary folk who have ovaries” and says that “trans women are just women whose bodies are atypical”.¹³⁹ These statements imply that men can be women and vice versa, undermining both the scientific and the feminist credentials of the book. 

There is a need to recognise strengths, as well: there are patches of positive, plural commissioning in some parts of the industry. “Books that challenge this [belief system] do appear,” said Hamilton. “It’s not true that there is no voice.” The bravery of Polity and Swift was mentioned by some interviewees. And despite a generally closed environment, publishers have occasionally approached authors directly to write books that are critical of gender-identity beliefs. This was the case for at least four books, including Karen Ingala Smith’s Defending Women’s Spaces¹⁴⁰ and Jenny Lindsay’s Hounded (both published by Polity).

Book publicity and marketing

“I don’t think they publicised my books sufficiently. I can’t prove that.” Rachel Rooney

Several authors believe that their books were not given sufficient publicity and marketing support because of their beliefs, but this is almost impossible to evidence. One author’s previous book had attracted lots of coverage, but her most recent received nothing. The head of publicity at her publisher did not reply to her emails for months. “There were people reading it, nice reviews on Amazon and not a single review in print,” she said. “I do not know if [people] were ever sent a copy.” She thinks that the lack of publicity may relate to the importance of biological reality to the experience of women in her most recent book or to the fact that she has signed gender-critical open letters. Part of the difficulty lies in the unknowing: “Writers are introspective. We beat ourselves up. Does she not like me? Does she not like the book? But readers are liking the book.”

As well as being hard to evidence, it is difficult to ask proper questions about perceived under-promotion of books. One author wonders if it would be useful to ask her publisher if they have a problem with her or her book, but she does not know how to go about this without creating further difficulties. “I’d feel happier if I could prove what they think,” she said. “At least I would know what I am dealing with. I am in this grey space full of paranoia and ghosts.”

“I had a book out and it was feted. It was taken up by librarians’ associations. I was asked to give lots of talks. The next one came out and there was nothing… I offered free copies and did not even have a reply. You can’t help thinking that one of the factors must be that these organisations that talk about inclusivity are excluding you because you are not singing from the right hymn sheet. If you looked at my [social media] profile, you could work it out from who I follow. That kind of thing gives you a bit of a pause. I know there are blacklists.” Author

Some of this possible chilling effect may come from media outlets. “My book was reviewed in The Scotsman,” said Jenny Lindsay, “but the usual reviewers apparently refused to touch it.” One successful author believes her openly gender-critical views meant that her latest novel received less publicity than previous ones. She was asked by her publisher’s marketing department to desist from talking about the issue in the months before and after publication, which she did. She then received a mixture of five-star reviews from some media outlets and no communication from others. “I have never, in 30 years, written a novel for which I wasn’t interviewed on Radio 4, on Woman’s Hour, Start the Week, Front Row or other books programmes,” she said. “That’s very serious. Woman’s Hour has three million listeners, so it really does affect who knows that you have a book out.”

Helen Joyce has never been interviewed on Woman’s Hour about her book, despite the issues within it being so salient to women. Kathleen Stock was interviewed about the abuse and harassment she experienced at the University of Sussex, but not about her book. Grace Lavery, on the other hand, was interviewed about Please Miss – A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis, a memoir outlining his experiences of identifying as a woman.¹⁴¹ While Joyce and Stock sold tens of thousands of copies of their books in the UK, Lavery sold just 1,723.¹⁴² The transactivist Juno Dawson was also interviewed on Woman’s Hour.¹⁴³ Dawson has depicted womanhood as a submissive sexual identity: “I knew I wanted to be ‘the woman’ when it came to sex… It was a conscious urge to get fucked, be penetrated as a woman would be,” he wrote.¹⁴⁴ It is surprising that somebody with such a perspective, which arguably undermines the position of women in society, has been platformed on a programme about women instead of authors who argue for women’s rights. (Bergdorf, incidentally, was given a six-figure advance for his book Transitional,¹⁴⁵ which sold 2,915 physical copies in the UK.¹⁴⁶ Joyce’s advance was no more than a fifth of this, at £20,000, yet her book sold more than 23,000 physical copies in the UK.)¹⁴⁷

In some cases, evidence of a chilling effect is clearer. Publishing employees indicated that internal decisions sometimes contribute to muted publicity for gender-critical authors and books. An interviewee worked on a non-fiction book written by an author who had, around the same time, made some publicly gender-critical statements. “Someone in marketing took exception,” she said, which she thinks affected how the book was promoted. Other employees refused to work on it. The chilling effect can sometimes come from outside. Helen Joyce said: “My lovely, supportive publisher wanted to push my book further after news events made it more relevant, but didn’t want to spend ad money on it because of a potential backlash from other authors.”

Rachel Rooney was untagged from her publisher’s publicity following a sequence of events in which her publicist had said it was “out of order” for her to repost an article that referred to the author and transactivist Munroe Bergdorf as male, and her editor agreed; Rooney was wrongly accused by another senior member of staff of causing a pile-on on Juno Dawson; and the same staff member said incorrectly that she had “misgendered” Dawson by referring to an unnamed “neurotypical male author” in a separate post, which Rooney had left up for an hour before deleting. 

Once her publisher said it would consequently no longer tag her into the publicity of her books, Rooney lost coverage. One of her books, for example, was read out on a children’s television programme, after which the publisher put out a thread about the books of theirs that had been included. “One was mine,” said Rooney. “Unlike other people, they didn’t tag or even name me. The image was unusually blurry, so that the author and illustrator names couldn’t be deciphered.”

“Gillian Anderson read [my book] The Problem With Problems as part of a money-raising campaign for Save the Children. It was a coup. [A transactivist social media account] contacted Save the Children and said I was all these awful things, as a result of which they removed the video.” Rachel Rooney

A couple of interviewees cited issues with their agents. One agent, for example, held an emergency meeting with other authors with whom she worked to discuss an interviewee’s supposedly “transphobic” views. “I was completely taken aback that anyone would care or my own agent would behave like that,” the author said. “In the meeting, she didn’t say one thing in support of me and complained about the position it put her in… I was reeling.”

Some interviewees perceive a converse over-promotion of books based on gender-identity beliefs. “They over-promote novels by trans people and non-fiction in general,” said one author. “People don’t want to read [them]. It’s mad. The publishers thought they were riding a wave.” As the previous section demonstrates, if such a wave ever existed, it was only a ripple: these books have, in general, had limited sales. 

The chilling effect is not limited to publishers and media; it extends through into distribution and sales channels. One publisher lost its European distributor because it published a gender-critical book. “They were quite apologetic about it,” said an interviewee. “They didn’t say, ‘You are publishing a shocking book that I hate’, but they did say, ‘You are publishing a book that other clients bigger than you may find shocking, so we cannot afford to continue working with you’.” Helen Joyce had to record her audio book herself, at home, as no company in the UK was willing to record it.

This is an example of a more general pattern of second-guessing the views and reactions of other key players within the industry. “There is a basic non-political commercial judgement based on a perception of the dominant thinking of what you can and can’t say,” according to one person. These assumptions extend through the hidden parts of publishing that are not immediately apparent to people not intimately familiar with them – warehousing, distributors, wholesalers and the trade press.

Levels of stocks and positioning of books in shops clearly affect sales, and there are multiple reports of books by authors sceptical of gender-identity beliefs being moved or not stocked for ideological reasons. A well-publicised example is that of a former Waterstones employee and TikToker who lost her job after saying she would “tear up and bin” the work of one novelist.¹⁴⁸ Individual authors have also been told that their books have been treated differently in some bookshops. A manager in one bookshop left a computer note instructing staff not to display Susanna Rustin’s book in her section.¹⁴⁹ Rooney was told by her publisher that they had been contacted by some booksellers saying that they would not place her work. 

A publicly funded literary network told Scottish bookshops last year not to stock the books of gender-critical authors nor to give them a platform. According to a report by The Times, a briefing by Literature Alliance Scotland used the derogatory term “TERFs”, whom they said were joining forces with fascists. People from key representative bodies sat on Literature Alliance Scotland’s board at the time, including the chief executive of the Scottish Book Trust, the business development manager of Publishing Scotland and the executive director of Edinburgh International Book Festival.¹⁵⁰ Board members later said the guidance was posted without their approval and several resignations ensued.¹⁵¹ A few months later, in another incident, it was reported that a Creative Scotland literature officer (working, apparently, in a personal capacity) advised an Edinburgh bookshop not to stock Jenny Lindsay’s book Hounded.¹⁵²

“An Edinburgh bookshop, Lighthouse Books, took up a very clear anti-gender-critical feminist position. This was a bookshop where I’d had a successful book launch in 2017, where I’d previously, as a left-wing writer, felt welcome, and now they were tweeting, ‘No TERFs, no Tories’. More troubling is that it is where Scottish PEN [an organisation that campaigns for freedom of expression in literature] regularly held book events. I wrote to Scottish PEN in April 2024 and a year later, despite following up, I have received no reply.” Magi Gibson

One publishing leader suggested that the situation in retail may be more positive than the picture painted by individual stories. He referred to a gender-critical book his company had sold that was their biggest ever seller. His worry that it would not be stocked in Waterstones was not realised: it was not prominently displayed, but it was stocked. “It’s not an ideal situation or one we ought to accept,” he said, “but it was not as bad as we had convinced ourselves it would be.”

Even in 2025, however, there remain bookshop employees comfortable saying that they will bin gender-critical books. Susan Dalgety announced the publication of the paperback version of The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht in early March, to which one person responded on X: “I work in a bookshop and I put any copies I find in the bin, where they belong.” When challenged, he said: “My boss is the one who started me on it, it’s a chain bookshop, we mark it as not received on the system.” An author on the thread challenged him to name the bookshop, to which he replied, “Oh you’re an author? Whee! More books to add to my bin list.” It is unclear if the post was genuine, but even if it was not, it is representative of the environment in which gender-critical authors must operate.¹⁵³

Librarians (or, perhaps, library visitors) have sometimes behaved similarly. In one case, Magi Gibson was speaking at an event at the Scottish Poetry Library at which her books were meant to be laid out on a display table. They were not. “It was hard to walk in there knowing there might be antagonism towards me, then the books weren’t there,” she said. “[The staff] went looking. The books weren’t on the shelf…. They’d been distributed to different parts of the library and hidden on different shelves.” She was not sure who was responsible. 

In another case, a librarian involved in the Carnegie Awards said that she considered Rooney’s A Kid In My Class to be ableist and that she had removed it from her shelves. (It was not even arguably ableist, so this behaviour may very well relate to Rooney’s gender-critical beliefs.) These actions often have knock-on effects: as a consequence of the “ableism” allegation, Rooney’s agent received a call from her illustrator’s PR to say that he would have to distance himself from her work. “This was on the basis of one comment that wasn’t even true,” said Rooney. 

Funding

Organisations may believe they must publicly subscribe to gender-identity beliefs, or at least not challenge them, in order to access funding. Publishers, festival organisers and other recipients of funding may perceive that they are putting themselves at financial risk by entering what they perceive to be a controversial area (this report makes clear, however, that controversies mainly sit on the other side of the debate). Arts Council England has told funded organisations that they are monitored for the level of risk they represent in being able to deliver a given funding agreement. It says: “The type of action or activity that may constitute or influence an increase in reputational risk can include… issues with artistic and creative output that might be deemed controversial.”¹⁵⁴ This environment also appears to be leading to self-censorship. 

“Maybe it’s that people aren’t even bothering to apply to us. I haven’t seen funding going to writers or artists who are explicitly gender critical. They may not have applied as they think they have no chance.” Funder

As in publishing more generally, the environment within funding bodies can lead to individual persecution and loss of work, contributing to the broader chilling effect. Denise Fahmy is a former Arts Council employee who challenged the Deputy Director’s assertion that LGB Alliance was anti-trans, following which she was subjected to harassment on the basis of her gender-critical beliefs. “People started calling her transphobic, a petition went round and they called her a ‘cancer’ that should be cut out of the organisation,” said the Arts Council interviewee. “Her working life was untenable and she left.” Fahmy later won a legal case against her former employer, at which the employment tribunal found that she had been subjected to harassment for her gender-critical beliefs.¹⁵⁵ 

There has been a homogenising effect on language, too, that often departs from observable categories. Applicants hoping to be awarded funding to run projects about women are usually explicit that they include men who identify as women, according to the Arts Council interviewee, or that they are aimed at “women and non-binary people”. This employee believes that this carries a coded assumption that non-binary people are women; it is hard to imagine an application for funding aimed at “men and non-binary people”. Funding applicants commonly market their queerness and neurodiversity, which the interviewee thinks is to ensure that heterosexual white applicants have a minority label that protects them from losing out in funding decisions. Now so many applicants are presenting themselves in this way, there is little to differentiate them from each other. 

Where clear links are made between funding received and viewpoints that are arguably prejudiced towards people that hold gender-critical views, there may be an assumption that such positions are endorsed, or at least accepted, by the funders in question. An article by the trans-identifying male author Juno Dawson in 2018 was posted on Edinburgh International Book Festival’s website. It misrepresented concerns about gender-identity beliefs – saying, for example, that people “advocate the restriction of my actual movements”, which is assumed to refer to a view that men should not enter women-only spaces. The article concluded: “I am absolutely free to say that I think you’re transphobic.” Underneath this, it said: “Supported by the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund through Creative Scotland.”¹⁵⁶

Deplatforming and other forms of removal

“Literary festivals are not booking gender-critical authors even though they are popular.” Jenny Lindsay

Gender-critical authors and other speakers have been deplatformed from events linked to the publishing industry. One interviewee was invited to chair a literary event. The invitation was later rescinded. A later subject access request informed her that a publicist from her own publisher had contacted the event organisers to demand her removal due to her supposedly “anti-trans” views. The author discovered through this process that her agent had known about it too. “It was betrayal on a monumental scale,” she said. After a festival director had platformed a gender-critical author, a group of local politicians contacted the director to tell her that she was a bigot. “They said they wanted to report me,” she said. “I don’t know who to. It’s a very limited idea of what we are allowed to say and who is allowed to say it.” 

During live events, contributions from the audience have been closed down by the chair. Magi Gibson gave an example from the late 2010s when she was a keynote speaker for a co-hosted Scottish PEN and University of Edinburgh event for International Women’s Day. The late gender-critical campaigner Magdalen Berns spoke from the audience about her experiences of being a young lesbian in an environment in which men were self-identifying as lesbians. The chair of the event, who had previously written a piece saying that transwomen are women, attempted to close the discussion down and to stop Burns from speaking further. 

Event cancellation, threatened cancellation and disruption are further issues. The Society of Friends, for example, cancelled the launch of a book written about trans-identifying children by Heather Brunskell-Evans and Michele Moore in 2018, citing staff safety and possible external protests.¹⁵⁷ The ticketing website Eventbrite removed references to the launch of Karen Ingala Smith’s book Defending Women’s Spaces, which is about the importance of survivors of male violence having access to single-sex services and other support. Eventbrite refunded pre-purchased tickets shortly before the event was due to take place, saying that it violated the company’s policies on “hateful, dangerous, or violent content”.¹⁵⁸ In 2023, protestors at the Edinburgh launch of Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader physically attempted to prevent people entering the venue and shouted “Shame on you!” at those who did so.¹⁵⁹ Events sometimes go ahead but are affected by complaints raised against authors. In one case, this led to the question-and-answer part of a talk being cancelled.¹⁶⁰

Venues sometimes turn down requests to host events that feature gender-critical authors. A festival director tried to book a celebrity author with gender-critical views to speak at an event she was organising, but the venue turned her down on the basis that the author was a “TERF”. A venue representative told the director later that they should not have used this term, but that people with this author’s views were not welcome in their venue. It was a choice between the local trans community and the author, and the venue was selecting the trans community, they said. The director tried two other venues. The first one gave similar reasons to the initial venue; the second said that the date did not work. The event did not go ahead.

“Venues… became an opportunity to silence people. You saw that in Edinburgh with Joanna Cherry.¹⁶¹ Jenny Lindsay had an enormous problem with venues. People would just withdraw. You can say they are not silencing people and they can go somewhere else, but if no-one else will have you… Publishing needs to decide if it will support all its authors and make sure all have an opportunity to talk about their books.” Festival director

In 2024, Conway Hall in central London turned down a request to host a book-focused panel discussion on the history of the women’s movement, claiming that this was due to a hypothetical “adverse reaction”. This central London venue had, a few months earlier, put on an event about cancel culture.¹⁶² The event about the women’s movement was being organised by the feminist organisation FiLiA and would have featured the authors of two recently published books: Susanna Rustin, author of Sexed, and some of the authors and editors of The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht. A representative of the venue emailed Lisa-Marie Taylor of FiLiA to say: “We have considered your request, and as a charity with a small team, we would be unable to handle any adverse reaction that might come as a result of Conway Hall hosting this event.” The representative went on to discuss their legal duty to protect staff and the potential impact of having protests outside.

“It’s a classic example of a hypothetical heckler’s veto,”¹⁶³ commented Rustin. Taylor, FiLiA’s chief executive, said: “There was further back-and-forth as we pushed them a little more, suggesting that this is (in effect) a ban on FiLiA … which started as ‘Feminism in London’ in Conway Hall!”¹⁶⁴

There is a type of pre-emptive action of which the presumed intended end-point is the deplatforming of authors with gender-critical views. Gibson, Lindsay and physiotherapist-comedian Elaine Miller, for example, were targeted when they came together to put on an event called Woman Word in Glasgow. Activists attempted to get the venue to cancel and, when this failed, they moved to personal harassment and accusations of transphobia. “They threatened us,” said Gibson. “They said they were going to stop us getting into the venue, and would harass and harangue us… It was a terrible storm with terrible bullying, and no support from anyone in the Scottish literary world.”

Sometimes this pre-emptive action is led by other speakers. Several authors withdrew from the 2025 Oxford Literary Festival after an announcement¹⁶⁵ that Helen Joyce would be discussing her book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality with fellow gender-critical author Julie Bindel. It was the first invitation Joyce had received to such an event to talk about her bestselling book – which, by this point, had sold over 100,000 copies internationally – four years after it was published. 

The festival organisers had tried to find an author with opposing views to share a platform with Joyce, but they were unable to do so.¹⁶⁶ A panellist in another session decided to step down because of the festival’s “platforming of anti-trans campaigners”, saying that a choice had been made to “prioritize hate speech over the safety of LGBTQ+ speakers and attendees”.¹⁶⁷ Both Joyce and Bindel have previously received threats of violence against them for articulating views they share with the large majority of the British public.¹⁶⁸ As they have not made any such threats themselves, it is not immediately apparent what these safety concerns linked to their participation might have been. (Joyce required special security to speak at this event.) Another author who stepped back from the festival called Joyce “an absolutely chilling character”.¹⁶⁹ 

Joyce’s event was the only session at the festival to sell out, and it did so within 24 hours. The philosopher and author Constantine Sandis, who did a separate event at the festival after saying he would not share a stage with Joyce, reportedly sold fewer than 100 tickets to his session.¹⁷⁰ 

Oxford Literary Festival organisers have been targeted as a result of their decision to platform Joyce. One author said: “As far as I’m concerned all members of the team behind the Oxford Literary Festival are transphobes until proven otherwise.”¹⁷¹ Another commented: “The total exclusion of trans speakers from the festival and the prominent billing of writers who have done irreparable damage to a vulnerable minority leaves me in little doubt of the festival’s organisational priorities and I refuse to profit from the tacit endorsement of transphobia.”¹⁷² 

Content warnings and public distancing are another form of more subtle deplatforming. Organisers of Cheltenham Literature Festival emailed panel hosts last year to ensure that the festival was distanced from a range of possible views expressed during sessions by panellists, including gender-critical ones. The email said, “If, during any of your events, a speaker shares an opinion that could be deemed controversial, please reinforce that everyone is entitled to express an opinion, however Cheltenham Festivals does not endorse the views shared on stage. By controversial we mean those views that may be harmful to an individual or group of people, particularly those who have been historically marginalised or oppressed.” The first example given was gender-critical views.¹⁷³

Authors and other freelancers have found themselves quietly removed from company websites. The former editor Sibyl Ruth discovered by chance that this had happened to her. “I wanted to check all my skills and experience were shown so clients would want to work with me, and that’s when I noticed I had been disappeared,” she said. Gillian Philip’s agent did the same to her. Following the extreme social media pile-on she experienced (see the following section), she asked her agent if she would still be interested in being sent Philip’s next book; the agent said she would not. “Someone said later that they had seen my name scrubbed from the agency website,” said Philip. “It was the first I knew of it.”

Other instances of removal are side-noted with calculation. A literary agent amended the graphic of the Phoenix Book Award’s 2022 shortlist, which included Onjali Raúf’s The Boy at the Back of the Class, to remove reference to Raúf or her book. This graphic was sent from the agent’s company’s X account, while on her personal X account she posted: “Am I petty enough and procrastinating enough to amend a shortlisting image to take out the shortlisted terf. Probably.” She then posted a reply saying: “Turns out I am.”¹⁷⁴

There have also been calls not to use writers and other creatives because of who they follow on social media. One author remembers a fellow writer posting that she would be unfollowing anyone who followed JK Rowling on Twitter, which included him. “What astonished me was the speed with which people jumped into saying they must be horrible transphobes,” he said. “I found this terrifying. I couldn’t see what the link was. I could see people saying, ‘You mustn’t use these people because they are transphobic’.” Another author mentioned seeing the same post about unfollowing people, which she found “incredibly intimidating”.

Abuse and harassment

“It is horrible to think that your colleagues hate you, that they think you are an awful person and a dreadful bigot. A couple of times it has happened quite publicly. At other times, it’s been under the radar.” Publishing employee

Public abuse and harassment

Staff from key organisations, including funders and publishers, have participated in targeted harassment against people in the industry who hold gender-critical beliefs. Rachel Rooney’s book publicist, for example, publicly supported another author in a thread stating that Rooney’s income should be curtailed and that she should be prevented from going into schools. Jenny Lindsay discovered that staff from Creative Scotland and the Scottish Book Trust were liking tweets that harassed her and called her a TERF. “These were people who used to hire me and praise my work,” she said. “I thought, ‘They are never hiring me again.’”

“Social media is a bit like rats. If you see one tweet saying you are a hateful bigoted bully, you can guarantee there will be hundreds of others.” Ursula Doyle

Some authors have been subjected to particularly concentrated, extreme abuse that has included death and rape threats. Gillian Philip, for example, was the target of a horrendous 24-hour online pile-on. “When I blocked one, two would pop up,” she said, “It was like a hydra. They would get more abusive. They were emailing me now through my website, so I was getting abusive emails. The Twitter feed was saying it couldn’t show me notifications as there were too many… I didn’t sleep until 5am.”

“You have all these people you don’t know pouring out hate, trying to get you fired and saying that they hope you die in this horrible way…It’s extremely intense and there is no escape from it. There were people trying to support me, but I was hardly seeing any of that as it was so torrential.” Gillian Philip

While Philip’s abuse appeared to be driven by fan sites linked to the Erin Hunter series, some interviewees named a small group of individuals across publishing who drive some of the vitriol. One person said that this clique had linked her books to the murder of a trans-identified teenager. She commented: “I didn’t respond, but the ludicrous accusations they make about publishers and writers who don’t toe the line – there is an impunity to it.” There is a difficulty, too, when people recognise their abusers: Lindsay said, “I preferred the anonymous people being horrible when I could see my peers being horrible as well.” 

Rooney experienced a co-ordinated smear campaign involving more than 50 authors and librarians. “They were tweeting and retweeting bad things about me,” she said. “They wanted my income curtailed, slurs and calls for others of my books to be removed from the shelves.” A friend of Magi Gibson’s attended a poetry event in Edinburgh at which a trans-identifying poet dedicated a poem, which was a nasty parody of Gibson’s work, to “Scotland’s biggest transphobe”. The event organiser did nothing. “Even when I am reading normal poetry, not about this contentious issue,” said Gibson, “I worry there is going to be a complaint about me, but a transwoman could get up at an event and read a poem that was a direct attack on me, and no-one said anything.”

“I began to feel a bit vulnerable. People were starting to point a finger at me. I had a Twitter friend get in touch saying she”d just seen some people in publishing saying they’d just found out [someone in my job role] was a bigot… There were public conversations on social media saying that I was a Nazi.” Interviewee

Another interviewee was targeted by a publishing industry hopeful whose abusive thread was reposted and liked thousands of times. This happened during the pandemic so everybody was online, contributing to a feeling of visibility that would be less present today. Social-media dynamics are constantly shifting and playing into patterns of abuse. According to Matthew Hamilton: “On Bluesky, we are seeing similar behaviours and censorship… that we used to see on Twitter.” 

There are sexual undertones to some of the abuse from men. “There’s envy and misogyny,” added Hamilton. “Anyone with eyes can see the attitudes at work there. It is very aggressive.”

Sometimes harassment takes the form of vexatious complaints. Trans-activist pressure made Gibson feel compelled to stand down from a new appointment to the board of one literary organisation rather than spark more attacks. A former student also made an unwarranted complaint of transphobia about her and her husband that led to their investigation by the Federation of Writers Scotland. There was no evidence to support it. “It was very much ‘The process is the punishment’,” said Gibson. “It was the fault of the climate, particularly in Scotland. If someone made an accusation of transphobia, everyone had to jump.”

“At least one person phoned in ahead of [a Scottish Poetry Library] event to say my presence would make people unsafe. I have severe osteoporosis and risk fracture if I get jostled. I have done nothing to deserve or justify that kind of treatment.” Magi Gibson

There is a phenomenon that does not stretch as far as representing clear abuse or harassment, but where being closely watched and policed for language or behaviour contributes to a hostile environment. “We are living in an era of political persecution and suppression of writers and artists, comparable to historical events of the 20th century, such as the Cultural Revolution in China, McCarthyism in the USA, and the reign of the Stasi in East Germany,” said an author. Behaviour sometimes escalates gradually. A festival director was targeted by a transactivist author because the director followed LGB Alliance on her personal X account. The author complained to the festival trustees, who took no further action. By the following year, according to the director, this author “was making demands that I showed my commitment to transgender ideology”. After the festival director sent a conciliatory note, the author “came back with ferocity to say I clearly hadn’t learned and that I was platforming gender-critical authors… She wanted nothing more to do with it.”

Antagonism sometimes runs two ways. “I don’t always think that everybody is very strategic about this,” said one author. “I love all the women that I’ve met through this, but a lot of people in the literary arts, who’ve been treated like absolute shit, tip over into being a bit troll-y online.”

Social media may give a skewed impression of general sentiments in the sector, but it can cause enormous damage. A publishing leader said that small numbers of angry people can wield enormous power and influence, and may imply that more people are angry than there really are. This can damage titles as well as individuals (see chapter 6 on impact for a fuller discussion of this). 

“Witnessing the Jenny Lindsay affair was a real shock. I am ashamed to say I did not speak out or help her publicly. I have a deep sense of shame about that, as she was destroyed. Because she was so effectively destroyed, I thought that it would happen to me.” Author

Examples

Examples of apparent social-media harassment perpetrated by people in the industry are given below. There are many more, and worse, instances of abuse coming from outside publishing. It was noted by one interviewee that it is sometimes hard to capture the range of industry-sanctioned abuse as the targets are often not named, but it is clear from the context around the social-media posts who they are.

Perpetrators’ names have been redacted, as have publisher names except where their identity is relevant to the context: while some of the examples that follow are egregious, the purpose of including them is to evidence the general climate in publishing rather than criticising individuals. Two examples have been given for each area, although many more exist for many of them. Posts are given verbatim, so some contain errors. 

Conflating gender-critical beliefs with transphobia and bigotry

• “Being transphobic is not equivalent to being gay, Jewish or Black. It is equivalent to being racist or homophobic. Being a bigot is not a protected characteristic I’m afraid!” Hachette employee in relation to Ursula Doyle’s case, July 2024
• (Quote tweeting a post about “transphobes and racists”) “They are across publishing too and of course they keep getting book deals and @hachetteuk has a whole imprint for TERFS it seems.” Former marketing director at a Big Five publishing company, September 2021

Implying radicalisation

• “Still mind-blown by how obsessive these authors are. Must be horrible for their family and friends to have watched them become radicalised like this.” Publishing marketer, July 2023
• “Most [gender-critical] women have been conned into a moral panic that mostly benefits the misogynist Far Right.” Author, May 2023

Stating that gender-critical views represent hate

• “Just for ref there are many people in UK publishing who are still intricately entwined with the ‘’gender critical’ movement (a proven hate campaign against trans individuals). my DMs are open if you’d like to know more.” Literary agent, April 2022
• “All those TERFs who’ve let their principles and hearts decay from cult like hatred now twisting themselves in knots justifying how much their position is identical to Trump’s.” Author, February 2025

Linking gender-critical beliefs to sexual fantasy and a desire for people who identify as trans to die

• “Julie Bindel has called for Mika [a male who identifies as a woman] to be arrested for breast-feeding her child, and a lot of [gender criticals] are joining in… The irony is that they are the ones having weird sexual fantasies and [scapegoating] trans people for what is going on in their heads.” Author, July 2023
• “Don’t assume that dead trans teenagers are, for all [gender criticals], a negative outcome. Why target trans adolescents and puberty blockers as a priority? Because they want more of us visible and vulnerable.” Author, December 2024

Equating gender-critical beliefs (termed transphobia here, which they are not) with a threat to safety

• “This is not a neutral issue. You don’t get to both sides this one. Every time a publishing organisation chooses to platform a transphobe they are signalling very clearly that they do not care about the safety of the trans community.” Author, May 2022
• “The language about trans positive doctors used by [gender criticals] and their [fascist] allies is increasingly related both to antivax conspiracy theorists and the rhetoric used to demonize and then kill abortion doctors. Sooner or later the BMA etc. are going to have to take a stand.” Author, March 2024

Foretelling tradwifery, Nazism and genocide

• “To define sex as reproductive biology and nothing else is a political choice and in my view a deeply dangerous, reactionary and misogynist one that will lead inexorably to tradwifery and being the women’s auxiliary of Nazis.” Author, May 2023
• “I have asked [Helen Joyce] repeatedly to clarify what she intends. Saying that she does not intend mass incarceration of trans people is simply not good enough. No genocide starts with that… Demanding the social segregation of trans people and the removal of existing rights, protections and identities is an obvious first step towards genocide especially when coupled with demeaning rhetoric and demanding our removal from society.” Author, June 2022

Targeting reputations and professions

• “There is a UK literary agent who I consider to be horrifically harmful to trans people.” Literary agent, February 2021
• “@LittleBrownUK and @FleetReads I am going to dissect every word of this toxic TERF-y trash fire and call out the sheer irresponsible cruelty of platforming a notorious bigot with a release like this. [Kathleen Stock] is an infamous Transphobic bully of the highest order.” Digital-content lead, February 2021

Making other threats

• “New PSA, book industry folks. I don’t care who you are, how I know you or how ‘powerful’ you might be, if I notice you following ‘G.C’ people aka Transphobic bigots, I will contact you to call it out and unfollow you if you don’t support ‘ALL’ of the LGBTQ+ community.” Digital-content lead, May 2023¹⁷⁵
• “There is a book publishing soon (from a prominent transphobe) purporting to be about the ‘demonisation of middle-aged women’ (which to me sounds like a dog whistle for the (rightful) ‘demonisation of TERFs’, lol).” Literary agent, November 2022

Using slurs and insults

• “Their heart is so much bigger and purer than the shriveled black organs of those sad little TERFs could ever hope to be.” Librarian who used to work on CILIP children’s writing and illustration awards, February 2022
• “This shit-for-brains had me blocked a long time ago, but I’ve now read her bilge.” Author assumed to be talking about Rachel Rooney, February 2022

Scorning anonymity and implicitly supporting unlawful behaviour

• “Unlike what certain whimpering anonymous blogs going around would have you believe, the children’s book community (like actually most communities) support trans rights by vast, clear majority.” Author, June 2023, responding to an anonymous blog that included the following:
  
  “Why is there no significant corpus of children’s authors asking questions? The answer is, we’re too scared. And understandably so. Children’s authors who have asked questions or expressed concern with the direction, nature and pace of the culture shift have been ostracised and verbally abused; they have lost representation, publishing deals, and publicity and marketing opportunities; they have been ‘cancelled’ or ‘ghosted’, characterised as transphobic and bigoted, and received serious threats to their livelihood and, in some cases, their lives.”¹⁷⁶
• [In a thread discussing discrimination against gender-critical feminists] “Cultural values have strategic import in publishing, and many people have very strong feelings about it. Yes, maybe it is illegal; no, they really don’t care. [To be honest,] I don’t much either – as I said, I suspect we won’t see many prosecutions.” Managing editor of a publishing company, June 2024

Silence

“Writers look at Rachel Rooney, Gillian Philip and me, and instead of seeing what they should do, which is be brave and principled and speak out, they see cautionary tales.” Jenny Lindsay

One outcome of the widespread adoption of gender-identity beliefs in publishing has been required adherence to a contested monoculture, with penalties in place for those who deviate from it. A publishing employee compared it to academia, where threats of disciplinary action against people with gender-critical beliefs are customary. “The thing it has in common is this chilling effect,” she said. “Most problematic is the idea that you can’t have different views. If you don’t think about something in one particular way, you are beyond the pale.”

Several interviewees said they had deliberately not discussed their views in public due to the anticipated backlash. “I daren’t talk to people,” said one person. “I feel that if I spoke up, I would be vilified and maybe in trouble with HR. I would have a black mark because I am not going along with the company ethos.” Another commented: “I leave my belief in two sexes at the door.”

“I have seen what’s happened to some women and some men who have spoken out, and I can’t risk that.” Publishing employee

This point is reinforced by the fact that most people interviewed for this report chose to remain anonymous. 

Several interviewees said they had colleagues who felt similarly to them but would not say anything in the workplace or publicly, potentially due to fear of the consequences. “People who agree with me would never publicly say so,” said Ursula Doyle. “When I wrote to management querying some aspects of the trans-inclusion policy, my letter began, ‘I am writing on behalf of a few of us’. Quite understandably, nobody wanted to put their name to it for fear of the consequences, which I think indicated that there was a problem here.”

“It has a real chilling effect on the culture. People are terrified. Nobody wants to be called out for being a bigot if you critique any of this.” Publishing employee

Publishing employees worry about the potential impact on their careers, as do authors. “It’s having a terrible effect on the literary world,” according to Jenny Lindsay. “It’s making some writers too scared to speak out, and it’s making other writers say things that I’m fairly sure they don’t believe.” Agents who hold gender-critical beliefs fear soft cancellation and losing clients. Some people have compound reasons not to speak out. “My wife doesn’t agree with my position,” said one author. “If I went public… it would affect not only my career, but also my marriage.”

“When I was growing up, there was a sense that everyone had an opinion and it was valid if it was based on facts. There is only one right opinion now… [Then,] you could sit as Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat and have a conversation. I don’t remember my parents’ generation having this entrenched sense of difference.” Author

When problems with training material or internal policies are raised by those who feel secure enough in their positions to do so, their challenges have often been shut down or ignored. It can also be difficult to find supportive colleagues in such an environment. Some interviewees discussed holding coded conversations as a means to identify others who have similar views. “It’s very easy for people who believe in gender-identity theory to find each other, as it’s very easy to talk about it at work,” said one publishing employee. “It’s not easy to talk about sex or biology.” 

People who have been burned after speaking out about this issue often find that the usual systems of social and professional support are not available to them. When Gillian Philip experienced the online pile-on, she expected some level of support from her publishers and her agent. She had previously shown loyalty to them at great personal cost. She continued, for example, with unpaid overseas tours when her husband was admitted to hospital and when her mother, recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, had absconded. “I should have been at home, but I didn’t want to let the publishers and everyone else down,” she said. “I thought that loyalty would be reciprocated.” It was not. Of her agent, she said: “She was taking the word of the accusers and the mob over mine.” This links to a wider point made elsewhere: complaints and accusations are often taken at face value, and unquestioningly assumed to represent the truth, when the people accused are gender-critical. 

“No one got in touch with me during that period to ask what was happening or ‘Are you OK?’. By the morning of the 26th, they were taking everything as gospel that the mob were saying. They were believing all these anonymous accounts.” Gillian Philip

Proffered support has sometimes been removed when supporters themselves have been attacked. A writer friend of Philip’s put a lukewarm post on Facebook that said while she did not agree with Philip’s views, the way she had been treated was terrible. People replied calling the friend a let-down and Philip a transphobe, and asking how she dared to defend Philip. The friend removed her post, telling Philip that she could not afford to have it on her Facebook page and that she was just trying to show her support. “Most people cut me dead and ignored me,” said Philip. 

The silencing of non-aligned perspectives can give employers a false impression that everyone believes in gender identity. “They don’t realise that most people probably don’t agree with giving Key Stage 1 kids [aged five to seven] access to information about puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones,” said an interviewee.

Specialist areas and functions of publishing

Children’s and young adult publishing

“I’m most concerned about children’s books. It’s where the harm is being done by the unquestioning promotion of this idea.” Agent

The promotion of gender-identity beliefs in children’s publishing is widespread. As Figure 6 shows, more than a fifth (111 books) of the 21 publishers’ mapped books based on gender-identity beliefs are aimed at children. These include young-adult books, which are often marketed at younger teenagers. Titles include Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?, Being a Super Trans Ally!, Beyond the Gender Binary, He’s My Mom!, Hooray for She, He Ze, and They!, Me and My Dysphoria Monster, The Pronoun Book, Trans Teen Survival Guide and Transmogrify! 14 Fantastical Tales of Trans Magic.

Figure 6. Books informed by gender-identity beliefs: breakdown

Children’s books paint a shiny, sparkly world of trans identities that fix deep-seated underlying vulnerabilities, resolve bodily hatred and create enduring joy in the form of “trans euphoria”. They are steeped in stereotypes. The blurb for the book I Am Jazz, for example, reads:¹⁷⁷

“From the time she was two years old, Jazz knew that she had a girl’s brain in a boy’s body. She loved pink and dressing up as a mermaid and didn’t feel like herself in boy’s clothing. This confused her family, until they took her to a doctor who said that Jazz was transgender and that she was born that way.”

Jazz Jennings is now an adult who has had several transition-related surgeries and experienced post-surgical complications, as well as other health issues. 

This ideological marketing to children risks causing extensive harm. It is beyond the scope of this report to detail the risks to children of gender-identity beliefs. In summary, though, these publications are teaching children from the earliest ages – many of these books are aimed at toddlers – that a trans identity can cure any bodily discomfort or anxiety that they may be feeling, and that the physical reality of biology is unimportant or can be superseded by medical interventions. 

There is little recognition in the development and promotion of these titles that children who suffer from gender-related distress are more likely than other children to have underlying vulnerabilities such as poor mental health, a history of abuse or having grown up in care. They are several times more likely to be autistic or to grow up to be lesbian, gay or bisexual.¹⁷⁸ Children who are given the label of a new identity find it hard to shake off, meaning their dysphoria can become fixed. Stereotypes also become entrenched through the idea that if girls like clothes and toys that are more typically aimed at boys, they may really be a boy in a girl’s body, and vice versa. Alarmist campaigns from activists highlighting suicide risks if children are not affirmed have been exaggerated¹⁷⁹ and reporting of this issue has been irresponsible.

“While [children’s publishers] might say, ‘We care about disabled kids,’ they need to look at how they are doing those children a disservice – the most vulnerable children. If they are that right-on, why are they not taking note of the Cass Report¹⁸⁰ and [how many] of those kids are autistic?” Rachel Rooney

A culture that supports these ideas has seen an enormous increase in children suffering from gender-related distress and resulting referrals to healthcare professionals. Children who are socially transitioned may be more likely to enter a medical pathway,¹⁸¹ resulting in long-term harms that include adult sexual dysfunction,¹⁸² an inability to have children,¹⁸³ negative impacts on heart¹⁸⁴ and bone health,¹⁸⁵ and lifelong medicalisation.¹⁸⁶ The mixed-sex spaces that this belief system implies – it teaches that boys and men can self-identify into the changing rooms and sports teams of girls and women, for example – carry significant safeguarding risks, including physical injury through mixed-sex contact sports and sexual assault through mixed-sex changing rooms. Such spaces and sports are also, in many cases, unlawful.¹⁸⁷ The messages of hope these ideas convey are false: most of their promises cannot be realised. 

While individual publishers’ names have not been cited outside the footnotes except in cases of legal challenge in the rest of this report (its purpose being to depict the general environment rather than naming individual or corporate instances of poor practice), this section cites publishers’ names. Children’s publishing is a small world, and the ramifications of decisions made are far-reaching: a teenage girl who hates her developing breasts reading a book that suggests she might really be a boy, and that her discomfort can be cured by a double mastectomy, is a very different prospect to an adult choosing to read a biography of a trans-identifying author.

“I am appalled by what has been published and that nobody is asking questions about whether it is suitable for children. You do have a responsibility to ask if it is suitable for an 8-year-old.” SEEN in Publishing representative

An industry-wide charter appears to have contributed to this gender-identity focus in children’s publishing. The Everybody In Charter focuses on inclusion and diversity for organisations and individuals that work with children’s books, including publishers, booksellers, authors and libraries. Both the Publishers Association and the Booksellers Association were involved in its development. The charter’s understanding of diversity includes “gender and gender identity”, but not sex (although gender might be understood as a synonym for sex here).¹⁸⁸ Signatories include Usborne Publishing, Penguin Random House, Faber & Faber, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, The Reading Agency and BookTrust.¹⁸⁹

The charter includes a requirement to ensure that all children are represented in books which, coupled with its definition of diversity, implies that different gender identities should be included. Usborne has reflected this in its own diversity policies, saying: “All children – including children of every ethnicity, age and gender – must be able to see themselves in our books.”¹⁹⁰ While, on the face of it, this appears to be a reasonable aim, “every… gender” implies more than two, and there is no mention of “both sexes”.

Exam boards’ curricula and academic publishing in the form of textbooks have contributed too. Gender-identity beliefs are now threaded through some A-level specifications, teaching materials, textbooks and directives on language. Many of these have not been fully thought through, according to one interviewee: those charged with curriculum development and assessment attend a course and then update the materials. As part of its sponsorship of Pride in Education, Pearson commissioned a transactivist poem that includes the lines:¹⁹¹

“Education can give us confidence
to be who we are, without fear.
To value our contribution to society,
As Non-binary, Trans or Queer.”

It is, of course, brilliant if education can empower children to be confident and unafraid to be themselves. Teaching them to do this through the lens of non-binary or trans identities, however, risks entrenching discomfort with their developing bodies and a belief – when it comes to physical reality, and unlike the poem – that they cannot be who they are. 

A supportive ecosystem further embeds this belief system. “You have the authors who are posting online about no dead trans kids,” said one author (as already discussed, data suggest that suicide narratives have been misreported and weaponised, and there is no evidence that transition improves things for those who feel this way). “Then you have the publishers. They are organising tours in bookshops, going out with the Pride and trans flags and the buttons.”

“Librarians have been very active at pushing trans books in schools.” Author

These connect to efforts made in this area by libraries, the School Library Association and CILIP: “They all link together and see each other doing these things in the name of inclusion and diversity, but it’s having the opposite effect.” Gender-identity beliefs imply one “correct” worldview, which happens to be anti-science: it is the antithesis of diversity, and it excludes anyone who does not conform to it.

This ecosystem is facilitated by the broader constrained atmosphere in which people in the children’s book world feel unable to challenge what is happening. “I became fearful that I would be blacklisted,” said one writer. “I am a moderately successful children’s author. I have a career to defend. If you are seen to be joining a camp, you are blacklisted by the other camp. It includes agents, publishers and the people putting pronouns in their bios.”

The wider children’s book world also contributes to the ecosystem that embeds gender-identity beliefs – the prizes, magazine covers, book tours, sensitivity readers, and social and traditional media. A trans-identified editor with Jessica Kingsley Publishers has written in The Guardian, for example: “I walk into work every day and commission books for young people that might help keep queer and trans children alive.”¹⁹² As highlighted earlier in this section, there is no evidence to back up this statement. Its implication that there is a single cause of actual or potential suicides in trans-identified children also contravenes suicide-reporting guidance as it increases the risk of contagion.¹⁹³

“One of the things that disturbs me most about the whole subject is the indoctrination aspect…. It’s very strange to me that gender ideology should make itself most felt in the area that young children are reading it, on sex changes and body modification.” Matthew Hamilton

Academic and scientific publishing

The belief system may be even more tightly bound to academia than it is to publishing, which affects authors employed in universities and staff working for academic publishing companies. Gender-identity beliefs first arose in academia, so they have had more time to imbue its culture. 

“Publishing and academia are little corners where people have been particularly susceptible to this, and people… might see their view as being superior and their role to shape the masses into believing this stuff.” Publishing employee

These beliefs have evolved into something more negative, according to an academic author who studied Foucault’s ideas about post-structuralism as a student (these ideas later informed Judith Butler’s notions about gender as identity and performance). Post-structuralist theory was used in the academic author’s undergraduate days to make students aware of their preconceptions and sense of identity in order to avoid projecting them onto what was being studied. It is now being used to validate their sense of who they are. “Increasingly, people are becoming activists and… creating a political agenda rather than encountering sources on their own terms,” she said. “It is destabilising and undermining.”

“The people who are very vulnerable are academics and the people who have to live in that interface between very serious careers and teaching the young.” Author

The introduction of student fees in 1998 may have contributed to the proliferation of gender-identity beliefs within academia. “Students pay so you really have to listen to them,” said one author. “I have seen how much more student-led the curriculum is… We’ve had censorship and trigger warnings that are all student-driven.”

“I feel depressed about teaching these students at the moment, as they are very closed-minded. Their mantra is about kindness, like they have been fed this kind of language. They won’t confront difficulties in themselves.” Author

In many disciplines, ideology has replaced scientific reason and empirical evidence. One interviewee said she knew people working in maths and science who were making clownfish arguments about sex in humans: this is the idea that because clownfish can change sex, human sex must be on a spectrum. (Clownfish are highly unusual in their ability to change sex. It is a talent that humans lack.¹⁹⁴) Another gave the example of a well-known anatomist who heavily criticises those who say that sex exists. The “no debate” culture is more of an issue here than the sex denialism, according to this interviewee.

“In a lot of cases, you can’t demonstrate that something is absolutely true or false. It’s about honesty and not falsifying things. To say that something as fundamental as the existence of sex is a Western construct, and that we need to decolonise the curriculum and remove the idea of sex, is profoundly threatening.” Author

As with other areas of publishing, policies and training tend to promote gender-identity perspectives and potentially contravene equality law. “We are supposed to be a scientific organisation,” said an interviewee who works for a scientific publisher with a bullying and harassment policy that counts misgendering and deadnaming as infractions.

Changing rooms are a particular issue for universities, and therefore for the academic authors working within them. These are governed by the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992. “One woman meets this man every morning in the changing rooms,” said a university-based author. “The university is doing nothing about it. It needs to enforce the idea there are single-sex spaces.”

The culture is unfriendly to those who reject gender-identity beliefs. A few years ago, one academic author who was new to the arguments asked on an academic network why two prominent feminists were being subjected to criticism. “Literally thousands of women came down on me,” she said. “They told me to educate myself and check my ‘cis’ privilege.” She was later contacted by an American friend who told her that she was beginning to sound like a bigot because of her social-media posts. “It ended with her saying that I was Nazi adjacent. She then blocked me.”

“These academic women were saying ‘trans women are women’ and ‘no debate’. I had no idea if transwomen are women but ‘no debate’? We are academics! Debate is written into the DNA. That’s when I started asking questions.” Author

Bullying is widespread. Sometimes it is perpetrated by students and facilitated by internal university systems. In one case, student complaints were levelled against an author for supposedly transphobic social-media posts for which no evidence was given, and colleagues suggested to her that she should not speak about her beliefs on sex and gender identity. Students who felt “unsafe” were moved out of her classes; she told her head of department that this was inappropriate, but no action was taken. Her office noticeboard was graffitied and she was informed about a student protest against her, but was offered no protection.

There are serious problems with academic publishing and peer review. In small academic fields, no peer review process is genuinely anonymous: academics know each other’s writing style and fields of interest. “There is scope for animosity and favouritism,” said an interviewee. “I know people who have struggled to get something published as they have said, ‘Sex is real and I am talking about the biological sort.’… The peer review comes back saying the article is outdated and old-fashioned, and they recommend it is rejected.”

“With the move to open access, there is a move to fund your own publications. If you don’t have a grant, your ideas will not get published. The idea that academic publishing is any kind of neutral platform where the battle of ideas is conducted is nonsense. A huge amount is being submitted based on a belief in gender-identity ideology.” Author

Author submission guidelines in hundreds of scientific journals incorrectly state that sex is on a spectrum. Elsevier’s Science Direct is the publishing platform for more than 5,000 journals,¹⁹⁵ of which up to 750 require authors to set aside their scientific knowledge and sign up to definitions based on a contested ideology.¹⁹⁶

Elsevier’s guide for authors across multiple journals uses the contested term “sex assigned at birth”. Sex is observed, apart from in a tiny number of cases in which babies are born with disorders of sex development and their sex is unclear. However, the nature of these conditions and their diagnosis is such that this group of babies is definable and quantifiable, and each of them has a reproductive system that is structured around the creation of large gametes (female) or small gametes (male). Sex is binary and immutable, even taking these cases into account.¹⁹⁷

The author guide also states:¹⁹⁸

“Sex and gender are often incorrectly portrayed as binary (female/male or woman/man) and unchanging whereas these constructs actually exist along a spectrum and include additional sex categorizations and gender identities such as people who are intersex/have differences of sex development (DSD) or identify as non-binary.”

Medical journal The Lancet, also owned by Elsevier but published on a separate site, uses almost exactly the same phrasing in its information for authors with some minor tweaks (for example, “Sex and gender are often incorrectly portrayed as binary… concordant, and static.”)¹⁹⁹ 

The implications of these guidelines for scientific knowledge and research are unclear. It is possible that (a) authors aware of the salience of sex to scientific knowledge choose not to submit papers to these journals; (b) authors change their language to match the specified language of the journals in question; and (c) authors shape their findings to fit with gender-identity beliefs rather than the material reality of sex. 

“The most ominous thing is there is a silence around what is happening in publishing and academia…. The most depressing thing about this movement is how silencing it is. The more people who speak, the better, but there is a lot at stake.” Author

Journals may be rejecting important research papers because of the opinions of their authors. Dr John Armstrong of King’s College London had a paper he co-authored with Professor Alice Sullivan rejected after he was accused by staff of the British Medical Journal of being “argumentative and opinionated” on Twitter (now X). Staff on the journal separately said that Dr Michael Biggs of Oxford University was “known for being transphobic” based on a 2018 student article about him. Biggs’ paper was also rejected.²⁰⁰ Both papers would have contributed to the body of academic knowledge: the first in showing where an earlier statistical analysis had gone awry, and the second by showing problems with the Office for National Statistics’ census questions on sex and gender identity (concerns that were later validated by the Office for Statistics Regulation, which found that these questions did not meet the quality standards of the Code of Practice for Statistics).²⁰¹

Scottish publishing

“Gender-critical writers in Scotland have been cancelled in all sorts of ghost ways for years. We have had our careers derailed. We’ve been made worse than persona non grata. We have been made whipping boys for having perfectly reasonable and legal views that we have a right to hold.” Magi Gibson

Several of the more egregious examples in this report of discrimination and harassment against people with gender-critical beliefs took place in Scotland. This may be due to the policy and cultural environment in Scotland, which has been deeply informed by gender-identity beliefs. Other sectors show how far this belief system has permeated within Scottish institutions. Scotland was at the centre of the Adam Graham/Isla Bryson scandal, for example, in which a male rapist was initially placed in a women’s prison after his guilty verdict because he identified as a woman.²⁰² Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre constructively dismissed Roz Adams on the basis of her beliefs that sex is binary and that survivors should be able to choose the sex of their support workers.²⁰³ The case of nurse Sandie Peggie versus NHS Fife and Dr Beth Upton is ongoing. Peggie was suspended by her employer after she complained that Upton, a male doctor who identifies as a woman, was using the female changing rooms.²⁰⁴

From a political perspective, the minority government passed the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill in 2022.²⁰⁵ The bill would have changed the process by which people can access a gender-recognition certificate, effectively turning it into a self-identification process. The bill will not receive royal assent due to an intervention by the UK Government based on an objection that the proposed regime would have UK-wide effects, and that it was therefore outside the Scottish Government’s devolutionary competence.²⁰⁶ In April 2025, the Supreme Court ruled on For Women Scotland’s challenge of the Scottish Ministers’ definition of the word “woman” as it relates to the Equality Act 2010, which they held included men who hold gender-recognition certificates. The Court found against the Scottish Ministers: the word “woman” refers only to biology, not certification.²⁰⁷

This institutional landscape has been shaped by transactivism. Magi Gibson used to have a note on her X profile that she was a former Reader in Residence at Glasgow Women’s Library, for example; transactivists contacted the library to complain, and the library then contacted Gibson to ask her to remove this reference. Gibson noted the irony of such a request being made by an organisation tasked with conserving women’s history and writing.

“I was just walking in May, and someone at their gate shouted ‘Murderer!’ at me. I said, ‘Pardon?’ They shouted again… That person sat on the board of one of Scotland’s trans organisations and was working for another LGBT organisation at that point…. I reported it to the police, but under Scots law there is nothing they can do unless I get attacked.” Magi Gibson

Transactivism in Scottish institutions plays forward into the funding environment for authors and the arts more broadly. The Scottish Government funnels funding into quangos, literary organisations and charities, and sets an agenda that is firmly embedded in gender-identity beliefs. 

“If the Government in control of the funding is telling you that this is a priority, you are going to make it a priority to get more funding and to continue with the funding you’ve got.” Magi Gibson

Creative Scotland – which, as we have already seen in chapter 6, is a Stonewall Diversity Champion, appears not to have given proper consideration to its public-sector equality duty and requires funded organisations to report meaningless data that conflates sex and gender identity – funds Literature Alliance Scotland (LAS). LAS put out trans guidance for bookshops and festivals, the content of which, according to Gibson, was “shocking”. She wrote an online article about it that led to an apology from LAS and the removal of the guidance. Gibson had previously outlined her concerns about a new code of practice for authors working with Scottish Book Trust, which she felt restricted free speech and would leave gender-critical authors open to attack for stating biological facts. She believes that her engagement with the code of practice led to the chief executive of Scottish Book Trust misrepresenting the facts of her correspondence with him on social media. She wrote another online piece, supported by evidence, to correct the record. 

“All of them sound like such small things, but it’s the layering effect. Because Scotland is so small, too, no-one is ever going to hire you and give you opportunities.” Jenny Lindsay

Jenny Lindsay’s hounding in Scotland was sparked by her objection to a writer calling for “violent action” against lesbians with gender-critical beliefs. She was accused of transphobia and swarmed on social media. Other writers said that they would not share a stage with her. She was told of private groups in which she was being discussed and disparaged. Lindsay received warnings that her safety might be at risk: she had to leave her home city and lost friends. She got dropped by organisations that should have supported her. A board member of Scottish PEN, an organisation that campaigns for freedom of expression, signed an open letter accusing the Scottish Poetry Library of institutional transphobia when it came to her defence; so did the then project manager of Scottish PEN.²⁰⁸ The letter said:²⁰⁹

“It seems clear to us that there is a serious lack of understanding of trans rights, women’s rights (which are trans women’s rights), transphobia and misogyny (which affects trans women) at the Scottish Poetry Library.”

Women’s rights are not “trans women’s” rights, as clarified by the Supreme Court’s recent ruling. By the same token, misogyny does not – and cannot – affect men who identify as trans.

“Jenny Lindsay was a canary in the mine in arts in Scotland. I thought what was done to her was shocking by people who were her friends. They made such a thorough example of her that ‘None of you will dare to challenge us’, and it worked. I know lots of people didn’t speak up for that very reason.” Author

SEEN in Publishing

SEEN in Publishing, a sex equality and equity network,²¹⁰ was set up in the wake of clear-cut cases of bullying, online pile-ons and other cases of harassment of gender-critical authors, publishers and others across the industry. It was launched in June 2024 as “a network of publishing professionals, authors and creatives, who recognise the material reality of sex, and support freedom of expression”.²¹¹ Its membership cuts across the political spectrum. The cases of Gillian Philip, Rachel Rooney, Onjali Raúf and Amanda Craig, as well as the broader culture, informed the decision to set it up. Its inception was driven, according to the SEEN in Publishing (SP) interviewee, by “a feeling that there is a whole area you can’t talk about and, if you do, everything is at risk”. It represents many individuals who are unable to speak publicly about this issue.

“A lot of what we do is provide a place for people not to feel so alone.” Publishing employee who is also part of SP

The backlash to the announcement that SEEN in Publishing had been established was instant and intense. “Within hours, we had all these people from the main publishing houses – Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin and all sorts of smaller places, agencies and media companies – saying we were bigots, transphobes and racists,” said the SP representative. “We said, ‘We are not doing any of the things you say we are doing. We just need to have a conversation.’” Comments levelled at SP, its members and supporters included:²¹²

• “I’ve seen the statement from that vile TERF publishing group and let me make something very clear: what they are calling ‘industry-sanctioned blacklisting’ is all of us rising up to call them hateful cowards and showing support for the trans community.” Commissioning editor and author
• “This is disgusting dogwhistle rhetoric that is capitalising on anti-trans governmental legislation. Solidarity to my trans colleagues. Anyone who joins this hate group can get fucked” Senior marketing manager
• “I am actually really proud of all but one of my followers who have not seen fit to follow this nasty, anonymous, hate-filled little network. If you do follow it, it’s a block because this is reprehensible.” Editor
• “Get fucked.” Publisher (in response to a follow-up letter from SP about employee abuse).

“With the SEEN in Publishing announcement, the Pride networks at the big companies were quick to denounce it in a co-ordinated way. These are the people about whom the editors will be thinking, ‘Do I want to have a row with this lot?’” Matthew Hamilton

Representatives of 37 companies made negative comments on social media; polite follow-up letters were written to each of these, to which only three responded (not including the “Get fucked” response highlighted above). One replied to say that the company had no issue with staff who used their work accounts to denigrate SP.²¹³

One of the criticisms of SP was that its organisers chose to remain anonymous, but these examples show why it has been necessary for them to do so. “I was really scared,” said the SP interviewee of her decision not to reveal her identity. She pointed out that most of the abuse directed online at SP had been sent from social-media accounts that were linked to their employers in the publishing industry. It is striking that calling people disgusting, nasty bigots can be done in full daylight, while joining a network that believes in the material reality of sex requires secrecy to protect those joining it from the perpetrators of this open abuse. 

The backlash against SP further demonstrated that, within publishing, discrimination and harassment of people with gender-critical views are live, tangible issues. “I thought things were getting better,” said an agent. “Then I saw the response to SEEN in Publishing… I was really gobsmacked.” An interviewee was on a discussion group with representatives of other sex equality and equity networks after the launch, and asked them if any of them had a similar response in their own sectors. They had not. “Nobody else’s sector responded in such a deranged manner as publishing,” she said. 

SP organisers would like to reach the stage at which people in the industry can speak freely about their beliefs, whether these relate to sex and gender or other issues, and at which point it can cease to exist. The SP representative said she would like people in publishing to acknowledge there is a problem and some of the harm that has been done; to support young staff without centring their belief systems; and to make it more possible for staff members to speak without fear. An author said that she wanted people in the industry to undo some of the harms outlined in this report. “If we are still here in 10 years, that would be depressing,” said another interviewee who is part of SP. “We want to disband SEEN in Publishing as soon as we can.”

“I would like to leave publishing in a better place. It’s been a good career to me, and I’ve been so horrified by what I’ve seen in the last five years. It’s not the industry I joined or the one I want to leave behind.” SEEN in Publishing representative

The impact

Impact on authors, agents and staff

“There are lots of women walking around who’ve done so much work, and behaved so decently, and we are walking around with all these wounds.” Magi Gibson

Personal impact

The identities of interviewees have been obscured in the section that follows, even when they have been named in other parts of the report, due to the very personal nature of some of the effects. Exceptions have been made where quotes are more general than personal.

“I feel as if I am the Ancient Mariner. It’s robbed me of my sense of who I am, my identity, my peace of mind, my reputation – it’s all gone.”

The personal impact on the people who have been harmed by the pervasiveness of gender-identity beliefs in publishing has been immeasurable. The biggest effect has been on stress and poor mental health, which was mentioned by almost half the interviewees. “I’m so anxious, paranoid and tearful all the time,” said one person whose livelihood has been affected. “Mental health-wise, one of the things that is really difficult is that dreadful knowledge that there is no way out of it,” said another. “I was never getting my old life back.” Someone else commented: “I suffer from anxiety anyway and my levels went through the roof.”

“It’s in my head all the time. I dream about it almost every night.”

One person was affected so badly she felt suicidal. Her doctor referred her to a psychologist. “A month later, I’d come through the crisis but, my goodness, I was in pieces,” she said. The pressure on her led her to soul-search, to question herself about whether she was cruel or behaving badly. She concluded that she needed to be able to state the facts as she saw them. “It is a truth and I need to state it,” she said; “and I have every right to do so, even if it’s different from someone else’s truth.”

Mental-health impacts also contribute to the broader chilling effect. “When other people see you under this kind of strain,” said an interviewee, “it makes it more difficult for them to speak up. People feel outraged and upset on my behalf, and they don’t feel able to challenge it themselves.”

“I struggle to express the whole distress of it all. I have never cried. It is too huge.”

Another key impact has been in fears about personal safety, as well as the safety of family members. 

Physical ill-health has been a further substantive impact of the hostile environment outlined earlier in this report. Interviewees described a variety of physical-health impacts of their experiences, including migraines in one person that were so severe she had to lie on the floor at work, vomiting into a bucket; weight loss and weight gain, panic attacks, poor sleep and high blood pressure. One interviewee developed a health condition that saw her hospitalised at the end of a stressful work period involving conflict over the pervasiveness of gender-identity beliefs in her workplace. “I attribute it directly to the issues that were going on around that,” she said. “I am on lifelong medication now.”

“I don’t know a single woman who has been in the public eye and hounded who hasn’t had digestive issues and cancer scares and all those things that are part of living in flight and flight for so long.” Jenny Lindsay

Cancellations, deplatforming and loss of work have financial consequences, as well as effects on family life. One person may lose her home. “Financially, it’s destroyed me,” said another. “It buggered up my relationship with my daughter, who is a supporter of gender-identity ideology,” said one interviewee. “There is a pain in that.”

“A lot of it was compounded by the financial situation that I was in. I couldn’t think beyond, ‘I’ve made the bills for this month. How will I make them for next month?’”

Anger, loss and disappointment were common themes. People are angry at their treatment and, sometimes, at the lack of support they have received. An interviewee commented: “I feel almost more contempt for people who are my level and peer group who say privately ‘I agree with you, but I can’t say so publicly’.” A sense of loss was pervasive. One person commented: “To have that dedication, loyalty and good work not reciprocated at all felt like a huge betrayal. It was quite devastating.”

“The personal impact? A profound disappointment and sadness at the loss of relationships – what you thought they were, they were not – and how self-serving and cowardly people I really admired and were close to me have shown themselves to be. I’ve had to recalibrate everything… It’s been very difficult to lose those relationships, but in a way, I didn’t have them anyway. I only had them when I wasn’t saying anything.”

There is sometimes a fear of being uncovered as someone who has beliefs that do not align to the mainstream belief system. “You get all these anxieties and paranoias about what people are thinking about you and that they secretly think you are a massive bigot,” said one person, “or that they will expose you.”

In some cases, people’s personal experiences have strengthened their belief that gender identity is an inappropriate belief system around which to build workplace structures. “It hardened my viewpoint, that’s for sure,” said one author. “I thought: ‘Look what you have done to literature.’ Suddenly there is a climate of censorship that didn’t exist before.” Another said: “People had lost their minds… A man is a man, and is still a man even if he wants to be a woman. I still occasionally wake up and wonder if I am going mad. People don’t seem to be able to see what’s real.”

Professional impact

“Some people do think I am a Nazi bigot and think I want to murder trans children or whatever it is they believe that middle-aged women think…. It’s been a pretty poisonous thing. I don’t know what it has to do with books and reading and that lovely experience of sharing in other people’s thoughts and ideas.” Festival director

Loss of work has been the biggest professional impact. Several of the named interviewees in this research have lost book and employment contracts, speaking engagements and other means of generating income. Rachel Rooney stopped writing after two and a half years of cross-industry bullying, much of which took place online. Jenny Lindsay lost clients, speaking engagements and other works after her hounding. Ursula Doyle brought a legal claim of discrimination against her former employer, Hachette, which has since been settled. 

“It was really unjust. It was nothing to do with how good I was as a poet and an events organiser.” Jenny Lindsay

Gillian Philip was fired after she was swarmed on social media; she was told her publishers were sorry, as she was a great writer, but this did not pay the bills. She said: “Professionally I was persona non grata with publishers and agents.” She now drives trucks for a living. 

Sibyl Ruth’s contract as an editor was effectively terminated after she posted on social media about her lawfully held beliefs. She brought a legal case against her former company, which settled before it went to court. Financial compensation did not fix her loss of work, however. “I was assured at an early stage that I had a strong case,” she said. “I thought there would come a point where it was established that the organisation had acted wrongly. At that point, I thought people would say: ‘I’m sorry. Welcome back. Let us shower you with projects.’ It’s not what happens.”

These losses are cumulative, as people who are seen as industry disruptors or troublemakers are less likely to get work in the future. “There is a lot of risk-averse behaviour going on. Even if someone heard you might be involved, you are not wanted,” said Ruth. “There are scores of graduates who might passionately believe in these ideologies – if they look right, sound right and don’t make trouble, they get the work, even if they are not as good.”

Other interviewees have lost work too, including clients and the ability to put on events, or have witnessed other people losing work on the basis of their beliefs. An editor employed by an educational publisher, for example, noticed that her company stopped working with an author who had challenged a general focus on social justice at the expense of basic language skills. “I feel that we put fashionable box-ticking before loyalty to authors,” she said.

“If you are looking for the approval of these people, a lot of the time nothing happens, but your clients may be quietly not given life…. Anyone who is really interested in prestigious and powerful positions in the industry won’t have a long history of heterodox authors. You see what the game is and play it.” Matthew Hamilton

A less immediately cataclysmic but related effect has been the erosion of professional networks that give people career security. People have been excluded from meetings and professional networks due to their beliefs. Doyle started to be excluded from conversations that she would previously have been invited to join and said that colleagues would no longer discuss anything meaningful with her. Lindsay described losing layers of people at each stage of the process: in 2019 when she was first hounded, then with the open letter, then with an essay she wrote about her experiences and later with her book, Hounded. “Nothing has changed about my views whatsoever,” she said, “but at each stage I get more attention, lose more clients and more people cut me off.” Her CV now “looks like squirrels have nested in it. It is hard to get work.”

“They are very subtle. It’s not as if they are coming out and saying that they don’t like my stance. They are distancing themselves. In a university environment, it is almost imperceptible, but I understand that there is a world I am not allowed to join now. Sometimes it”s social events, sometimes it’s team meetings, and I don’t seem to get the memo.” Academic author

An author said that his network had been affected too. “If you are online and not following the right people and the right things, then offline, it is the same,” he said. “Previously I was on nodding terms with the main actors and now they wouldn’t look at me. There’s almost a religious schism.”

Some people have lost the ability or will to be creative. Philip said: “I had a very good relationship with my publisher and my agent, and to have that disappear in minutes and hours rendered me unable to write.” Lindsay lost her love for poetry through this process, saying that there is no way to have that life without continued upset. “I don’t write even now,” said Rooney. “It’s like a post-traumatic response.” Another interviewee mentioned a loss of joy in putting on events. 

“I think I have useful and important things to say. I would expect the publishers to support me. It has made me feel as if I am going mad as, for whatever reason, they are not promoting the book. I feel betrayed, abandoned and very angry. People keep asking me what I am going to write about next. Why would I do that and put in years of dripping blood onto the page when they are going to treat me like this?” Author

Other effects include the time wasted in having to engage with this belief system, professional hypervigilance and worries about unforeseen consequences. An interviewee mentioned her worries about tainting people by association when she sits with them on panels. People in publishing sometimes second-guess their decisions. One person said that she included a non-binary celebrity in a book she was editing. “We wouldn’t have any trans people without me,” she said. “Am I covering my back?”

The personal impact may be compounded due to being unable to share difficult experiences fully with friends and colleagues. After Ruth was sacked by her former company, she increased the hours that she spent in her alternative library-based career. She chose not to speak about what had happened to her with people she did not know and trust fully. “How do you tell new colleagues that you are involved in an employment dispute?” she asked. She was concerned that people would think her a troublemaker or worry she would harm them in some way: “So I said nothing.”

Many interviewees have made compromises in the course of their work. These include not stating their beliefs or stating them in a more muted fashion than they would otherwise choose, and using the language of gender-identity beliefs, including chosen pronouns and LGBTQIA in place of LGB. “As I’d never compromise on my beliefs,” said Jenny Lindsay, “I’ve had to compromise on no longer following my passion for working in the arts.”

Professional impacts on individual authors, agents and publishing staff have knock-on effects on the industry and wider culture. Jenny Lindsay used to be a bridge between institutions and grassroots writers, part of which involved scouting for new talent. “Nobody else is really doing that now in Scotland,” she said. “It’s a real loss.”

Another interviewee, who has been running literary events in a rural area for a number of years, has decided to stop. This is due, in part, to her local arts venue’s treatment of her and its ultimate refusal to host any gender-critical authors she might want to invite. “So much in the arts is being told ‘no’,” she said. “You need to have enough ‘yes’ moments for you to keep going.” As a result, her town will lose visitors and income, and local residents – who live some distance from the nearest city – will lose an invaluable cultural touchstone. “There is real poverty and cultural poverty here,” according to this interviewee. “It’s dreary if you don’t sprinkle in the fairy dust of lovely arts stuff. There’s little for kids to do. It’s a loss.”

“If there had been a climate of open discussion without censure or fear, it would have led to a much healthier, intellectual artistic climate.” Author

Gender-critical people working in publishing have not always experienced a negative impact as a result of their beliefs, and some who have spoken out do not regret having done so. One publishing employee said: “I work with the authors that I want to on the books that I want to… I haven’t felt that I have had to compromise what I publish.” An interviewee whose views are known in the industry makes an effort to speak to people she knows do not agree with her, and tries to attend a variety of meetings and events. “If I get invited to parties, I go, I talk to people and I don’t worry about whether people hate me,” she said. An author was glad she had spoken about this issue: “I have a more authentic life, but I am sad and sorry that I have lost all the people from before.” 

“I wouldn’t want to repeat the last 5 years, but I’m glad I spoke out about this. I can’t think that there is anything more embarrassing than not speaking out, because it is insanity. It is going to stop and I will hold my head up in time.” Jenny Lindsay

Legal, financial and reputational damage and risk

“The protected characteristics are a shield to protect everyone, not a sword to advance the causes of certain groups.” Funder

Organisations in publishing are putting themselves in a position of legal and reputational risk through a range of unlawful policies and activities; in some cases, this risk has converted to active damage. Several concluded legal cases and settled claims inform the environment in which publishers, agencies and organisations allied to publishing operate. Some of these have been touched on during this report, including Ruth v Cornerstones Publishing (Cornerstones settled and paid a sum in lieu of damages). Gillian Philip’s case against HarperCollins and Working Partners was not allowed to proceed on the basis that Philip was found to be neither an “employee” nor a “worker”,²¹⁴ though a different contractual relationship (or a different legal interpretation of her contractual relationship) might well have seen her case succeed. Denise Fahmy was found by Leeds Employment Tribunal to have been subjected to harassment for her gender-critical beliefs through her employment with Arts Council England.²¹⁵ 

The environment for gender-critical academic authors may improve in the wake of the University of Sussex being fined £585,000 for breaches of free speech and governance issues in March 2025. The university was investigated after the harassment and linked departure of Professor Kathleen Stock in 2021.²¹⁶ The record fine seems likely to give vice-chancellors an incentive to reflect on what may be happening on their own campuses.

There are several relevant cases from outside publishing too, the case law and precedent from which inform the environment in publishing. Forstater v CGD Europe established that people who hold gender-critical beliefs are protected from unlawful discrimination by the Equality Act 2010.²¹⁷ Since then, many cases have established protections for gender-critical employees and workers, including Meade v Westminster City Council and Social Work England, Phoenix v The Open University, Pitt v Cambridgeshire County Council and Bailey v Stonewall, Garden Court Chambers & Others. 

Professor Jo Phoenix, who was a successful claimant against the Open University, has partnered with researcher Ruth Birchall to analyse these cases and others, from which they have drawn six areas of organisational failure. The content of this report suggests that these are all areas of significant legal risk for organisations in the publishing industry:²¹⁸

1. They prioritise the expression of gender affirmative belief over the expression of gender critical belief
2. They fail to take rigorous and active steps to protect those who hold GC beliefs from unlawful discrimination and harassment
3. They fail to equally protect people who hold gender affirmative beliefs, no belief and gender critical beliefs
4. They fail to educate staff that GC belief holders are protected from unlawful discrimination and harassment; and that the expression of them is not inherently harmful, degrading or contrary to the Equality Act 2010
5. They fail to challenge the culture of raising complaints against GC staff for expressing lawful GC beliefs
6. They fail to stop a dominant or “extreme” gender affirmative culture taking hold within their organisation.

As chapter 6 – covering the environment in publishing – demonstrates, employers sometimes describe gender-critical beliefs as transphobic; it is likely that this represents unlawful harassment of staff who hold these beliefs. The discrimination-law expert Dr Michael Foran has pointed out that various employment tribunals “have all held that employers/duty-bearers describing mere statements of gender critical/sex realist views as transphobic constitutes unlawful harassment”.²¹⁹ The equality law specialist and solicitor Audrey Ludwig also believes that calling manifestations of gender-critical belief “transphobic”, and equating them to racism or homophobia, are potentially themselves “unlawful harassment on grounds of belief”.²²⁰ (This was in response to a post from a Hachette employee who targeted Ursula Doyle.)

Organisations are frequently failing to balance the needs and rights of employees and workers who have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment with the needs and rights of employees and workers who have different protected characteristics. These include women through the protected characteristic of sex, who may need female-only changing rooms and toilets (some people, both women and men, also require single-sex spaces under the protected characteristic of religion); LGB staff through the protected characteristic of sexual orientation, who may need company-level representation that does not assume that trans-identifying people of the opposite sex should be in their dating pool; and disabled staff, who may need accessible toilets that have not been designated as third spaces. 

Employers may be leaving themselves open to indirect discrimination claims when they impose policies and rules that consider the needs and rights of only one group. They are also failing to pay attention to the risk that vexatious complaints can be made against those in publishing who hold gender-critical beliefs by those who disagree with them. 

Employers are ignoring unlawful and abusive statements made by their own staff. By doing so, they may be putting themselves at legal risk. Several employees who state their company links in their social-media profiles said that they would not work with anyone involved in SEEN in Publishing; this is potentially unlawful discrimination on the grounds of gender-critical belief. If workers or employees lose work as a result of staff actions, there might even be a claim against the employer using section 109 of the Equality Act 2010, through which staff are conducting themselves in a way for which the employer may be liable. A similar claim might be made against employers under the same section of the act when their staff are abusing or harassing other staff members, as was the case with some Hachette employees towards Ursula Doyle (see the section on abuse and harassment in chapter 6).

Public-sector organisations allied to publishing, such as funders, are bound by the public-sector equality duty and put themselves at risk of unlawful behaviour if they fail to uphold it. According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, this duty requires public bodies to “put an end to unlawful behaviour that is banned by the Equality Act 2010, including discrimination, harassment and victimisation; advance equal opportunities between people who have a protected characteristic and those who do not; [and] foster good relations between people who have a protected characteristic and those who do not.”²²¹ The Arts Council England’s inclusion review cited earlier found that it had not yet met its obligation to foster good relations between staff, and in particular between those who are gender-critical and those who hold “pro trans” views. The review said:²²²

“The Arts Council’s leaders need to set clear expectations on how groups and individuals interact with each other when they hold directly competing philosophical views. When this standard is not met the consequences need to be demonstrably equitable for people on each side of a debate. 

“Individuals need to recognise the legal right of the other group to their belief, and that they do not have the right to discriminate against an individual for holding that belief. Staff colleagues must also recognise that the privilege of working for the state comes with compromises and requires high standards and interpersonal relations. This is true both for staff colleagues and for the Arts Council itself. The Arts Council is part of the UK state and does not have full freedom of action in how it engages with philosophical debates. Staff colleagues (including some more senior staff colleagues) do not fully appreciate the nature of these limitations.”

The Arts Council’s response to this review recognised that there was work to do in this area, saying: “Colleagues across a range of protected characteristics have not experienced the care and respect we all owe each other.” It promised a review of progress at 12 and 18 months.²²³ No record of these could be found at the time of writing, although a delivery plan published in November 2024 set an intention to implement the review’s recommendations.²²⁴ 

Creative Scotland has also exhibited some dubious practice when it comes to the public-sector equality duty. Its equalities monitoring form, for example, fails to ask about sex: instead, it asks about gender, giving the options of “male”, “female” and “other”. The form fails to ask, too, about gender reassignment or the “belief” element of religion and belief.²²⁵ It is hard to see how an organisation can be fulfilling its statutory obligation to advance equal opportunities between people who have a protected characteristic and those who do not if it collects no data on said characteristics.

Employers are potentially contravening the law by collecting data about “gender” in a way that conflates sex and gender identity, rendering the data meaningless. The General Data Protection Regulation requires organisations to have a lawful basis for processing data, many bases of which require the processing to be “necessary”. This, according to the Information Commissioner’s Office, means that the processing “must be more than just useful, and more than just standard practice. It must be a targeted and proportionate way of achieving a specific purpose.”²²⁶ When the answers to a question include, for example, male, female and non-binary, the question represents category mash-up for which it is difficult to see any necessary purpose.

Literary venues and representative bodies sometimes appear to be acting unlawfully too. Some examples were given earlier in this report. One interviewee also mentioned a local venue that refused to host events with authors that had gender-critical views. “They maintained that they weren’t discriminating against anyone on the basis of a protected characteristic,” she said. “They did. They said it specifically and with witnesses.”

The backlash in publishing against the Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of the words “women” and “sex” in the Equality Act may imply a lack of desire in some quarters to act within the law. Two days after the ruling, the Bluesky account of one publishing company put out a post saying:²²⁷

“If you had any doubt about where transphobia leads, you only have to look to America, where it is already being used as a tool of fascism, as an early wedge in dehumanising larger and larger swathes of people. 

“Trans rights are human rights. Attacks on trans rights are attacks on human rights.”

The same day, a children’s publishing company put out a post on Instagram with an illustration of a child alongside the words: “You see, I may have been born a boy, but I don’t always feel like the boys. Sometimes I feel more like the girls. Sometimes I feel somewhere in between.” The accompanying caption said: “Solidarity to our trans and non-binary friends! .”²²⁸ 

An email to SEEN in Publishing from a representative of The Bookseller explaining why the publication had chosen not to cover the ruling said: “It doesn’t feel that immediately relevant to publishers.” The content of this report, however, suggests it is all too salient. 

Litigation is costly for all parties; it would be better for everyone if organisations ensured they were acting within the law. Barriers to claimants include the fragility of contractual relationships in publishing, as Philip found. Costs are also prohibitive and can run into hundreds of thousands for both claimant and respondent. An employment tribunal is generally a cost-neutral forum in that litigants rarely have to pay the other side’s legal bills, but they do not recoup their own costs. Even when a settlement is made, it is not a financial fix-all for a successful claimant. Ruth pointed out that a settlement functions more as a cushion or a compensation for a lost future than it does recompense for lost income. Being able to continue working within the sector would mean she had a resource available if she needed to continue working in retirement or faced an unexpected bill. This is no longer available to her. 

Staff at all levels in publishing appear to lack a detailed understanding of the Equality Act, which would help them to minimise these substantial legal, financial and reputational risks. 

Ripple effects

The endemic problems in publishing caused by gender-identity beliefs have ripple effects elsewhere:

Language and ideas: if concepts and categories are changed to represent identity rather than underlying reality, it changes what people understand of the words on a page, and has all sorts of consequences for what we think and believe. 

“The language you use is so bound up in the argument you make. It’s been a fight about language, and it’s not trivial what language you use.” Publishing employee

Other groups of people: the children’s book world has contributed to an environment in which it is normal for children to believe their bodies must be wrong if they do not fit the stereotypes of their sex, with potential lifelong medical harms for some of them. Publishing has also contributed to a wider culture in which women’s sports, services and other spaces have been eroded. 

“If males can identify as females, the word ‘female’ becomes meaningless.” Publishing employee

Scientific knowledge and progress: academic publishing – and, particularly, the journals that require submissions to be based around the fallacy that sex is on a spectrum – is contributing to the erosion of scientific norms and the integrity of scientific knowledge. 

The future of publishing

“In an optimistic way, I hope that sanity will prevail and we will come to see this as a period of madness. I hope that it will become more possible for me and authors who are gender-critical or biological realists to express these beliefs.” Publishing employee

There are early signs that the culture is improving. “I feel like the atmosphere is slightly less fevered than it was,” said a publishing employee. “Things like the Cass Report have had a huge impact on that.” The multiple court cases demonstrating the personal, financial and legal costs of unlawful discrimination against people with legally held beliefs has also made the situation easier for gender-critical people in publishing. One interviewee was recently awarded funding after having been fully gender-critical in her application. People in workplaces are quietly dropping stated pronouns, according to someone else. Another said that most people now believe that we need single-sex changing rooms and women-only sports teams. “It’s been a decade or so of cultural madness,” she said. 

“At work, I haven’t heard about this stuff for three months… so I am hoping… that it has become desperately unfashionable. And it is a fashion that has such appalling effects on people’s lives.” Publishing employee

The backlash against the Supreme Court ruling, however, puts this more positive trajectory in doubt.

Positive change may take time. A publishing leader pointed to anecdotal evidence that teenagers may be growing tired of gender-identity beliefs, saying: “It is entirely possible that this stuff will go out of fashion, but the people now in junior roles in publishing who are most exercised about it will move up the chain and ladder. Does that then mean you have a management cohort who are more passionately in favour, or will it all become unfashionable? It’s not obvious. Anyone who predicts with confidence is not to be relied on.”

“The last place in society that will drop this is the arts and academia. That is where it gestated and spilled from there into wider society. As wider society rejects this, arts will still style itself as the resistance until such time as there has been such a mood change in society that people who have quietly gone along with it no longer feel they have to do so.” Author

Change may be difficult without the support of organisations like the Society of Authors. “It’s such a weird employment environment where the people who do most of the [creation] are the ones with the least rights,” said Gillian Philip. “I don’t think that is going to change any time soon.” In another perspective, change may come from authors themselves, with or without the support of the SoA. Jenny Lindsay believes that some authors are starting to recognise what has been lost, and that they should not have stepped back, especially those who have limited experience of social media. “A lot of older writers didn’t need to use these platforms when they were making a career, so they hadn’t really paid attention to how awful things had got,” she said. “Now they are paying attention.”

Another interviewee struggled to see how the people who have perpetrated the worst of the abuse against people who do not align with gender-identity beliefs will ever change course. There may be more change among the people that followed them, however. “Lots of people went along with it because they wanted to be seen as progressive and, once they don’t have to be seen that way or think it’s no longer a progressive movement, it will isolate them in the way that we were isolated,” said an author.

“A change in the culture is what could do it. It has to come from within, and it will be very slow in the publishing industry because it is so heavily captured.” Gillian Philip

It is possible that more court cases will need to play out to effect real change. The ramifications of the Supreme Court ruling for the industry are significant. As this report demonstrates, employers in publishing have put in place many unlawful policies. Many publishing companies, for example, are still operating on the basis of self-identification in their policies and guidelines. “What you need is more tribunals and cases,” said a publishing employee. “People who will say: ‘I will take my employer to court because you are indirectly discriminating against me – I can’t go to the gym because you are not offering single-sex changing rooms’.” 

“As more people are winning settlement fees from employers that have behaved badly [even though] they thought they were [acting lawfully], institutions will take better advice.” Publishing leader

Another interviewee said that the outcome of Ursula Doyle’s legal case would be key. She believes that the many people in publishing who only read The Guardian or get their news from the BBC, which tend to cover these issues less than other outlets and to be partisan towards gender-identity beliefs, will have no idea about the many employment-tribunal outcomes that demonstrate the consequences of unlawful discrimination against those who hold gender-critical beliefs. 

“When organisations realise the financial and legal risk, they will stop doing it.” Publishing employee

This point about The Guardian and the BBC links to a broader one about mainstream media which, until recently, had not been giving these issues a great deal of attention. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” said a publishing employee. “Once people start to know about it, they start having to answer questions and to justify this stuff, and then it dies away, but if it’s all happening in secret, it continues.”

Change is also likely to be driven by the market. Commercial imperatives, informed by better information, are likely to take over. “Eventually people will realise these books are crap and not selling,” said Gillian Philip. “It will be a long, slow grind of changing culture and attitudes.”

“Reality is biting. People are seeing what puberty blockers are doing to children and starting to wonder why girls want to cut their breasts off. There is a lot of confusion about what it means to be [transgender], and when people start to look into it, they realise the enormous implications. And if you then get a book saying you can [change to] be a boy or a girl, parents will recoil from that.” Author

It is also feasible that change will be driven by more people with gender-critical beliefs gaining confidence to speak up following clarification of the meaning of the word “sex” in law. 

Conclusions and recommendations 

Conclusions

1. The views of people who believe in the material reality of sex are protected in law, are based on evidence and reflect the views of the majority of the British public. Sex differences between men and women matter in certain contexts, including sports, changing rooms and prisons. Men are physically different to women, and evidence shows that they are more likely to perpetrate sexual violence, regardless of how they identify. Children who identify as trans are more likely than those who do not to have poor underlying mental health, to have been abused, to have autism and to grow up to be same-sex attracted, all suggesting that their identity is not based on a permanent state of being. Gender-identity beliefs reduce men, women, girls and boys to stereotypes based on personality and appearance, and restrict women’s ability to articulate and discuss their shared experiences. 
2. Freedom of expression and lawful treatment of employees, authors and other freelancers is good for publishing, the creative industries more broadly and wider culture. Publishing is at the heart of the creative industries. Theatre, television and film start with words on a page. Ensuring that readers are able to access different perspectives is key to rich culture and debate, and supports the financial viability of bookshops, libraries and festivals. Treasury tax receipts benefit, too. Exclusion in the name of inclusion undermines these possibilities.
3. There have been serious failures in law, policy, safeguarding, training and data collection. HR and EDI policies commonly focus on gender identity rather than sex-based or belief-based protections, and they often ignore – and sometimes contravene – the Equality Act 2010. Editorial policies are often infused with gender-identity beliefs, while free-speech policies are frequently lacking. Staff networks focused on gender identity mean that women’s rights and needs in the workplace are overlooked, and representation is lacking for those lesbian, gay and bisexual staff who perceive conflicts between trans rights and their own. Data collection and analysis on sex and gender identity is poor, with category overlaps leading to meaningless data. EDI training is inadequate: it is sometimes delivered by organisations that do not understand the law, and it often fails to balance the needs and rights of different groups. 
4. Culture and language in publishing have contributed to an environment in which people who believe in the material reality of sex have been cancelled, harassed and abused with impunity. Language often inaccurately represents gender-critical beliefs and can be discriminatory. Without recognition of nuance or open discussion of different perspectives, attempts to be inclusive of one group lead to the exclusion of others. Individuals have faced disciplinary action and lost work due to their views, and concerns raised by gender-critical members of staff have often been ignored. Concerns, when they are addressed, are frequently treated individually instead of as part of a broader systemic issue. There is a widespread assumption that it is acceptable to harass and even abuse people with non-aligned views. There has been widespread industry participation in targeted harassment, abuse and threats, including accusations of transphobia, hate and genocide. Some of those targeted have been threatened with violence. 
5. These failures have created tangible, significant personal and professional detriments, as well as a wider culture of fear. People have lost work, reputations, networks and their future careers, with consequences for financial security and family life. Many have experienced mental and physical ill-health as a result of their experiences. Some individuals have lost the will and even the ability to write. Being unable to share these difficult experiences with friends and colleagues has compounded, for many, the personal impact. Some people feel unable to speak out about the damage caused by this belief system due to fears that they will experience the damage to careers, finances and health that they have witnessed in others. 
6. Organisations have also created legal, financial and reputational risks and harms by acting unlawfully. The multiple areas in which organisations appear to be acting outside the law include policies that allow men to self-identify into female toilets, failures to balance the needs and rights of different protected groups, and ignoring harassment and abuse perpetrated by members of staff. Mislabelling gender-critical beliefs as transphobic is likely to constitute unlawful harassment, and publishers may be violating data-protection laws by collecting meaningless data that conflates sex and gender identity, and that lacks a necessary purpose. These legal risks are leading to actual and potential claims that have significant financial consequences, and that risk serious reputational damage to organisations found to have contravened the law. 
7. Funders, unions and other industry bodies have often exacerbated these harms instead of fixing them. The Society of Authors has failed to stand up for the rights of members who have been harmed by this belief system. Guidelines written by the Publishers Association have contributed to inaccurate statistics and the lack of meaningful industry data. Public bodies, including funders in publishing, risk breaching the public-sector equality duty through their actions. Various of these organisations have established links to transactivist groups instead of ensuring impartiality in conduct, advice and allocation of funding. 
8. The situation in children’s publishing is particularly concerning. Books should not teach children that there is something permanently wrong with their bodies if they are going through temporary struggles with identity or physical development. Children’s books based on gender-identity beliefs often entrench stereotypes, present an idealised vision of trans identities as a solution to distress and ignore underlying vulnerabilities. An industry-wide charter reinforces some of these issues, and they are supported by a broader ecosystem that includes booksellers, exam boards, libraries and literary prizes. Children’s publishing is arguably indoctrinating children into this belief system and may be contributing to the high number experiencing gender-related distress. 
9. A sustainable industry is based on markets, not ideology. Analysis of published books and linked sales figures shows that the overrepresentation of books based on gender-identity beliefs is based on ideology, not the market. 
10. Clear leadership is required to course-correct. The culture in publishing has been driven by vocal activists and staff who believe themselves to be progressive and their views to be the only correct ones. Decisive leadership would ensure that policies are lawful; that the needs of all staff are considered in the development of internal policies and processes, including trans-identifying staff, gender-critical staff, LGB staff and women; that training is delivered by competent organisations that understand the Equality Act; and that their staff understand what a plural, diverse sector looks like, and why this matters for the financial security of the industry as well as everyone who works within it.

“In terms of the culture, senior leadership has to wake up. They can be saying the right things, but they have to be paying attention to what is going on below them. They can’t just be sitting in an ivory tower saying: ‘We publish for everyone.’ If staff are acting in a way that is contrary to that, you have to act.” Publishing employee

Recommendations

Sector-wide recommendations

• Ensure that internal policies, processes and training are compliant with the Equality Act 2010. This means ensuring that the needs and rights of groups that have different protected characteristics are balanced; that there is explicit reference made in policies to protections from unlawful discrimination on the basis of belief, sex (not gender), gender reassignment and sexual orientation alongside the other protected characteristics; and ensuring that leaders, managers and anyone with a role in HR or EDI has received specialist equality-law training from an organisation that understands it. Where other training or external consultancy is sought, it should be delivered by organisations that are ideologically neutral and that know how to ensure employers are legally compliant. 
  
  Data should be collected on the basis of sex (male and female). It may sometimes be necessary to collect data on gender reassignment for monitoring purposes relating to the Equality Act. If organisations collect data on gender identity without having a clear, lawful purpose for processing it, they may be contravening the General Data Protection Regulation. 
  
  Organisations should also check who is advising them. If previous advice on policies, processes and training turns out to be incorrect, new advisors should be sought. 
• Make a clear commitment to freedom of speech both internally and in commissioned work. Companies should ensure that everyone in the workforce understands the importance of freedom of belief and speech, that there is a difference between hurt and harm, and that gender-critical beliefs are lawful, representative of the general beliefs of the country, and do not in themselves cause harm; and that staff and new joiners are aware that they may sometimes need to work on books containing ideas with which they do not agree. New joiners could be asked to commit to working on books that cover a range of ideas and perspectives as part of their employment contracts. 

“Publishers should be interrogating their staff, especially the younger ones when they come in, saying: ‘This is not a place of activism. You will have to work on books you don’t necessarily agree with.’ If they can’t cope with that, you shouldn’t employ them.” Matthew Hamilton

• Aim for institutional neutrality. Companies should ensure they avoid signing up to political statements that may alienate parts of the workforce and that they keep tenets of belief systems, such as the Progress flag and preferred pronouns, out of official materials. It may be worth running internal checks to ensure that publicity is allocated to books on the basis of their content and market potential, not on whether publicists agree with the ideas contained within them. More junior members of the workforce may need more mentoring both for career-development purposes and to ensure they understand how to apply the principle of neutrality. There is a linked need to encourage ideas of autonomy and accountability among staff, and to move away from ideas of identities centred around victimhood. 
• Stand up to abuse and other forms of harassment perpetrated by staff. This means being clear that abuse on social media will not be tolerated if perpetrators are doing it from an account that shows they are an employee of the organisation in question; and challenging individuals and staff networks that use slurs like “TERF”, or that groundlessly accuse other staff or authors of transphobia. Individuals who continue to harass others within the industry on the basis of their protected beliefs should face appropriate disciplinary procedures.
• Review diversity policies and pay. The industry is not diverse on several measures, including socio-economic status, political beliefs, sex and geography. This has contributed to a monoculture in which alternative perspectives are not tolerated. Reviewing policies to make roles more appealing to people from working-class backgrounds and to men would be a first step, as would be giving greater consideration to diversity of thought when recruiting for new positions. It may not be feasible for all organisations to review pay, but it would be useful to do this where possible – both to appeal to a more diverse range of potential employees and to prevent the trade-off whereby people expect their belief systems to be implemented in return for lower pay than in other sectors. 

Organisation-specific recommendations

Publishers and agencies: commission interesting, challenging books that reflect a plurality of ideas and perspectives, and that reflect what people want to buy and read. This may require courage from leadership. It is likely to require a different emphasis on the books that are being sought – rather than books by writers that identify as non-binary, for example, agents and editors might choose to make clear that they are seeking intelligent, well-written books that are likely to sell well. It would be helpful to put robust policies in place to ensure the abuse of people with gender-critical beliefs, as well as those with other protected characteristics, is not tolerated. Publishers should also consider conducting reviews of their own titles based on gender-identity beliefs, looking at sales figures, publicity levels and other investments in order to establish the profitability (or otherwise) of related commissioning decisions. 

“I want to see a movement towards a more holistic, inclusive publishing world – the republic of letters where all ideas exist and everyone can exchange ideas.” Author

Scientific publishers: centre evidence and knowledge, and remove all policies stipulating that papers must be based on gender-identity beliefs to be considered for publication. This means removing guidelines that require authors to sign up to a definition of sex that says it is on a spectrum and can be changed. It would also be valuable to review the peer-review process to ensure that papers are not rejected on the basis of authors’ belief that sex is real and important. 

Public funders: specify that an institutional commitment to free speech is a condition of funding, and uphold the Nolan Principles. This means that venues that receive public money platform people with legally protected beliefs; that literary funding goes to organisations that have committed not to shut down debate; and that financial agreements are rescinded when organisations break their commitments. Public bodies, including funders, should also themselves commit to upholding the Nolan Principles on standards in public life. 

Industry bodies: ensure that sector guidance is accurate and lawful, and commit to fair treatment of different groups that have lawfully held beliefs. The Publishers Association should ensure it is putting out guidance that aligns with the Equality Act and ensures accurate data collection. The Society of Authors must protect the interests of gender-critical authors to the same extent that it does the interests of other authors. It would also be beneficial if an industry body were to take responsibility for advocating for the rights and protections of industry freelancers who are on precarious contracts, who have little on which to fall back if they find themselves at the sharp end of discrimination. 

SEEN in Publishing: engage with the Publishers Association, CIPD or other relevant bodies to encourage them to develop a suite of template policies on EDI, HR and freedom of speech that are Equality Act-compliant, specific to publishing and that can easily be adapted by individual organisations. If they are willing to do so, it will also be worth working behind the scenes with funders, unions and other industry organisations to ensure that sector-wide guidance is lawful and supports a thriving, plural industry. Possible areas of future enquiry are the three specialist areas and functions of publishing in which there have been particularly damaging impacts of gender-identity beliefs: children’s and young-adult publishing, academic and scientific publishing, and Scottish publishing.

Annex: Method

Liaison with SEEN in Publishing

A virtual inception meeting was held with members of SEEN in Publishing to agree and further refine the research approach. Ideas were shared regularly via a dedicated Discord channel. SEEN in Publishing steering group members provided invaluable support to this research, including sourcing supplementary information as part of the informal evidence review, and sourcing and sharing social-media snippets.

Interviews

Due to the sensitive nature of the research and the potential for activists to attempt to sabotage it, a decision was taken not to publicise it widely. Initial interviews were sourced using SEEN in Publishing’s networks and recommendations. Interviewees were either people who had experienced negative impacts of gender-identity beliefs in publishing or those who worked in publishing leadership and had a sense of its broader effects. Minimum interviewee numbers were set in different categories before recruitment began, including five authors, three senior and two junior staff within different publishing houses. 

Interviews were supplemented using a snowball sampling approach through which interviewees recommended other contacts. We ensured that interviewees came from a broad range of different organisations and job roles, for people employed in the industry; and, for authors, from a range of creative backgrounds and specialisms.

Twenty-five interviews were delivered online in January and February 2025 using a semi-structured discussion guide. For people who had been directly affected by gender-identity beliefs, questions covered their experiences of it at work, through professional networks and via social media; and the impact it had on their work, prospects and wellbeing. Those in senior roles who have not been directly affected were asked about the development of the belief system in their organisations and how (where applicable) the environment was shaped, as well as their observations about its impact on colleagues. Some interviewees were asked questions about workplace codes and cultures of conduct. All interviewees were asked for their thoughts on how the culture in publishing can be improved for gender-identity sceptics.

Research participants were offered full anonymity and, for those who chose to keep their experiences anonymous, their stories have been written up to obscure identifying details. 

Online and social-media reviews, and informal evidence call

Using a combination of searches for key terms, annual reports, EDI/HR policies available on websites, targeted Google searches and social-media platforms, the information sourced for each organisation included, where available:

• The presence of Pride/LGBT(Q+) and women’s networks, and whether the women’s networks are organised by sex or gender identity.
• Whether each organisation’s website mentions training, indices or other resources offered by Stonewall, Mermaids, GIRES, Gendered Intelligence, Trans in the City or similar organisations; and whether senior leaders from the publisher in question have spoken at events organised by these organisations.
• Which training organisations state they have provided training for the publisher in question, along with an assessment of whether the training is likely to be compliant with the Equality Act.
• Whether organisations give due regard to the protected characteristics of sex, gender reassignment and belief. 
• How annual reports and EDI/HR policies approach issues of sex and gender, including whether there is recognition of the material reality of sex, and the balance of reporting in terms of the needs of female employees (protected characteristic: sex) and the needs of trans employees (protected characteristic: gender reassignment).
• What the organisation’s website says about the Equality Act, protected characteristics and balancing of rights.

The publishers analysed for this information were Atlantic Books, Bloomsbury, Bonnier Books, Cambridge University Press, Canongate Books, CGP Books, DK, Faber & Faber, Hachette, HarperCollins, Informa, Oxford University Press, Pan Macmillan, Pearson, Penguin Random House, Profile Books, Scholastic, Simon and Schuster, Usborne Books, Verso Books and Walker Books. These represented a mixture of the big trade, academic, children’s and educational publishers. A selection of imprints were checked alongside these brands when their content was not held on the main websites; this was not comprehensive due to the numbers involved. 

Three agencies were also reviewed: Curtis Brown, United Agents and WME. The focus funders, unions and membership bodies comprised Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, Publishers Association, Publishing Scotland, the Society of Authors and the Society of Young Publishers. 

Online review information was supplemented by a search of relevant press coverage and other online reports, and by links submitted by SEEN in Publishing’s steering-group members and their contacts. It was initially believed that there would be comprehensive gaps in information that would need to be filled through an informal call for evidence, but there were minimal gaps – lack of input data was not one of the challenges of this piece of research. There was, however, no publicly available information on the provision or otherwise of single-sex facilities and compliant unisex facilities, so this was sought informally using SEEN in Publishing’s networks.

Some individuals in the industry, and particularly people who had been targeted online, were asked to provide screenshots and links of social-media posts that were abusive or constituted harassment in other ways. A light-touch analysis was run on these posts, supplemented by targeted searches run on X and Bluesky. 

Published books and sales review

Published books were sourced using within-website searches. For books based on gender-identity beliefs, searches included terms such as trans, transgender, non-binary, gender identity, gender diverse and gender diversity. Individual book pages were then checked to ensure they had some basis in gender-identity beliefs. Fiction books were included when one of the main characters identifies as trans. Some well-known books were added that did not come up using the main search terms, including Pageboy and Being Jazz. 

Books were excluded that focused on more general LGBT issues (to avoid the possibility of mistakenly including books that represent the interests of LGB people). An exception was made for LGBT children’s books, as any book with “T” in the title is likely to teach children at least some elements of gender-identity beliefs. Children’s books with Progress flags on the front cover were included when they were seen, although these clearly did not come up on the main searches. 

For books about women, titles were included that had one of the words woman, women, female, feminist or feminism in the title, and that excluded the word “gender” from their blurbs. Books were also excluded that had the given search terms but that were equally about men, as were books about women that were clearly (generally) aimed at men (for example, How to Chat Up Women), and a few books that were not obviously aimed at women, despite their titles, including some books about faith. 

Across the three categories, the following books were excluded: those that appeared to be on a part of the website that sells books to a non-UK market, those that were in multiple volumes (the first book in a volume was selected to represent the rest), and those that were obviously out of print. On some websites with several thousand hits, further exclusions were made to search terms to narrow down the results (for example, including the word “book” and excluding “journal” and “blog”). Non-UK books were included only if they had a UK publisher. 

As with the online review, some major imprints were checked where they were not on the main websites, but not all of them. Most publishers appear to include the books of all their imprints on their main websites (or they do not have imprints), including Atlantic Books, Bonnier Books, Cambridge University Press, Canongate, CGP Books, DK, Faber & Faber, Oxford University Press, Pan Macmillan, Penguin Random House (via its UK Penguin site), Profile Books, Simon and Schuster, Usborne, Verso and Walker Books. HarperCollins Children’s Books was checked separately, as was Bloomsbury Professional and Osprey Publishing (Bloomsbury); Headline Books, Jessica Kingsley Publishing, Little, Brown and Hachette Children’s (Hachette); and Chicken House Books (Scholastic). For Informa, Routledge and Psychology Press were included, but Taylor & Francis appears to include all imprints with no straightforward way of filtering out journal articles, and was too large to include in the available time. The Cambridge University Press Bookshop site was reviewed for the book search in place of its main website, as there were no blurbs provided on the main site (to allow books about women that have “gender” in their blurb to be excluded). 

For the analysis of book sales, the focus was trade non-fiction books; academic books were thought to be too specialist for meaningful comparison. Books published by Cambridge University Press, Informa and Oxford University Press were therefore excluded, as were academic titles from publishers such as Bloomsbury. Sales are UK-only and exclude e-books. Gender-critical trade non-fiction books from across the industry were included for comparison, with the exception of self-published books: there are few enough of these to include all publishers (apart from academic titles and those published by academic presses like Polity), although it is likely – because it was not based on within-site searches – that some were missed. 80 books about women were randomly selected from the larger file using a randomising function. Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women was one of the books that came up; only the Penguin version was included (there were more than 100) as it would have skewed the results to include all of them. 

ISBN numbers were sourced for each title using Amazon: some had several ISBNs covering different hardback and paperback editions, each one of which was run through Nielsen BookScan so that the sales figures could be collated. Sales figures for the books analysis provided earlier were correct on 8th–9th March 2025. 

Analysis and write-up

Interview text was generally taken from detailed notes made during the interviews rather than word-for-word from audio files. Quotes were occasionally lightly edited to remove hesitations. Interview analysis was thematic, as were the qualitative elements of the online review. The social-media review was less in-depth but also based on thematic analysis. Individual quantitative elements (for example, the proportion of organisations that correctly cite the protected characteristic of sex) were coded, then calculated and presented visually where possible. The various research elements were triangulated and then used to develop the report. 

Some caution was taken in the write-up of interviews to ensure that experiences were retold at a sufficiently high level that individuals could not be identified by those who know them. For the same reason, care has been taken over the use of language: “EDI” has been used in place of other potential acronyms (for example, DEI or D&I) even in direct quotes from interviewees to ensure their places of work cannot be reverse-engineered; “Pride network” and “women’s network” have been used in place of any alternatives for the same reason, except in cases in which interviewees waived anonymity. And for ease of reading, punctuation has occasionally been added to social media quotes: capital letters where a quote starts mid-sentence, and full stops where they are missing.

In a handful of cases, members of SEEN in Publishing added new points when reviewing the draft report. Where these have been included, they are presented according to their role in the industry (“An author said…”).

Legal checks

There was a great deal of legal content in the draft report, and we wanted readers to have confidence in the linked legal analysis. It was therefore read by solicitor and equality-law specialist Peter Daly, who confirmed points and made revisions where necessary.

Limitations

This research was commissioned to investigate widespread but anecdotal reports that publishing has become a hostile environment for people who hold gender-critical beliefs. Conducting this research was limited by, and therefore to some degree is further evidence of, this hostile environment.

Snowball sampling (existing study participants suggesting future participants) was used, so the views included in this report may not be wholly representative of people in publishing who have been affected by the gender-identity belief system. The inputs to this report have also been limited by the fact that we were unable to publicise the research; it is likely that we would have had a deeper and broader range of examples had we been able to do so.

There are various potential and actual limitations linked to the website, book and sales searches. The intention was not to produce an in-depth bibliometric study or comprehensive website content analysis; it was to investigate reports that publishing has become a hostile environment for some people working within it. Website searches were relied upon for the assessment of current policies and approaches that affect gender-critical staff, authors and other freelancers, as direct engagement with the organisations in question – which might have produced more complete data – risked undermining the research or increasing pressures on gender-critical staff. 

Books do not always come up in standard online searches, so some are likely to be missing. Shortlisted books may not always have a transactivist agenda; sometimes this has been inferred from the title. Some books about women may have been wrongly excluded in cases where the publisher used gender as a synonym for sex. The volume of different ISBN numbers linked to individual titles leaves a possibility of data-entry errors. 

Low sales figures for books based on gender-identity beliefs may partly reflect the inclusion of Jessica Kingsley Publishers, which is highly specialised; but there are books by the same publisher on the comparison list, such as those on women and autism. Specialist titles by small publishers such as Swift Press have also been included in the gender-critical comparisons. 

There is, as in all research projects, a limit on the time available for the research, the data collection element of which took place over eight weeks. The searches run will not have picked up everything and errors will have been made: these, where they exist, are the author’s. The findings, though, demonstrate important general patterns and linked lessons for the industry.

1. One person’s transcript was not used following a change in circumstances.
2. Section 27 of the Equality Act 2010 provides interviewees with protection against victimisation, that is, suffering a detriment from their employers because they have made a protected act. Contributing to this research meets the definition of a protected act: s.27(2)(c) “doing any other thing for the purposes of or in connection with this Act” and (d) making an allegation (whether or not express) that A or another person has contravened this Act.
3. The seven principles of public life are selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and transparency. Source: Committee on Standards in Public Life (1995). Guidance: The Seven Principles of Public Life.
4. For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers (2025). UKSC 16.
5. Fair Play for Women (2024). How ‘Inclusion’ in Sport is Harming Women and Girls.
6. 151 out of 245. See UK Parliament (2024). Written Question – Prisoners: Transgender People. UIN 20298, tabled on 16th December 2024.
7. 14,469 men were convicted of a sexual offence out of 65,427 total convictions. Source: Ministry of Justice & HM Prison and Probation Service (2025). Prison population: 31 December 2024. Table 1.Q.5. Time series: prison population under an immediate custodial sentence by sex, age group, and offence group, England and Wales.
8. Becerra-Culqui, T. A. et al. (2018). Mental health of transgender and gender nonconforming youth compared with their peers. Pediatrics, 141(5).
9. Calculated from Kaltiala-Heino, R. et al. (2018). Gender dysphoria in adolescence: current perspectives. Adolescent Health, Medicine and Therapeutics, 31–41.
10. They make up 4.9% of service referrals but only 0.6% of children in England. Matthews, T. et al. (2019). Gender Dysphoria in looked-after and adopted young people in a gender identity development service. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 24(1), 112-128.
11. Thoma, B. C. et al. (2021). Disparities in childhood abuse between transgender and cisgender adolescents. Pediatrics, 148(2).
12. There were 1,933 referrals made for girls, 853 referrals made for boys and 799 referrals made for children whose sex was unknown. Source: GIDS (2023). Number of referrals to GIDS. (Downloaded on 7th December 2023; data tables have since been removed.)
13. Calculated from (a) Holt, V., Skagerberg, E., & Dunsford, M. (2016). Young people with features of gender dysphoria: Demographics and associated difficulties. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 21(1), 108-118 and (b) Office for National Statistics data on the national proportion of young people who are exclusively same-sex attracted or bisexual.
14. Streed Jr, C. G. et al. (2017). Cardiovascular disease among transgender adults receiving hormone therapy: a narrative review. Annals of Internal Medicine, 167(4), 256-267.
15. Schagen, S. E. et al. S. E. (2020). Bone development in transgender adolescents treated with GnRH analogues and subsequent gender-affirming hormones. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 105(12), e4252-e4263.
16. van Trotsenburg, M. A. (2009). Gynecological aspects of transgender healthcare. International Journal of Transgenderism, 11(4), 238-246.
17. Cass, H. (2024). Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People.
18. YouGov (2025). Where does the British public stand on transgender rights in 2024/25?
19. Trans-exclusionary radical feminists – a slur often directed at gender-critical women.
20. pBloomsbury Publishing (2022). Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Annual Report.
21. Employment Appeal Tribunal (2021). Maya Forstater v CGD Europe, Center for Global Development and Masood Ahmed. Judgment. Appeal No. UKEAT/0105/20/JOJ.
22. Publishers Association (2024). UK Publishing Workforce: Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging in 2024.
23. 262,000 people said in the most recent census that the gender with which they identify is not the same as their sex registered at birth, while it was the same for 45.4 million. This means that 0.57% of those answering the linked question said they had a different gender identity to their sex (please note, however, that there were quality issues with this question). Source: Office for National Statistics (2023). Gender identity, England and Wales: Census 2021.
24. Pan Macmillan (no date). Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (accessed 3rd March 2025).
25. The Society of Young Publishers (2025). Volunteer (accessed 21st February 2025).
26. Publishers Association (2024). UK Publishing Workforce: Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging in 2024.
27. Cambridge University Press & Assessment (2024). Building a Place Where Everyone Belongs: Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Report 2022–24.
28. Pearson (2015). Diversity & Inclusion.
29. Simon & Schuster (no date). Manuscript Submissions (accessed 25th February 2025).
30. Email from Cornerstones to Sibyl Ruth, 7th June 2022 (shared by email, January 2025).
31. Creative Scotland (2024). Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion Mainstreaming Report 2022–2024. | Hachette (2021). Changing the Story: Our People and Publishing Transparency Report. | Informa (2024). UK Colleagues and Pay: 2023 Report. | Penguin Random House UK (2021). Our 2021 Pay Gap Report. | Interviews
32. Regulation 20 (2) (c), Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations, 1992.
33. Sexual harassment is defined at s.26(2) of the Equality Act 2010. It proscribes conduct of “a sexual nature”. Misgendering, though relevant to sex, is not “sexual”.
34. Bonnier Books (2022). Bonnier Books UK introduces menopause policy to break down stigma (accessed 25th February 2025).
35. Penguin Random House UK (2020). 2020 Gender Pay Gap Report.
36. Hachette (no date). Diversity and inclusion (accessed 25th February 2025).
37. Hachette (2023). Gender Pay Gap Report 2023.
38. Cambridge University Press & Assessment (2023). Editorial Services Style Guide for Academic Books, Version 5.0.
39. Pearson (2020). Pearson WILL UK Gender Equality Guidelines.
40. Informa (2023). Inclusive Language Guide.
41. For example, “We recognise there are some limits to freedom of speech.” Source: Bonnier Books (no date). Our values (accessed 19th March 2025).
42. One publisher’s UK investor relations site, for example, highlights its donation to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as part of its defence of free speech (source: Bloomsbury Investor Relations (no date). Our Communities. Accessed 19th March 2025). The ACLU is a vigorous defender of gender-identity ideology, calling opposition to it “cruel and discriminatory”. See, for example, ACLU (2025). Defend Trans Freedom.
43. The Guardian (2021). ‘If publishers become afraid, we’re in trouble’: publishing’s cancel culture debate boils over.
44. The Independent (2020). JK Rowling: Hachette UK book staff told they are not allowed to boycott author over trans row.
45. The Bookseller (2021). Publishing faces ‘watershed moment’ on free expression, Alexander and Shelley say.
46. Regulation 20 (2) (c), Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations, 1992.
47. Regulation 20 (2) (c), Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations, 1992.
48. The Publishers Association (2023). The Publishers Association Inclusivity Action Plan.
49. The Publishers Association (2021). Understanding Author Diversity Report.
50. Equality Act 2010, s.4.
51. This should, more accurately, be protection from unlawful discrimination: in some cases, it is lawful to discriminate on the basis of a protected characteristic as in, for example, the provision of single-sex toilets.
52. Publishing Scotland (2016). Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy.
53. Arts Council England (no date). Equality Objectives (accessed 28th February 2025).
54. Arts Council England (no date). Guide to Producing Equality Action Objectives and Plans for NPOs: Introductory Section.
55. Creative Scotland (no date). Equalities in Creative Scotland (accessed 28 February 2025).
56. Equality Act 2010, s.149.
57. Creative Scotland (no date). Equality Impact Assessment – Development of the Multi-Year Funding Programme for Organisations as Part of Creative Scotland’s Future Funding Framework (accessed 28 February 2025).
58. Society of Young Publishers (2023). Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Publishing Hiring.
59. The Booksellers Association, The Society of Authors, The Publishers Association & The Association of Authors” Agents (2023). An Industry-Wide Commitment to Professional Behaviour in Bookselling and Publishing.
60. Sullivan, A. (2025). Independent Review of Data, Statistics and Research on Sex and Gender. Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Social Research Institute and UCL.
61. Penguin Random House UK (no date). Environmental, Social and Governance Data Report 2023.
62. For example, Informa’s voluntary census, “which provided a valuable baseline of data on colleagues’ backgrounds including gender identity, race and ethnicity and caring responsibilities”. Source: Informa (2022). UK Colleagues and Pay: 2021 Report.
63. Hachette (2023). Gender Pay Gap Report 2023.
64. Government Equalities Office and Women and Equalities Unit (2024). Statutory guidance: Preparing your data (accessed 25th February 2025).
65. Government Equalities Office and Women and Equalities Unit (2024). Statutory guidance: Preparing your data (accessed 25th February 2025).
66. The Publishers Association (2021). Understanding Author Diversity Report.
67. The Publishers Association (no date). Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (accessed 20th February 2025).
68. Creative Scotland (2024). Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion Mainstreaming Report 2022–2024.
69. Arts Council England (no date). NPO Survey Template 23+.
70. Hilton, E. et al. (2021). The reality of sex. Irish Journal of Medical Science (1971-), 190(4), 1647.
71. Arts Council England & University of Essex (2024). Cultural Freelancers Study 2024.
72. Arts Council England (2017). NPO Survey Questions 2017–18.
73. Canongate (2024). Canongate Books is now a B Corp! (accessed 25th February 2025).
74. B Corp (no date). About B Corp Certification: Measuring a company’s entire social and environmental impact (accessed 25th February 2025).
75. B Corp (2025). Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (accessed 25th February 2025).
76. The Publishers Association (2023). The Publishers Association Inclusivity Action Plan.
77. Scottish Trans and Stonewall Scotland (2017). Getting Equalities Monitoring Right. 
78. Government Equalities Office and Women and Equalities Unit (2024). Statutory guidance: Preparing your data (accessed 25th February 2025).
79. In pay gap reporting requirements, for example.
80. UK Parliament (2010). Equality Act.
81. Publishing Scotland (2023). Annual Report and Accounts: Aithisg Bhliadhnail agus Cunntasan 2021/2022.
82. Creative Access (no date). Training (accessed 20th February 2025).
83. Publishing Scotland (2023). Publishers Association launches the newest iteration of its Inclusivity Action Plan.
84. Cambridge University Press & Assessment (2024). Building a Place Where Everyone Belongs: Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Report 2022–24.
85. The Bookseller (2021). Open letter says ‘transphobia acceptable in British book industry’. | Creative Scotland (2017). Mainstreaming Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI): EDI Report 2017. | Hachette (2021). Changing the Story: Our People and Publishing Transparency Report. | Interviews
86. Stonewall (2024). Getting started with trans inclusion in your workplace (accessed 30th April 2025). For information about why this is unlawful, see For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers (2025). UKSC 16.
87. Charity Commission for England and Wales (2024). Decision – Charity Inquiry: Mermaids.
88. Creative Scotland (2025). Equalities in Creative Scotland (accessed 4th March 2025).
89. Oxford University Press (2021). #ThrowBack: Celebrating International Women’s Day at OUP.
90. The Times (2020). JK Rowling publisher asked Mermaids trans group to ‘censor’ legal article on free-speech ruling.
91. e.g. Hachette UK (no date) Diversity and inclusion (accessed 3rd March 2025). | Arts Council England (2025). Jobs and careers (accessed 4th March 2025).
92. Cambridge University Press & Assessment (no date). Dictionary – TERF (accessed 14th February 2025).
93. MacFarlane, N. D. (2021). Extreme ‘gender critical’ views will alienate many gender dysphoric patients. BJPsych Bulletin, 45(5), 311-312.
94. Arvan, M. (2023). Trans Women, Cis Women, Alien Women, and Robot Women Are Women: They Are All (Simply) Adults Gendered Female. Hypatia, 38(2), 373-389.
95. EUPHA-SGMH, EUPHA-CAPH, TGEU, ILGA-Europe, IGLYO, EPATH, Chair persons: Arjan van der Star (EUPHA-SGMH), 10.O. Round table: Anti-gender movements and their implications for trans-specific healthcare for children in Europe, European Journal of Public Health, Volume 33, Issue Supplement_2, October 2023.
96. Employment Tribunals (2025). Mrs A Islam-Wright v Arts Council England and Craig Ashcroft: Judgment. Case No. 2408555/2022.
97. Vercida (2021). Talking Diversity & Inclusion with Dr Parul Pandey at Oxford University Press.
98. Hachette via Vercida. Trans Inclusion Policy at Hachette UK (accessed 3rd March 2025).
99. Pearson (no date). Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Working with Us (accessed 11th April 2025).
100. Hachette (no date). Diversity and inclusion (accessed 11th April 2025).
101. Equality Act 2010, s.12.
102. The Bookseller (2024). Publishers’ Pride networks release joint statement in response to SEEN in Publishing launch.
103. Nous Group (2023). Independent Review into Equality, Diversity and Inclusion | Findings and Recommendations Report.
104. The Second Shelf (2020). A Message from Members of the UK and Irish Publishing Community.
105. Cool2BTrans (2020). Global Companies Show Support for Trans People.
106. TransRightsAreHumanRights (2025). Homepage (accessed 14th February 2025).
107. Hachette UK (2020). Hachette UK continues to ‘Change the Story’ with latest D&I partnership and donation.
108. Stop Funding Hate (2021). Stop Funding Hate Guide for Individuals. Society of Authors.
109. DK UK (no date). Banned Books (accessed 3rd March 2025).
110. The Publishing Post (no date). Cancel Culture Within the Publishing Industry.
111. The Bookseller (2021). Open letter says ‘transphobia acceptable in British book industry’.
112. WME (2025). About WME Books (accessed 4th March 2025)
113. Lucy Cavendish College (2025). Fiction Prize (accessed 4th March 2025).
114. Women’s Prize [@WomensPrize]. (2020, October 5th). Post. X.
115. ForthWrite (2025). About Us (accessed 17th March 2025).
116. Faber (2020). Louisa Joyner and Alex Bowler respond to the Women’s Prize announcement (accessed 3rd March 2025).
117. The Bookseller (2020). Craig asked to step down as Mslexia judge after signing Rowling support letter.
118. The Carnegies (2025). Marginalised male perspectives explored with empathy and hope as Carnegies 2025 shortlists announced.
119. Julian et al. (2021). The impact of chest binding in transgender and gender diverse youth and young adults. Journal of Adolescent Health, 68(6), 1129-1134.
120. Peitzmeier, S. et al. (2017). Health impact of chest binding among transgender adults: a community-engaged, cross-sectional study. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 19(1), 64-75.
121. UK Literacy Association (2025). UKLA Book Awards 2025 Shortlist.
122. Correspondence shared by SEEN in Publishing, April 2025.
123. The Second Shelf (2020. A Message from Members of the UK and Irish Publishing Community.
124. Society of Young Publishers [@SYP_UK]. (2020, October 1). Post. X.
125. Harris, J. [@blablafishcakes]. (2022, August 21). Post. X.
126. Bluesky post sent on 18th September 2023 (name redacted, so no link is given).
127. Harris, J. [@joannechocolat]. (2023, September 18). Post. Bluesky.
128. Joanne Harris [@Joannechocolat] (2022, August 16). Post. X.
129. The Society of Authors (2022). Inclusion, Diversity and Representation (accessed 4th March 2025).
130. Wild Woman Writing Club (2021). Rachel Rooney’s Exit Interview from Publishing.
131. The Society of Authors (2022). A response and call for unity. Archived version is available here (accessed 20th March 2025).
132. See screenshot provided. Source: Harris, J. [blablafishcakes]. (2022, August 21). Post. X.
133. Nielsen BookScan, March 2025.
134. International sales figures were provided by the authors in April 2025 with UK sales figures verified via BookScan in May 2025.
135. Correspondence with Kathleen Stock and Helen Joyce, February 2025.
136. Correspondence with Susanna Rustin, February 2025.
137. Telephone call with Julie Bindel, February 2025.
138. The Times (2023). Oxford dropped my book for challenging gender, says author.
139. Cat Bohannon (2023). Eve (p. 262 and p. 293). Penguin Random House.
140. Correspondence with Karen Ingala Smith, March 2025.
141. BBC (2022). Woman’s Hour – Grace Lavery, Maternity Services Nottinghamshire, Life After Divorce.
142. Figures sourced from BookScan in May 2025.
143. BBC (2019). Woman’s Hour – Juno Dawson, Sport Coaches, Frances Ryan.
144. Juno Dawson (2017). The Gender Games: The Problem With Men and Women, From Someone Who Has Been Both. Hachette.
145. The Guardian (2020). Munroe Bergdorf receives landmark book deal for gender manifesto.
146. Figures sourced from BookScan in May 2025.
147. Correspondence with Helen Joyce, April 2025.
148. The Independent (2024). Waterstones slammed for sacking TikToker who said she would ‘tear up and bin’ gender-critical author’s work.
149. Correspondence with Susanna Rustin, February 2025.
150. The Times (2024). Literary society tells bookshops not to sell ‘Terf’ books.
151. The Times (2024). Literature Alliance Scotland faces backlash over ‘Terf’ row.
152. UnHerd (2024). How culture warriors exploited Creative Scotland.
153. X posts sent on 5th March 2025 (names redacted). The poster later said “p.s. I don’t work in a bookshop – I just wanted to catch some transphobes”, then added another post later saying: “It’s hilarious that all I had to do to stop people from trying to find me and get me fired for doing this is to pretend I don’t actually do it.”
154. Arts Council England (2022). 2023–26 Investment Programme Relationship Framework.
155. Didlaw (2023). Denise Fahmy v Arts Council England (Case No. 6000042/2022).
156. Dawson, J. (2018). Freedom of Speech is not Freedom from Consequence. Edinburgh International Book Festival.
157. Transgender Trend (no date). Dr Heather Brunskell-Evans (accessed 24th March 2025).
158. The Telegraph (2022). Ticketing site wages ‘campaign of cancellation’ against gender-critical events.
159. The Times (2023). Trans rights crowd ‘assaulted’ guests at gender book launch.
160. Correspondence with Susanna Rustin, February 2025.
161. A former Member of the Scottish Parliament, current lawyer and author of a book on legal practice who happens to have gender-critical views.
162. Conway Hall (2024). Ethical Matters: Cancel Culture and the Culture Wars: Truth and Consequences (accessed 28th March 2025).
163. A heckler’s veto silences a speaker by interrupting their message through voice or other means. A speaker who cannot be heard because opponents are shouting too loudly, for example, has been subjected to a heckler’s veto.
164. Correspondence with Susanna Rustin and Lisa-Marie Taylor, February–March 2025.
165. Oxford Literary Festival. Helen Joyce talks to Julie Bindel (accessed 4th March 2025).
166. Note from Helen Joyce, April 2025.
167. Phillips, H. (2025). A Statement on the Oxford Literary Festival.
168. YouGov (2025). Where does the British public stand on transgender rights in 2024/25?
169. Masud, N. [@noreenmasud]. (2024, December 30th). Post. Bluesky.
170. Correspondence with Helen Joyce, April 2025.
171. Litman, C. [@alicemydaughter]. (2025, January 7th). Post. Bluesky.
172. McCarthy, H. [@harrymccarthy]. (2025, January 6th). Post. Bluesky.
173. Daily Mail (2024). JK Rowling criticises literature festival over warning notices for speakers “which compare gender critical opinions with homophobia and racism”.
174. As screenshotted on Philip, G. [@Gillian_Philip]. (2022, February 24th). Post. X.
175. The post was later deleted after push-back.
176. Anonymous writer “A.N.” featured on LoobyLou (2023). On the Silence of Children’s Authors. Substack.
177. Penguin Random House (2014). I Am Jazz.
178. For references, see the introduction.
179. Biggs, M. (2022). Suicide by clinic-referred transgender adolescents in the United Kingdom. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 51(2), 685-690.
180. The Cass Review (2024). Final Report.
181. Hall, R. et al. (2024). Impact of social transition in relation to gender for children and adolescents: a systematic review. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 109(Suppl 2), s12-s18.
182. Barcelos, T. M. R. et al. (2024). Evaluation of Sexual Function of Transgender Individuals. International Urogynecology Journal, 35(8), 1663-1671.
183. Johnson, E. K., & Finlayson, C. (2016). Preservation of fertility potential for gender and sex diverse individuals. Transgender Health, 1(1), 41-44.
184. Streed Jr, C. G. et al. (2017). Cardiovascular disease among transgender adults receiving hormone therapy: a narrative review. Annals of Internal Medicine, 167(4), 256-267.
185. Schagen, S. E. et al. S. E. (2020). Bone development in transgender adolescents treated with GnRH analogues and subsequent gender-affirming hormones. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 105(12), e4252-e4263.
186. Defant, M. J. (2025). Reevaluating gender-affirming care: biological foundations, ethical dilemmas, and the complexities of gender dysphoria. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 1-11.
187. For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers (2025). UKSC 16.
188. Everybody In (no date). An Inclusion and Diversity Charter for the Children’s Book World (accessed 23rd January 2025).
189. Everybody In (no date). Signatories (accessed 28th March 2025).
190. Usborne (2025). Promoting Diversity (accessed 4th March 2025).
191. Pearson (no date). LGBT+ inclusion (accessed 3rd March 2025).
192. The Guardian (2023). I’m a trans person who edits children’s books. The culture wars engulf me on all sides.
193. Samaritans (2020). Media Guidelines for Reporting Suicide.
194. Hilton, E. & Wright, C. (2023). Two Sexes. In Sullivan, A., & Todd, S. (Eds.). (2023). Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader. Taylor & Francis.
195. Science Direct (2025). Browse 5,336 journals and 36,654 books (accessed 5th March 2025).
196. Running a within-site search for the phrase “sex and gender are often incorrectly portrayed as binary” on 5th March 2025 returned 750 results.
197. Hilton, E. et al. (2021).
198. See, for example: Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare (2025). Guide for authors.
199. The Lancet (2025). Information for Authors (accessed 5th March 2025).
200. Free Speech Union (2024). FSU supporting academics after the BMJ rejected their research papers “because of their views on the trans debate”.
201. Office for Statistics Regulation (2024). OSR Publishes its Final Report on the Review of the Statistics Collected on Gender Identity During the England and Wales Census.
202. BBC News (2023). Isla Bryson: Transgender rapist jailed for eight years. 
203. BBC News (2024). Rape crisis worker unlawfully dismissed to get £70k.
204. Holyrood (2025). Gender Divide: How the Sandie Peggie case re-opened the debate over self-ID.
205. The Scottish Parliament (no date). Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill.
206. Institute for Government (2023). The use of Section 35 of the Scotland Act to block the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill.
207. For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers (2025). UKSC 16.
208. The Guardian (2020). Transphobia row leaves Scottish poetry scene in turmoil.
209. Various (2020). Open Letter to the Scottish Poetry Library on Transphobia. WordPress Blog (accessed 26th March 2025).
210. Sex equality and equity networks have been set up across different sectors to promote and support sex equality and equity between men and women.
211. SEEN in Publishing (2024). Substack.
212. Screenshots shared by SP members.
213. Correspondence with SEEN in Publishing representative, January 2025.
214.  Employment Appeal Tribunal (2024). Gillian Philip v Working Partners Limited and HarperCollins Publishers LLC (Case No. EA-2022-SCO-000075-JP and EA-2022-SCO-000076-JP).
215. Didlaw (2023). Denise Fahmy v Arts Council England (Case No. 6000042/2022).
216. Financial Times (2025). England’s university regulator issues record fine in Sussex free speech case.
217. Employment Appeal Tribunal (2021). Maya Forstater v CGD Europe, Center for Global Development and Masood Ahmed. Judgment. Appeal No. UKEAT/0105/20/JOJ.
218. Birchall, R. & Phoenix, J. (2024). Don’t Get Caught Out: A Summary of Gender Critical Belief Discrimination Employment Tribunal Judgments.
219. Foran, M. [@michaelpforan]. (2024, May 23rd). Post. X.
220. Ludwig, A. [@AudreySuffolk]. (2025, March 6th). Post. X | Ludwig, A. [@AudreySuffolk]. (2024, July 14th). Post. X.
221. EHRC (2022). The Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED).
222. Nous Group (2023). Independent Review into Equality, Diversity and Inclusion | Findings and Recommendations Report.
223. Arts Council England (2023). Arts Council England’s Inclusion Review (accessed 4th March 2025)
224. Arts Council England (2024). Delivery Plan 2024–27.
225. Creative Scotland (no date). Equalities Monitoring Form (accessed 4th March 2025).
226. Information Commissioner’s Office (no date). A guide to lawful basis (accessed 6th March 2025).
227. Canongate [@canongate.co.uk]. (2025, April 18th). Post. Bluesky.
228. Walker Picture Books [@walkerpicturebooks]. (2025, April 18th). Post. Instagram.

The post Everyday cancellation in publishing appeared first on Sex Matters.

Looking back at 2018

In 2018 vice-chancellor Adam Tickell led Sussex University to set up an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Unit and join the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme. He promised that the university would “take bold action to transform the campus into one that is experienced as inclusive by all our communities”. 

Meanwhile, concerns about the then government’s plan to reform the Gender Recognition Act towards gender self-ID were growing. Sussex University philosophy professor Kathleen Stock was becoming concerned about both the topic and the lack of academic engagement with it.

Stock speaks up

On 7th May 2018 Stock wrote her first public words on the topic in a personal blog post: 

“Something is afoot in academic philosophy. Beyond the academy, there’s a huge and impassioned discussion going on, around the apparent conflict between women-who-are-not-transwomen’s rights and interests, and transwomen’s rights and interests. And yet nearly all academic philosophers — including, surprisingly, feminist philosophers — are ignoring it.”¹

She followed this with a second blog post on 13th May 2018 calling on fellow academics to stop treating “gender-critical” views as “transphobic” and to recognise that the position that sex matters is worthy of respectful examination.²

Her resolve to keep thinking and writing on the topic was strengthened when she began to receive emails from academics around the country saying that they shared her concern but were scared to say anything. As one wrote:

“I really don’t have a settled view on any of the many issues here, but the lack of conversation and the hounding and bullying of anyone who expresses a thought (not even opinion!) that isn’t popular… all that is depressing and distressing. Predictably enough, I won’t be saying any of that in a public post, because I’m a precariously employed person and a lot of folk who might make significant decisions about my future career prospects have very strong opinions. A little cowardly, but also prudent, sadly.”³

University commits to Stonewall scheme

In June 2018 Tickell launched a new equality, diversity and inclusion strategy,⁴ which included the goal of getting Sussex University into the Stonewall “Top 100” and securing Advance HE’s Athena Swan⁵ status across the university by 2025. The university began preparing to submit its first application to the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index, and reported that it had “started work with Stonewall and the LGBT+ Staff Network by reviewing relevant policies to ensure they are LGBT inclusive”.⁶

Stonewall and Advance HE were not simply promoting freedom from unlawful discrimination and harassment for trans people: they were seeking to stamp out “transphobia” from academic institutions, which Stonewall defined as “the fear or dislike of someone based on the fact they are trans, including the denial/refusal to accept their gender identity”. 

This attempt to establish denial of the idea of gender identity as prohibited, hateful speech put them on a direct collision course with other people’s rights.

Debate on gender self-ID

On 3rd July 2018 Theresa May’s government opened a 16-week consultation on reforming the Gender Recognition Act “to make it easier for transgender people to change their legal gender on their birth certificate”.⁷ There could be little doubt that the intention was to press ahead with self-ID. Announcing the consultation in Parliament, minister Penny Mordaunt said: “Trans women are women. Trans men are men. And that is the starting point for the GRA consultation. And it will be its finishing point too.”⁸

Stock kept on being relentlessly reasonable in questioning this proposal and encouraging others to engage. On 5th July 2018 she gave an interview to Brighton newspaper The Argus.⁹ On 6th July 2018 The Economist published an article by her alongside viewpoints from all sides of the debate.¹⁰ On 16th July she spoke at a Woman’s Place UK meeting in Brighton.

In this talk she described a climate of fear in academia and named Stonewall as a cause: 

“By ‘trans activists’ I mean: organisations like Stonewall, Gendered Intelligence, and so on: socially prominent, politically powerful, and rich. They have a simplified core political message. They aggressively push the mantra ‘trans women are women’, by which they apparently mean ‘literally women, in every possible sense’, and they promote self-ID.”¹¹

The bill was not long in coming. Stock drew the ire of Pink News,¹² students organised Facebook groups against her,¹³ and there was a protest on campus at the launch of the university’s strategic framework with placards naming her.

By 13th July 2018 Tickell was prompted to ask “those with different views and understandings to please show kindness to each other.”¹⁴

In September The Times carried a story about a Facebook group in which transactivist academics compiled a list of gender-critical colleagues and discussed how to oust them from their jobs by filing complaints. Members of the group claimed that Stock’s presence made the philosophy department at Sussex an “unsafe environment”.¹⁵

On 1st October 2018 The Conversation published an article by Stock.¹⁶ On 10th October she spoke at a Woman’s Place UK meeting at the House of Lords and highlighted the problem with Stonewall’s definition of transphobia.

“That makes anyone who denies that a transwoman is a woman, for whatever reason, transphobic — far outstripping what any reasonable law would prohibit.”¹⁷

On 16th October a group of gender-critical academics wrote a letter to The Guardian. Stock was the lead signatory.

“Many of our universities have close links with trans advocacy organisations who provide “training” of academics and management, and who, it is reasonable to suppose, influence university policy through these links. Definitions used by these organisations of what counts as “transphobic” can be dangerously all-encompassing and go well beyond what a reasonable law would describe. They would not withstand academic analysis, and yet their effect is to curtail academic freedom and facilitate the censoring of academic work.”¹⁸

University adopts hurried policy

One of the things that wins an institution points in the Stonewall Index is marking special days and weeks in the calendar. Transgender Awareness Week was 12th to 18th November 2018, followed by Transgender Day of Remembrance on 20th November.

In a message posted on 8th November, an anonymous administrator of the ‘Sussex Philosophy Students in Solidarity with Trans Students’ Facebook group boasted that “some of us are trying to hold people in positions of authority accountable” for Stock’s views.

On 12th November, it was proposed to the university that it adopt a Trans and Non-Binary Equality Policy Statement in time to announce it on Trans Day of Remembrance. Sussex University later told Stonewall that the process that resulted in this proposal was led by “the confidential membership of the Trans and Nonbinary Staff Network” and “its Chair who reports suggestions directly to the EDI unit”.¹⁹ 

A draft was presented to the university’s executive group the following day. It was based on a template from the Equality Challenge Unit (now called Advance HE) and included expansive provisions against “transphobia”, exactly what Stock had been warning about.²⁰

The senior decision-makers who made up the executive group thought the policy was insufficiently well developed and asked for it to be sent to the EDI committee before returning for more detailed discussion. They told the promoter of the policy: 

“If you feel we need to make a statement next Tuesday, this should be along the lines of ‘the University is supporting Trans Awareness Week and has committed to starting a conversation around the development of its Trans Equality Policy Statement’.” 

But the following day the executive group changed its mind. 

Instead of starting a conversation about what should be in a trans equality policy (which might have included Stock and others who shared her concerns), the group agreed to adopt the policy it had rejected the day before. 

This decision was taken at a meeting with a single agenda item. No separate minute was recorded.

It is not clear who or what brought about this handbrake turn, but it appears likely that whatever pressure the executive group was under came from people who wanted to send a clear signal that views like those expressed by Stock would not be tolerated. 

The Trans and Non Binary Equality Policy Statement agreed on in 2018 is a little over a page long. It includes the following statements:

• The curriculum shall not rely on or reinforce stereotypical assumptions about trans people, and any materials within relevant courses and modules will positively represent trans people and trans lives.
• Transphobic abuse, harassment or bullying (name-calling/ derogatory jokes, unacceptable or unwanted behaviour, intrusive questions) are serious disciplinary offences for staff and students and will be dealt with under the appropriate University procedures.
• Transphobic propaganda, in the form of written materials, graffiti, music or speeches, will not be tolerated. We undertake to remove any such propaganda whenever it appears on the premises.²¹

Culture of fear

Stock has said that because of the policy, she was afraid to include the issue in her academic work. She said she:

“tried to raise the matter with superiors but to no avail… Over time, my teaching about sex and gender in feminist philosophy grew increasingly cautious, and most of my criticism of the sudden sanctification of gender identity took place elsewhere.”²²

Meanwhile the university ploughed on with trying to climb the Stonewall ladder. In June 2020 it published an action plan based on feedback from Stonewall and “in consultation with the LGBTQ+ Staff Network and the Trans and non-Binary Staff Network”. It told Stonewall that the university’s equality analysis process:

“ensures that policies are developed in discussion with employees with protected characteristics, guaranteeing that actual consultation takes place and that the voices of those affected by policies are heard early in the process of development. For example, the EDI unit sent the Guidance on Transitioning At Work draft document to the Trans and Nonbinary Staff Network for development.”²³

No one else’s views seem to have mattered.

It pledged to engage leadership at the highest level and to publish the annual messages of “commitment to LGBT+ inclusion”.

In 2020 the university signed up to a public “trans rights are human rights” campaign led by Stonewall,²⁴ supporting its political call for gender self-ID. In April 2021 the university established an LGBT+ Equality and Inclusion Self-Assessment Team to develop and oversee the delivery of an LGBT+ Equality and Inclusion Action Plan using the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index to “identify where further action is needed”. It said that it would arrange listening sessions “to hear the voices of LGBTQI+ staff and allies”.²⁵

Stock, a lesbian who disagreed with Stonewall, faced social isolation, investigations, public letters with mass signatures solicited online and an internal email campaign.

In May 2021 the Reindorf Review commissioned by Essex University was published. It exposed how accusations of transphobia are deployed to curtail academic freedom, and highlighted unlawful university policies developed through processes captured by internal and external lobby groups, and the culture of fear experienced by staff and students who disagree with gender-identity ideology.

In June 2021 the Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled that gender-critical beliefs were “worthy of respect in a democratic society” and protected by the Equality Act.

But the campaign against Stock intensified, and the university’s response continued to be inadequate. She filed a complaint to the university for its failure to support her.

According to a report in The Times, at the beginning of the new academic year in 2021 a student started “dropping into Whatsapp groups” and inviting others to get involved in a campaign to oust Stock. Around 15 students formed the group “Anti Terf Sussex” and began planning “Anti Stock Action”.²⁶

On 7th October they let off flares and pasted up posters around the university demanding that Stock be sacked.

The posters accused Stock of “transphobia” and of making students unsafe, and demanded that she be fired. 

Finally, on 8th October, the vice-chancellor went on the BBC’s Today programme to defend the “untrammelled right [of his academic staff] to say and believe what they think.”²⁷ 

It was too little, too late.

On Saturday 16th October nearly 100 people took over an open day at the University of Sussex to protest against her employment.²⁸ They yelled slogans including “Stock out!”, “Get Kathleen off our campus!” and “No Terfs here!”²⁹

The university released a statement saying: “Over the past two weeks, the University of Sussex has vigorously and unequivocally defended Professor Kathleen Stock’s right to exercise her academic freedom and lawful freedom of speech.”³⁰

Baroness Kishwer Falkner, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, commented.³¹ Several open letters of support were organised: one by philosophers,³² one by legal academics³³ and one by the new organisation Sex Matters.³⁴

The OfS contacted the university on 22nd October 2021 seeking further information.

Stock went off sick because of the intimidation, and then resigned.³⁵

In a statement in the House of Lords on 16th November the education minister said that she had been informed by the Office for Students (OfS) that it had opened an investigation into whether the University of Sussex has met its obligations on academic freedom and freedom of speech.³⁶ 

OfS finds Sussex University has breached higher-education regulations

Three and a half years later the OfS has released its findings and fined Sussex University £585,000.³⁷

It found that the university had been breaching Conditions E1 and E2 of the OfS’s regulatory framework by adopting the trans and non-binary equality policy, and in the state of its decision-making.³⁸

Condition E1 protects academic freedom and freedom of speech.

“Academic staff at an English higher education provider have freedom within the law: 

• to question and test received wisdom; and 
• to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges they may have at the provider. 

The governing body takes such steps as are reasonably practicable to ensure that freedom of speech within the law is secured within the provider.”

The OfS found that the Trans and Non Binary Equality Policy Statement based on the Advance HE template resulted in the restriction of lawful speech, including in course materials and curricula, and created a wider chilling effect leading to self-censorship.

Condition E2 requires that:

“The provider must have in place adequate and effective management and governance arrangements to: 

 (i) Operate in accordance with its governing documents.”

The OfS report describes the rushed process by which the policy was adopted during that week in 2018. It also found that:

• The Prevent Steering Group approved and adopted the 2021 version of the university’s Freedom of Speech Code of Practice despite that group not having delegated authority to do so. 
• The 2023 version of the External Speakers’ Procedure was approved by the university’s executive group despite that group not having delegated authority to do so. 
• The executive group also approved the 2022 and 2023 versions of the Trans and Non-Binary Equality Policy Statement, despite that group not having delegated authority to do so. 

The OfS says this meant that: 

“Decisions were made by individuals or groups that had not been identified by the university as appropriate decision-makers and there is a risk that this may have led to decision-making of a degraded quality, and as a result, decisions may not have been made in the best interests of students and staff, and in accordance with the university’s legal and regulatory obligations.” 

The baseline penalty for these breaches, aggravated by the fact that they were longstanding and not reported, was over £3.6 million. This was reduced to £585,000 to reflect that this was the first time the OfS has found breaches by a university in relation to freedom of speech and academic freedom.

The OfS also said that although it does not come within the area it regulates, the university may not have complied with its legal duties relating to freedom of speech under Section 43 of the Education (No. 2) Act 1986; Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights; and the Equality Act 2010 in relation to indirect discrimination and the public-sector equality duty. 

Alison Johns, Chief Executive of Advance HE, has now written to VCs of member universities acknowledging that “certain policy statements cited in the findings originated, in part, from a template developed by the Equality Challenge Unit”. She says that the template does not reflect the institution’s current approach or guidance on free speech, protected beliefs and good relations, and encourages members to review their trans inclusion policies and web pages and remove “any legacy language” cited by the OfS.³⁹

Why didn’t Sussex stop?

Why was Sussex so unwilling to drop the faulty policy it had adopted so rashly and start again, involving a wider range of stakeholders, recognising that other people had an interest, and taking legal advice with a view to protecting people with all protected characteristics equally in compliance with the law? 

The answer seems to be that on this subject senior managers were exerting no leadership, and the only focused goal was gaining Stonewall 100 status by 2025.

At the end of 2019 the EDI deputy pro-vice-chancellor who had led on the initial strategy left and the university went through three interim appointments over the next three years. 

In June 2021 Tickell announced his intention to step down as vice-chancellor. He moved on to be vice-chancellor of Birmingham University. 

In October 2021 Sussex hired David Ruebain as its new pro-vice-chancellor of culture, equality and inclusion. The role was elevated to the executive group at the highest level of the institution. Earlier in his career Ruebain had been CEO of the ECU (the organisation where Sussex University’s bad policy had originated).⁴⁰

Professor Sasha Roseneil started her tenure as vice-chancellor at the beginning of August 2022. 

None of these people was willing to demonstrate the leadership and judgement they were paid for, and which were needed to take on and face down the “confidential trans network”. The treatment meted out to Stock, Falkner⁴¹ and JK Rowling made clear what would happen if they did. 

On 16th August 2022 the university released a slightly updated version of the policy.

• The requirement to represent trans people and trans lives positively in modules and courses was removed.
• The stereotyping statement was amended to read: “The curriculum shall not rely on or seek to reinforce stereotypical assumptions about trans people.”

It added the words “Approved by the University Executive Group”.⁴²

On 17th January 2023 there were further updates:

• A safeguard was added stating that “nothing in this Policy Statement should be taken to justify sanctioning academic staff for questioning or testing received wisdom or putting forward new ideas including controversial or unpopular opinions within the law and nor should this Policy Statement be taken to justify disproportionate restrictions on freedom of speech.”
• The provision on “transphobic propaganda” was removed and incorporated as “any abusive, bullying or harassing material” under the provision on transphobic abuse, harassment and bullying.
• A definition of “transphobic abuse, harassment or bullying” was added, saying that it “mean[s] unwanted behaviours and communications that could reasonably be expected to cause distress or fear among trans people”.⁴³

A further updated version was released in May 2024.⁴⁴ The OfS considered the 2022 and 2023 versions and said that while there were improvements, the policies continued to prohibit lawful speech and have a chilling effect (it has not yet considered the 2024 version). 

The changes to the section on “transphobic propaganda” and “transphobic abuse, harassment or bullying” show the confused genesis and evolution of the policy. 

Provisions against “transphobic propaganda”: how Sussex University’s policy evolved

2018 and 2022 policies say “transphobic propaganda” will be removed:

Transphobic abuse, harassment or bullying (name-calling/derogatory jokes, unacceptable or unwanted behaviour, intrusive questions) are serious disciplinary offences for staff and students and will be dealt with under the appropriate University procedures.

Transphobic propaganda, in the form of written materials, graffiti, music or speeches, will not be tolerated. We undertake to remove any such propaganda whenever it appears on the premises.

In 2023 this is replaced by “any [transphobic] abusive, bullying or harassing material”:

Transphobic abuse, harassment or bullying* (e.g. name-calling/derogatory jokes, unacceptable or unwanted behaviour, intrusive questions) are serious disciplinary offences for staff and students and will be dealt with under the appropriate University procedures. Any abusive, bullying, or harassing material (e.g. written materials, graffiti or recordings) will be removed from University premises.

* We use the term “transphobic abuse, harassment or bullying” to mean unwanted behaviours and communications that could reasonably be expected to cause distress or fear among trans people.

In 2024 this is linked to the test for criminal harassment:

Transphobic abuse, harassment or bullying* (e.g. name-calling/derogatory jokes, unacceptable or unwanted behaviour, intrusive questions) are serious disciplinary offences for staff and students and will be dealt with under the appropriate University procedures. After consideration of its form and contents, material (e.g. written materials, graffiti or recordings) that is found objectively to be abusive, bullying, or harassing will be removed from University premises.

* We use the term “transphobic abuse, harassment or bullying” to mean unwanted behaviours and communications that could reasonably be expected to cause distress or fear among trans people. This definition is objective and replicates the definition in the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, as set out in the Cod [sic] for Crown Prosecutors.
(Emphasis added)

Sussex University’s responsibility is to protect its students and staff from unlawful harassment related to protected characteristics in the Equality Act, not criminal harassment under the Harassment Act 1997 (which would be a police matter). 

Sussex University digs in

Roseneil has not taken the news of the OfS finding well. She has doubled down on defending the policy and the university’s decision-making, accusing the OfS of “decreeing libertarian free-speech absolutism as the fundamental principle for UK universities” and “perpetuating the culture wars”. She says the university will appeal against the fine and seek a judicial review of the decision. 

She describes the policy statement as no big deal because she says it does not have the status of being a “governing document” of the university:

“This is a really small statement, of which we have many dozens, if not hundreds, of similar policies and statements. Whereas the governing documents of the university are its charter and statutes and regulations.”⁴⁵

The idea that this was “a really small statement” is inconsistent with what Sussex University has been saying for the past five years.

The university started this process in 2018, promising to “take bold action” under the guidance of its trans and non-binary network group and Stonewall. This is exactly what it did, year after year. The people in charge of this were senior and paid good money. Each year they reported to the Council, and the Council agreed to the goal of achieving Stonewall status. 

In May 2024 the university celebrated reaching its goal of being ranked 30th in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index Top 100.⁴⁶ As it completed its way up the ladder towards that goal, every year it assured Stonewall that the policy was supported at the highest level and that the university took a “zero tolerance” approach to “transphobia”. That blinkered determination to prioritise the narrow demands of ideological lobbyists within and outside the university led it to overlook its duty to prevent harassment of staff who dissented from that ideological position, and to uphold academic freedom and free speech on campus for everyone.

1. Kathleen Stock (2018). ‘Academic philosophy and the UK Gender Recognition Act’. @kathleenstock blog (archived).
2. Kathleen Stock (2018). ‘What I believe about sex and gender (and what I don’t)’. @kathleenstock blog (archived).
3. Kathleen Stock (2018). ‘Anonymised responses from other academics to my articles on sex, gender, and philosophy’. @kathleenstock blog (archived).
4. University Of Sussex (2018). Inclusive Sussex: equality, diversity and inclusion strategy 2018–2025.
5. John Armstrong and Allice Sullivan (2024). ‘A critical analysis of Athena Swan as a policy-scoring scheme’. British Educational Research Journal, volume 51, issue 1.
6. University of Sussex (2018). Equality, diversity and inclusion annual report to council 2017/18.
7. UK Government (2018). ‘Government announces plans to reform process of changing legal gender’. Press release, 3rd July 2018.
8. UK Parliament (2018). ‘Commons: 3 July 2018 (Volume 644)’. Hansard.
9. Jody Doherty-Cove (2018). ‘“Trans women are still males with male genitalia” – university lecturer airs controversial views. The Argus.
10. Kathleen Stock (2018). ‘Changing the concept of “woman” will cause unintended harms’. The Economist.
11. Kathleen Stock (2018) ‘A Woman’s Place is Turning the Tide’. Woman’s Place UK.
12. Ella Braidwood (2018). ‘University lecturer criticised after declaring “trans women are still males with male genitalia”’. Pink News.
13. Facebook page: ‘Sussex Philosophy Students in Solidarity with Trans Students’.
14. Adam Tickell (2018). ‘A message from the Vice-Chancellor – living our values’. University of Sussex website.
15. Lucy Bannerman (2018). ‘Trans Goldsmiths lecturer Natacha Kennedy behind smear campaign against academics’. The Times.
16. Kathleen Stock (2018). ‘Why self-identification should not legally make you a woman’. The Conversation.
17. Kathleen Stock (2018). ‘Women’s Place talk: full text House of Lords Oct 10th 2018’. @kathleenstock blog (archived).
18. Kathleen Stock et al (2018). ‘Academics are being harassed over their research into transgender issues’. Letter to The Guardian, 16th October 2018.
19. Stewart (2022). ‘Information about Stonewall Workplace Equality Index (WEI)’. What Do They Know.
20. Equality Challenge Unit (2016). Trans equality policy statement.
21. University of Sussex (2018). Trans and Non Binary Equality Policy Statement.
22. Kathleen Stock (2025). ‘Fortunes are changing in the culture war Sussex University should move on’. UnHerd.
23. University of Sussex (2020). Stonewall Workplace Equality Index Action Plan.
24. Stonewall (2020). ‘Over 100 major companies join together to say trans rights are human rights’.
25. University of Sussex (2021). Equality, diversity and inclusion annual report to council 2020/21.
26. Tom Ball (2021). ‘Inside the “cloak and dagger” campaign against Kathleen Stock’. The Times.
27. Tortoise (2021). ‘The Kathleen Stock case is about much more than trans rights’.
28. Harry Lambert (2021). ‘Kathleen Stock and Sussex University: the war over academic freedom’. The New Statesman.
29. Sam Baker and Jacob Thorburn (2021). ‘Masked mob demand trans row professor is sacked in campus protest after defending anonymous crusade because “they don’t want to be abused online”’. Mail Online.
30. University of Sussex (2021). Post on Twitter @SussexUni, 21st October 2021.
31. Kishwer Falkner (2021). Post on Twitter @EHRCChair, 10th October 2021.
32. UK philosophers (2021). Open letter of solidarity with the University of Sussex.
33. Legal academics (2021). Open Letter to Sussex University from legal academics.
34. Sex Matters (2021). ‘Academics write to the EHRC’.
35. Richard Adams (2021). ‘Sussex professor resigns after transgender rights row’. The Guardian.
36. UK Parliament (2021). ‘Professor Kathleen Stock: Resignation (Volume 816: debated on Tuesday 16 November 2021)’. Hansard.
37. Office for Students (2025). ‘Regulatory case report for University of Sussex: OfS decisions relating to breaches of conditions E1 and E2 and the imposition of monetary penalties’.
38. Office for Students (2022). Securing student success: Regulatory framework for higher education in England.
39. Alison Johns (2025). Letter from Advance HE to university vice-chancellors, 31st March 2025.
40. David Ruebain (accessed March 2025). Profile on LinkedIn.
41. Sex Matters (2024). ‘Timeline of efforts to sabotage the EHRC’s work to protect everyone’s rights’.
42.  University of Sussex (2022). Trans and Non-Binary Equality Policy Statement.
43. University of Sussex (2023). Trans and Non-Binary Equality Policy Statement.
44. University of Sussex (2024). Trans and Non-Binary Equality Policy Statement.
    
45. Richard Adams (2025). ‘University of Sussex taking legal action over £585,000 free speech fine’. The Guardian.
46. University of Sussex (2024). ‘University of Sussex named 30th in Stonewall’s Top 100 Employer 2024 list’.

The post What happened at Sussex University?  appeared first on Sex Matters.

The government has introduced the Data (Use and Access) Bill,¹ which it says will boost the UK economy by £10 billion over 10 years, save millions of staff hours in the police and NHS, and make it easier for people to do business and access services. Core to this bill is a trust framework for “digital verification services” (DVS) to allow people to exchange verified personal information about themselves easily without relying on paper documents.

Sex is an important fact about an individual, which is often necessary to share and record for reasons including safety, fairness, dignity, privacy and safeguarding, in situations including health and social care, sport, criminal justice and access to single-sex services.

There is a critical flaw in the design of the DVS trust framework: government data itself is not trustworthy when it comes to the core personal characteristic of sex. The Data Bill will set up a trustmark for private-sector services to handle people’s data. But government bodies such as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, Passport Office and NHS Personal Demographic Service, which are relied on as “authoritative sources”, would fail to meet the standard. 

Unless the problem with these authoritative sources is addressed, the DVS system will be unreliable, costly and dangerous. It will lead to people being locked out of services they should be able to use and being treated dangerously in areas such as healthcare, and public servants having to undertake costly, inefficient and dangerous workarounds to record information outside the system. It will fail to deliver savings or facilitate economic growth. 

Conversely, the shift to digital identities creates an opportunity for a simpler, more coherent system for recording sex accurately while allowing people to keep their information private when it is not needed. The problems with the incoherent data and confusion over sex and gender identity can and must be addressed to protect everyone’s rights.

The new legislation provides the opportunity to build in data protection by design and by default for sex data. 

We call on the Secretary of State to ensure that this risk and opportunity are addressed in the Data (Use and Access) Bill, and by the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes.

Introduction 

The government has introduced the Data (Use and Access) Bill² through which it aims to boost the UK economy by £10 billion across 10 years and free up millions of staff hours in the police and NHS, saving hundreds of millions of pounds and making it easier for people to do business and access services while protecting their privacy. 

The bill provides a statutory basis to standardise how personal data is recorded, making it easier for information to flow safely, securely and seamlessly within public services and across health and social care, and between public and private data systems, based on individual consent. 

The benefits the government promises include:

• cutting down on bureaucracy for police officers saving around £42.8 million and 1.5 million hours a year keying in data
• making patients’ data easily transferable across the NHS freeing up 140,000 hours of NHS staff time every year
• simplifying important tasks for citizens such as renting a flat or entering employment by enabling a system of digital identity verification to allow people to verify their identity and facts about them without using paper documents. 

The government is clear that the aim is not to create a new mandatory digital ID system or to introduce “ID cards”, but rather to provide the basis for a decentralised system for standardised recording, verification and sharing of personal information that will protect people’s privacy. For this system to work, it is crucial that safeguards are put in place to secure the accuracy of the data and ensure it is stored and used in ways that do not breach people’s privacy. 

Sex is an important piece of personal identity information. It is both part of a person’s foundational identity recorded when they were born, and an attribute about them which needs to be recorded accurately and shared in situations including health and social care, criminal justice and sport. Unless the digital identity system assures accuracy in the recording of sex, it will fail to deliver savings, enable safety and convenience or secure trust.

What is a digital identity?

A digital identity is a digital representation of a person’s identity information, such as their name and date of birth. It enables people to prove who they are without presenting physical documents. At the individual’s request, it can also contain other information about them such as their address, their qualifications or the fact that they have a particular bank account. 

Figure 1: Digital identity example

Unlike a physical document, digital identity allows the individual to limit the information they share in any particular situation to only what is necessary. For example, if they are asked to prove they are 18 or over, they could do this by unlocking an app on their phone with their fingerprint, and showing a QR code that provides a simple Yes/No response and avoids sharing any other personal details.

Attributes are pieces of information that describe something about a person or organisation. Attributes can help people prove that they are who they say they are, or that they are eligible or entitled to do something.

New legislation and standards 

Work on rules and systems for digital identity verification is ongoing. The government has set up a new Office for Digital Identities and Attributes within the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to enable the development of a trusted and secure digital identity market in the UK.³ A version of the UK digital identity and attributes trust framework is already in use.⁴ This is a set of rules and standards in areas including privacy, data protection, fraud management, cybersecurity and inclusivity. The trust framework aims to set stringent rules.

The Data (Use and Access) Bill will establish a statutory basis for implementation of the framework. The bill will enable the Secretary of State to establish and govern a new register of service providers. These providers will be independently certified against the trust framework and will be able to get a “trust mark”. 

The trust framework provides that identities are underpinned by authoritative data sources. Currently this most commonly involves scanning drivers licences and passports. The Bill will enable the the creation of an information gateway so that public bodies such as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and His Majesty’s Passport Office (HMPO) will be able to share information directly with registered organisations to enable them to carry out identity or eligibility checks for a member of the public. This information may be released only on the request of the individual to whom the information relates.

Human rights and data-protection principles

The Data (Use and Access) Bill and the systems enabled by it should align with existing data-protection legislation and data-protection principles, and be compatible with human rights.

Article 5(1) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)⁵ provides that personal data shall be:

• processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to individuals 
• collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes
• adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed (“data minimisation”)
• accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date
• kept in a form which permits identification of data subjects for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the personal data are processed (“storage limitation”)
• processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security of the personal data, including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage, using appropriate technical or organisational measures (“integrity and confidentiality”)
• handled in a way that ensures appropriate security, including protection against unlawful or unauthorised processing, access, loss, destruction or damage.

The problem is that these standards are already being flouted when it comes to information about whether a person is male or female (that is, their sex). If an organisation mixes different items of data in the same field, such as sex and gender identity – with different meanings, definitions, uses and privacy requirements – it is impossible for that organisation to control this data in line with the principles. 

Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides⁶ that everyone has the right to respect for their private and family life, their home and their correspondence. It protects both a person’s privacy and their ability to validate their identity. 

It provides there shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health of morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

This does not mean that a person has absolute freedom to determine what data is recorded against their identity and how it is used. This is illustrated by a legal case concerning a person’s date of birth.⁷ A refugee wished to have what he claimed was an incorrect date of birth changed on a biometric immigration identity card. He was on hunger strike and suicidal, and said the data recorded was “dehumanising and corrosive of his sense of identity”. Nevertheless, the judge ruled: 

“A public authority’s record-keeping function must respect the Article 8 rights of individuals, but that does not extend to inserting information in records which is not supported by evidence and is considered, on good grounds, to be inaccurate and misleading. This must be the case no matter how serious the consequences for a particular individual.”

The judgment highlights that an important reason public authorities should not put unverified, inaccurate or misleading information into official records is the public interest in accurate, evidence-based records overall. Yet every common source of what should be authoritative personal data makes this fundamental error when it comes to the sex attribute.

The problem with sex data

An immutable attribute

Sex is a physiological attribute about a person that is determined at conception and observed at (or before) birth. Sexual reproduction, the generation of offspring by fusion of genetic material from two different individuals, one male and one female, evolved over a billion years ago – long before humans, words or laws. It is the reproductive strategy of all mammals as well as other higher animals and plants. Like other mammals, human females produce eggs and gestate live young. Males produce sperm to fertilise the female egg. In accordance with their respective reproductive roles, females and males have different reproductive anatomies (this is sometimes termed “biological sex” or “sex recorded at birth” to disambiguate from other uses of the word “sex”).⁸

The Gender Recognition Act 2004 means it is possible that a person’s “certified sex” as recognised in law can be changed for some purposes.⁹ However, an individual’s actual sex remains an immutable feature that is important throughout their lifetime.¹⁰ 

The data is corrupted 

In practice the information that is currently recorded as “sex” (or “gender” as a synonym) by many public and private bodies is neither accurate nor reliable. In most cases it neither reflects biological sex nor certified sex, but has been replaced by information representing “gender identity” (for more detail see Appendix 2). For example:

• Passport – recorded sex can be changed with a doctor’s note indicating that the person wishes to live “as the opposite gender” – 3,188 records known to be affected over the last five years.¹¹ 
• Biometric residence card – a person’s recorded sex can be changed if their name is changed by deed poll or if the “sex” marked on their home-country passport is changed.
• Driving licence – a person’s recorded sex can be changed on request: it does not appear on the face of the driving licence, but is encoded in the licence number – 15,481 records known to be affected over the last six years.¹² 
• NHS records – a person’s recorded sex can be changed on request, after which a new NHS number is issued.
• UK birth certificate – this records either a person’s actual sex or their sex as modified by a gender-recognition certificate – 8,464 records known to be affected over the last 20 years.

A gender-recognition certificate (GRC) enables a person to get a new birth certificate and to change the sex recorded against their identity by HM Revenue & Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions. Although only around 8,500 GRCs have been issued,¹³ according to the last censuses in England and Wales and Scotland there are about 100,000 people who identify as a “transgender man” or a “transgender woman”¹⁴ (although there are some concerns about the accuracy of this data).¹⁵ More than 15,000 driving licences were changed between 2018 and 2023 – more than four times the number of GRCs issued over the same period. What is clear is that there are people whose sex recorded on official records does not accord with their actual sex, including many with a range of official records that record their sex differently.

Apart from those people obtaining a new birth certificate via the Gender Recognition Act, this has happened in an ad-hoc manner outside any legislation. It has been done according to differing criteria and at the discretion of a wide range of government departments and agencies, including the Home Office, Ministry of Justice, HM Passport Office, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the National Health Service Personal Demographics Service and NHS trusts. No systematic records have been kept, so it is impossible to tell from either the face of an identity document such as a passport or driving licence or the underlying records whether the sex of the person holding the identification is recorded accurately. 

No-one’s sex records as held by HMPO, DVLA or the NHS can currently be treated as reliable. But the digital identity and attributes trust framework treats these as authoritative sources. 

Bad data causes harm

Even though someone’s actual sex is usually readily perceptible in person (and a person with a transgender identity may be open about being transgender), inaccurate and unreliable records create problems, confusion and significant risks of harm and liability.

• People with mismatched identities risk being flagged up as a “synthetic identity” risk. This could lead to transgender people being excluded from services such as banking or renting property. 
• Authorities with statutory safeguarding responsibilities will be unable to robustly assess risk related to the sex of children or vulnerable people, and the sex of potential abusers. Children’s and vulnerable people’s healthcare records can be  lost if they identify as transgender and change their NHS number. 
• Illnesses may be misdiagnosed, treatments may be misprescribed and medical risks may fail to be identified if the wrong sex is stated in a person’s medical records. 
• People will be unable or less likely to access services for their sex (such as cervical and prostate screening services) if they are recorded as the wrong sex.
• When questions cannot be targeted accurately by sex, time is wasted, communications are inaccurate and risks cannot be properly managed. For example, everyone who is having an X-ray must be asked if they might be pregnant because the administrative recording of patients’ sex is inaccurate. 
• Police and others aiding law enforcement risk being unable to identify people who have been recorded as the wrong sex. 
• Disclosure and Barring Service checks may fail to match an individual with their criminal record because of searching the wrong “gender”.
• Service providers will be less able to use data-verification services to create value in the economy and meet social needs, because those digital IDs do not contain reliable sex information. 
• People risk being placed unexpectedly and non-consensually in intimate situations with members of the opposite sex, causing discomfort, humiliation and exposure.
• Official data will not be a sound basis for proving eligibility for the female sporting category, meaning that it may be used to evade sex-based rules and undermine the fairness and safety of women’s sport. 

In order to resolve the problem of data systems that do not have a simple, accurate sex field, data users develop work-arounds that waste time and introduce complexity and risk. This problem was identified as a serious issue by the NHS as long ago as 2009, but since then it has only worsened.¹⁶

The government’s trust framework has not yet addressed the issue

The latest version of the UK digital identity and attributes trust framework was updated on 20th July 2023 (beta version 0.3).¹⁷ It describes a system in which identity service providers and attribute service providers can interact to enable individuals to prove that they are who they say they are, and to prove key facts about themselves. 

Figure 2: Schematic of relationship between trust framework participants¹⁸

The system relies on underlying authoritative sources of information such as passports and driving licences.¹⁹ However, nowhere in the current guidance is it explained that neither a passport or a driving licence can currently provide authoritative information on a person’s sex. In relation to attributes, the framework simply says “gender” instead of sex, and does not recognise that this is not an adequate description of the attribute of sex. 

If one attribute service provider uses “gender” to mean biological sex (male or female), another records male and female (as recognised by HMRC, including by virtue of a GRC) in a field marked “sex” and a third records “male” or “female” alongside “non-binary”, “transwoman” and several other possible self-descriptions in a field marked “gender identity”, it will be impossible for them to exchange data robustly, or for anyone to rely on it. 

The UK GDPR requires organisations to consider data-protection concerns in every aspect of their processing activities, an approach known as “data protection by design and by default”. The practice of mixing immutable objective sex, legally certified sex including via a GRC, and mutable subjective gender identity in the same field is a barrier to this approach. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has yet to comment on the issues of data protection in relation to the sex attribute; but it has said that it will continue to provide regulatory advice to the government on data-protection matters in relation to the development of the digital verification services scheme.²⁰ It should be asked to provide urgent advice on the problems with the sex attribute. 

The Data (Use and Access) Bill provides for the development of an information gateway, which will provide a way for individuals to validate their personal information directly by providing consent for it to be checked using an automated process with the DVLA, HMPO or other participating public agency such as HMRC or the Registrar General. It seems likely (although this has not been acknowledged as an issue by the Office of Digital Identities and Attributes) that the information gateway, if it relies initially on HMPO, DVLA and HMRC, would be unable to respond to any request for a person’s biological sex, since none of these sources can authoritatively return an “F” only for people who are actually female, or an “M” only for people who are actually male. 

The digital identity system as it is currently conceived will therefore provide a useless and dangerous mix of unreliable information and no information at all on individuals’ sex. Rather than cutting costs, it will create new costs, since anyone who needs to know and record service users’ sex will have to create ad-hoc solutions and complex workarounds. These include frontline healthcare workers, police officers, workers in women’s refuges and gym staff, who must routinely recognise and record whether a person they are dealing with is male or female. 

The system is being built on sand. The Data Bill will enable the Secretary of State to establish a register of private-sector identity-verification service providers. But the reality is the public bodies that provide the bedrock of the digital verification system are currently unfit to meet the government’s own trust standard in relation to the “sex” attribute. 

A way forward

Official data systems are in such a mess in relation to sex because of decades of ad-hoc, informal and incremental measures attempting to accommodate the wishes and protect the privacy of people who identify as transgender. A particular concern has been to allow people to access services where having an apparently mismatched identity could in the past have caused problems, embarrassment or exclusion. An example is a person with a female name and feminine dress style trying to travel on a passport that stated their sex as “male”. Responding to this problem by misrecording sex was not only an unsatisfactory solution, but one for an analogue age. Not only did it create knock-on problems, but the digital revolution now makes it unnecessary. 

Solving the problem in a way that protects everyone’s rights means starting by recognising that sex has historically been used as part of identity Information in three ways:

• foundational identity recorded at birth
• matching information that is used to determine that a particular person owns the identity (for example that the person with a female record looks or sounds like a woman)
• functional attribute about a person to be used where a person’s sex is relevant information for a transaction, entitlement or service, for instance in healthcare, social services and sport. 

Figure 3: Three types of identity data

The crucial difference between a system built on decentralised digital identity and one based on paper credentials, a database or a register is that each attribute can be treated separately. In a digital system the user needs to reveal only the pieces of information needed for a particular interaction. For example, there is no need to share whether someone is male or female when they are proving they are over a certain age or have a right to rent, or to use a person’s sex as matching information where other reliable checks exist. 

But having a false or erroneous piece of information recorded in the sex field is a serious problem, which leads to unnecessary and costly system failures. Digital attributes are created, collected and checked by an attribute service provider for one purpose, but can then be used for another. Unless the data definitions are standardised and information quality is assured, the whole data set becomes degraded and potentially dangerous because it cannot be relied on to be accurate. 

Principles for inclusive, accurate digital identity

A digital identity framework which works for everyone would ensure that:

• Sex remains clear and accurate as part of the foundational identity of every individual.
• Every individual can validate their sex as a functional attribute in situations where sex matters. 
• Organisations can validate any individual’s sex when that information is needed and they have consent (or for other overriding reasons such as criminal investigation or safeguarding).
• Every individual can keep information about their sex private in transactions for which that information need not be shared. 
• People who have changed their recorded sex in some legacy systems are not excluded from using digital identity systems that rely on accurate sex data.

Sex data can sometimes be kept private

The solution is for sex data to be treated like all other personal information. There is no heroic effort needed to keep information such as your name and date of birth secret; they are merely not shared when not needed. The same approach should be taken for sex.

With a digital identity system each individual attribute will be revealed, checked or shared only for a particular use. Except when the information is needed for a legal investigation or to save someone’s life, it remains controlled by the individual. Where data on a person’s sex does not need to be seen or recorded by the relying party, it need not be shared at (for example an age-verification app does not need to reveal a person’s sex, or their name or other information about them). 

This does not stop people from noticing what sex someone else is when meeting them in person, or from acting on that information. 

One of the most common use-cases for sex is as “matching information”, or to avoid duplicate information. For example the DVLA says:

​​”By providing us with gender details we can ensure we reduce the number of instances when surnames, initials and dates of birth match. This is a security measure to prevent duplicated records.”²¹

Sex matching can be a rough-and-ready indicator of fraud – for example if someone who looks or sounds like a man tries to use an identity marked as female this may set off red flags for a “synthetic ID” or using someone else’s identity. Although being male or female is not a strong personal identifying feature (it is shared with half the population), it is often used because a common security risk is a husband or wife using their partner’s identity, for example to access their bank account.

However, data on sex is not the only, or even the most reliable, way to be sure that someone owns an identity. And digital systems can use other reliable matching information such as biometrics. 

Airports now use facial recognition. Gatwick Airport, for example, says that all passengers must provide proof of identity when checking in for their flight but that “it does not matter if your current gender presentation matches that given on your documentation or that of your photograph”.²² Identity cards from many European countries do not have a sex marker on the face of the card. 

Another illustration of privacy protection without compromising security is Mastercard’s “True Name” initiative, which enables people to use their preferred name on credit, debit and prepaid cards.²³ 

Often name, date of birth and sex are used to match someone to their data (such as when booking an appointment online or checking in at the GP’s office using a touch screen). The government’s previous “Verify” framework made the “gender” field optional as a matching data set (that is, one of the pieces of data used to identify a unique individual).²⁴ The “gender” attribute was also removed as required matching data in the NHS Personal Demographic Service API. This meant that the developers of the Covid-19 vaccination booking service were able to allow people to book appointments without filling in a question about their sex (while maintaining the link to their sex as stated in their medical records).²⁵

Approaches like these avoid embarrassing transgender people by not requiring or displaying sex data when it is not needed, without confusing or falsifying data. They achieve this by using only the data necessary for the particular situation. 

When sex data is needed it should be accurate

Everyone knows which sex they are, and other people can almost always tell. Where this information is needed, for most purposes an honest answer to a straightforward question will suffice. The trust framework should require that organisations that record data are clear about the definition of sex and do not collude in misrecording a person’s sex when they know the sex that person has reported is inaccurate (for example when self-report suggests that the person’s sex has changed over time). 

Sex can also be validated by a more formal observation or assessment. This may be biological in situations where greater assurance is needed. A person’s doctor and other healthcare professionals will know their patients’ sex for certain, and should be expected to record it accurately in a clearly defined field. For female athletes, a cheek swab can be used to robustly determine sex chromosomes.²⁶ Chromosome tests, while individually simple, would be costly, unwieldy and unnecessary for application to the entire population, but they can be used, for example, in sports. The results of a cheek-swab test can be securely attached to a person’s identity, so needs to be done only once in a lifetime. 

For people born in the UK, the most reliable and straightforwardly accessible record of their sex remains the birth register. Sex is recorded at birth. For people born in the UK this is done using the birth notification system,²⁷ which results in the allocation of an NHS number. A baby’s sex is recorded in their personal child health record (PCHR), also known as “the red book”, and then in the birth register, along with place and date of birth, name, and details about the parents (the child’s birth mother, and the father or second legal parent).²⁸ This forms their foundational identity. An electronic birth register (which the Data Bill provides for) would allow the information gateway to bypass the corrupted records of the DVLA and HMPO and consult an individual’s birth record (with consent) in order to verify their sex.

Appendix 1 sets out a series of use cases describing how digital identity verification services that provide accurate sex data, with ordinary privacy, would work in practice. 

Why immediate action is needed

Unless the digital identity system assures accuracy in recording of sex it will fail to gain trust, deliver savings or facilitate economic growth. 

Solving the problem with sex data is both urgent and doable. To avoid chaos and capitalise on opportunities, the government needs to recognise the need for accurate sex data and design it into the digital identities and attributes trust framework, including the core data standard and the information gateway.

This will take leadership.

• The government must make clear that enabling accurate everyday verification of sex is a policy objective, and give clear policy direction to officials in the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes.
• Parliament should consider amendments to the Data Bill to ensure that sex data is defined clearly and can be verified. 
• The Office for Digital Identities and Attributes should investigate the issue, convene stakeholders and publish a technical paper proposing a practical approach.
• The Information Commissioner’s Office should provide detailed commentary on whether current data systems are in breach of data-protection principles, and on the proposed approach.

The fundamental problem is the need for authoritative data sources. This can be solved. 

• The Bill makes provision for digital birth records. When connected to the information gateway, this register can provide an accurate source of sex data. 
• HMPO and DVLA records on sex must be excluded from the gateway and the attribute verification standard unless and until they start recording sex accurately again. 
• The Bill makes provision for a new health and social care data standard. This must also ensure that sex is recorded accurately, to provide another authoritative source. 

This solution would mean that individuals and organisations are able to have clear records of sex, and that sex is treated like other aspects of personal identity, in line with data-protection principles. 

Unless the problem is addressed, the DVS system will be unreliable, costly and dangerous. It will risk members of the public being locked out of services they should be able to use and being treated dangerously, including when accessing healthcare. Organisations in the public and private sector will have to create costly, inefficient and dangerous workarounds to record information outside the system. 

Conversely, the shift to digital identities creates an opportunity for a simpler, more coherent system that protects everyone’s rights. 

We call on the Secretary of State to ensure this risk and opportunity are addressed in the Data (Use and Access) Bill and by the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes.

Appendix A: Use-cases for digital verification of sex information 

Communal space

A mixed-sex group of friends are organising a walking holiday, staying in a series of youth hostels. On some nights they book to stay in a private bunk room together as a group, and on others they book beds in male and female dorms shared with other travellers. Each of the party is a member of the Youth Hostel Association and when they joined they used a digital identity to validate their details, including their sex. The YHA’s online booking system uses this to make sure that only male members are booked in the male dorms and only female members in the female dorms. 

Medical records 

A fracture clinic asks patients to log in with their name and their date of birth on a screen when they arrive for an appointment. It uses this to match them with their medical records. They do not need to key in their sex. Their sex is not displayed on the landing screen of their records that is seen by the receptionist; however, it is seen by their doctor, who can view their full details. Frank is a transman – that is, a female person who identifies as a man. Frank feels comfortable checking in for medical appointments. Frank receives invitations for the correct screenings, such as cervical smear tests. Healthcare professionals dealing with Frank are able to consider risk factors associated with being female (such as the possibility that Frank might be pregnant when undergoing an X-ray). 

Bodily contact 

Mina is a self-employed beautician who provides intimate waxing services from her home. She advertises that she will provide this service only to women. As part of the booking process, she asks clients to log in with a digital identity that includes information on their sex, and she checks their identity using an app when they arrive. This helps Mina feel safe in providing her service. 

Online dating

Jamila is a lesbian. She joins a dating app. On joining she validates that she is female using her digital identity. As part of the registration process she indicates that she is only interested in being introduced to other women (female people). Saskia is bisexual. She joins the dating app and indicates that she is interested in being introduced to people of either sex. Zile is pansexual and genderqueer. Zile does not wish to disclose zer sex as Zile does not believe sex is important. Therefore, on joining the dating app Zile chooses not to provide this information. Zey will not be matched with either Jamila or Saskia, but will be matched with other users of the app who have indicated that they do not need to know the sex of people they may meet for dates. 

Shared space 

Frieda rents out property to paying guests using an online service. She has a holiday cottage that she lets out and has guests to stay with her in her home. While anybody can book the cottage, for those staying in her home she specifies only female guests, as they are sharing her living space. The service validates the identity of all guests booking but requires information on sex only from those who are seeking to book properties that are restricted on this basis. 

Workplace security

A workplace uses a digital ID system for entry and for logging onto the IT system by fingerprint. Yusuf is gender-fluid and sometimes identifies as Yasemin. The employers’ data system includes both Yusuf’s legal name and nickname, as well as Yusuf’s sex. When entering the building the automatic gate recognises Yusuf/Yasemin’s fingerprint. Both names can be seen by security staff on screen, together with a photograph. Information on Yusuf/Yasemin’s sex is not immediately visible on screen, but could be accessed if needed. 

Social care 

Denise and Alex are both carers who work for a domiciliary care agency. The agency uses an app-based system to match available carers and send them to people’s homes to provide personal care. When Denise and Alex joined the agency, they validated their sex as part of the safeguarding and onboarding process. Denise is a woman and Alex is a man. Many of the agency’s clients are elderly women who have indicated that they want to receive intimate care only from female care workers. Some clients have indicated that this is their preference, but they will accept a male carer. Others have indicated that they do not mind either way. The care agency’s app is able to match Denise and Alex with clients according to the clients’ preferences. The app sends a notification to the client that the carer has been allocated before the booking is confirmed, and it includes their name, photo and sex as well as information about when this carer has visited before. A client is able to accept or reject that carer, either on this particular occasion or permanently, before the carer sets off to visit the client. 

Sporting categories 

Selina, who is 16, is a keen athlete. She competes in her school team, trains with her local running club, competes at county level and aims to qualify for the youth national games. She hopes to go on to compete at European and Olympic level. She is registered with England Athletics through her local running club, and her running times in heats and competitions are recorded against her registration number. Her sex and date of birth were recorded when she first registered, based on her showing her birth certificate to the registration secretary of her club. This allows her to enter races in her correct age and sex class. She knows that if she qualifies for the national team she will need to consent to and undertake a test by a cheek swab to confirm she has 46XX (female) chromosomes. This is a one-time test and the data will be added to her registration to secure the integrity of women’s sports competitions. 

Age verification 

A digital ID system is available for people to validate their age at the supermarket or pub for the purposes of buying alcohol. This works through a digital identity “wallet” that is activated by a fingerprint scanner on a phone. The app generates a QR code that can be scanned by retail staff to receive confirmation that the person is over 18 years old. These staff do not see any further details such as name, sex or photograph. Stephanie is transgender: a male person who wishes to be treated socially as female. Although showing an ID that states Stephanie’s sex as male would not reveal any information that is not visible to a casual observer, doing so nevertheless makes Stephanie feel uncomfortable, and has led to unwelcome comments in the past. Using the digital app avoids sparking awkward conversations. 

Notes

Note that in all these examples, the data in the “sex” attribute is treated in exactly the same way whether the person has a trans identity or not. Therefore nothing is flagged up and no special status is needed. Nor is the fact that someone identifies as transgender recorded or assessed. Rather, sex is treated like any other attribute and used or shared only with consent or for a legitimate reason where consent is not required, such as in the course of a criminal investigation. This is in line with ordinary data-protection principles.

Service providers may also record the fact that a person identifies as transgender, if the person has shared this information and provided consent for its use, as well as other user-provided data such as the person’s title and preferred pronouns. This information may be helpful in enabling transgender people to be accommodated without requiring sex to be misrecorded on identity systems.

Appendix B: Mapping the sex data problem

This appendix looks in more detail at how sex is currently allowed to be misrecorded in official ID and data systems.

Passports 

When a person applies for a UK passport, they must tick one of two boxes marked “gender” – the options are “male” or “female”. In most cases the source document for this is the person’s birth certificate, which shows their sex. There is no legal definition of “gender” and no defined objective property called “gender” about a person. On the passport itself, male or female is displayed as “sex” in line with international passport standards. Thus what is recorded on a passport in the first instance is a person’s sex as recorded on their birth certificate.

Figure 4: How sex data is described for passports 

However, the Passport Office allows a person to apply to have the sex recorded on their passport changed to display the marker of the opposite sex. They must send in a doctor’s letter “confirming that the orientation to the acquired gender is likely to be permanent”. These letters are basic, and a template can be downloaded from support organisations and signed during a seven-minute GP appointment, by either an NHS or a private practitioner. No medical or surgical treatment is required: simply a declaration by a person to a doctor that they intend to permanently adopt the social gender of the opposite sex (for example by changing their name and title). 

Therefore, a passport that says “Sex – F” can be held by a person who is either male or female. Similarly, a passport that says “Sex – M” can be held by a person who is either female or male. 

Passports are issued at the discretion of the Home Secretary in exercise of Royal Prerogative. The decision to allow the sex recorded on a passport to be changed in this way was not made by Parliament or by courts. At first it was negotiated on an individual basis, with the first known case being in the 1960s when Arthur Cameron Corbett, the third Baron Rowallan, asked for and received a female passport for his fiancée April Ashley, a male-to-female transsexual (at a time when far fewer people held passports).²⁹ This was later formalised as an administrative practice. 

The Passport Office now issues guidance leaflets on how to change the recorded “sex” on a passport, in association with groups such as the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES).³⁰

In response to freedom-of-information requests, the Passport Office has previously stated that it does not know how many people have changed the sex marker on their passport: 

“The information you have requested on how many individuals have changed the sex marker on their British passport is not held in a readily available format. To determine whether an applicant has changed their gender on a passport would involve manually searching all our passport records and this would not be possible within the cost limit.”³¹

More recently it has started to collate this information.

Driving licences 

For a driving licence, the application form asks for the applicant’s “gender”: female or male. This information is not shown on the face of the licence, but encoded in a driver number made up of letters of the driver’s name, a code number based on year and month of birth, and their “gender” (the second number is 1 or 2 for a man and 5 or 6 for a woman, depending on the month of their birth).

Figure 5: Driving licence online form gender options 

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) replied to a customer who complained that the information that is held is “sex” not “gender”. 

Figure 6: Letter from the DVLA 

However, the recorded “gender” (or “sex”) on a driving licence can be changed by submitting a name-change document (statutory declaration or deed poll) with a covering letter requesting a change of name and a new number. A new driving licence can also be applied for using an existing passport. In this case the “gender” on a driving licence will match the “sex” on the passport (which can be changed with a doctor’s letter). 

This policy was brought in in 2002. Before that it was DVLA policy to require supporting evidence from a GP or consultant stating that a person was going through “gender transition”. 

This policy was changed following pressure from transsexual support groups. The DVLA says:

“By granting a driving licence, DVLA is not attempting to legally recognise a change of gender and nothing on the driving licence is intended to provide official recognition of gender.”³²

Between 2018 and 2023 more than 15,000 driving licence records had the recorded gender changed. It is not known how many were recorded before this, or how many first driving licences are recorded in an acquired gender. 

Figure 7: Gender changes on driving licences by year³³

In 2018 the DVLA said that it was considering the possibility of moving to “gender neutral” driver numbers and driving licences.³⁴

NHS records

In 2009, the NHS recognised the need for clear systems to record biological sex and make sure this was not conflated with social gender. A system of data and definitions that could deal with both was painstakingly created. The data standard explained: 

“The term ‘gender’ is now considered too ambiguous to be desirable or safe…”³⁵ 

It set out definitions for patient “sex” and “current gender” and warned: 

“Users may confuse the terms current gender and sex or assume that they are synonymous. Therefore, it is essential that all NHS applications display and explain

current gender and sex terminology and values in a clear and consistent manner.”

The data standard set out in detail how to keep these two characteristics separate and unconfused, and how to design computer interfaces to ensure that sex data was captured (with social gender as an optional extra). It also set out potential consequences of not adhering to these standards. These included: 

1. The patient is given the wrong treatment as a result of a failure to identify the patient correctly. 
2. The patient is given the wrong treatment as a result of a failure to match the patient correctly with their artefacts (samples, letters, specimens, X-rays, and so on). 
3. The patient is given the wrong treatment as a result of a failure in communication between staff, or staff not performing or checking procedures correctly. 
4. The patient is categorised with a value that cannot be utilised by any other systems. 
5. The patient is categorised incorrectly from a legal perspective. 
6. The patient is categorised incorrectly from their perspective.³⁶ 

Key principles shaping the guidance included displaying information according to existing standards; minimising opportunities for human error; displaying sufficient instructional information to support data quality; promoting consistency across the mix of users, NHS clinical applications and care settings; ensuring reliable and accurate identification of an individual patient record; and minimising opportunities where patient-clinician relationships might be compromised. However, the data standard was not operationalised.

The current NHS data dictionary differentiates “phenotypic sex” (as observed by a clinician) and “patient stated gender”. But in practice “male” and “female” are recorded against “patient stated gender” and the “phenotypic sex” field typically remains empty. The core demographic data on each person’s NHS record is “Person Stated Gender Code” (male/female), but this does necessarily record a person’s sex as recorded at birth.³⁷ New codes have been introduced to deal with the ambiguity, including a “Gender Identity Same at Birth Indicator Code” (Yes/No).

The current validation does not check against gender, when matching an individual with their NHS number and records: it uses name and date of birth.³⁸

The guidance for the NHS Mental Health Services data set says to prioritise the Gender Identity Code and the “Gender Identity Same at Birth Indicator Code” and not directly ask a patient’s biological sex. It states: 

“All services should be asking all patients inclusive questions to identify relevant care information. It is not safe to make assumptions about an individual using the Person Stated Gender code.”³⁹ 

Researchers have reported that NHS data systems link data about a person’s gender identity and how they wish to be addressed (pronouns, titles), so that the only way to change the elements that relate to social interaction rather than physiology is to change gender in the record. For example, one interviewee said: 

“Person who is registered as female cannot have a request to be addressed as ‘Mr’ noted in their health record.”⁴⁰

Policies to allow patients to change their registered “gender/sex” are now embedded across the health service. 

• The GMC tells doctors to change a patient’s sex as recorded on medical records on request. This does not require medical diagnosis, anatomical changes or a GRC.⁴¹ 
• Primary Care Support England tells GP surgeries to change a patient’s recorded sex on their medical record on demand at any time, without requiring diagnosis or any form of gender-reassignment treatment. The patient is to be given a new NHS number (a completely new identity in relation to NHS data systems) and previous medical information must be “gender neutralised” and transferred into a newly created medical record. The patient will be sent screening appointments (for example, for cervical smear tests or prostate cancer screening) according to their new gender. That is, they will be invited to attend the wrong screenings and not invited to attend the right ones.⁴² 

Several NHS trusts in England use a data system provided by US-based IT company Epic Systems.⁴³ It records as default a person’s “legal sex” (male, female, “non-binary” or X, even though only male or female are recognised as sexes in UK law).⁴⁴ Data on a person’s actual biological sex can be found further down under “gender identity” in a voluntary field marked “patient’s sex assigned at birth”. If this field is not filled in, then there is no reliable record of the patient’s biological sex.⁴⁵ Unless other data systems draw on this field and not the field marked “legal sex” or “gender identity”, a patient’s sex may be confused or hidden when it is needed. 

Figure 9: Epic screen

Police records

The National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Person, Object, Location, Event (POLE) data framework requires that an individual’s identity is recorded with “4+1” pieces of information – their given name, surname, date of birth, “gender” and contact information. Under “Gender” the options are Male, Female, Trans Male, Trans Female, Non-Binary Intersex, Not Specified and Not Known.⁴⁶ This is overcomplex and confusing, and combines two pieces of information in a single field – whether the person is male or female and whether they identify as transgender. It also makes it impossible to search for records that relate to an individual’s actual sex, since this is not a field. This may lead to misidentification of suspects, missing persons and others.

Disclosure and Barring Service checks

The Disclosure and Barring Service undertakes criminal-record checks and checks against the “barred list” for individuals applying for particular classes of role in England and Wales (there is a similar service for Scotland). Standard and Enhanced DBS checks include spent convictions and are required for roles with safeguarding considerations including working with children and vulnerable adults such as teaching, health and social care. 

Applicants for a DBS fill in their name and other personal details and their “gender” (male or female) together with previous names and addresses. “Gender” here means current self-declared gender. The applicant’s name, gender, previous names and a record of relevant past convictions, cautions, reprimands and warnings found through a search of records are provided on the face of the certificate. 

The overall system depends on individuals being honest and comprehensive about declaring previous names. All applicants are required to sign a legal declaration confirming they have disclosed both their current and previous identities. The person checking the form is required to check the individual’s name, date of birth, and address against their documentation and to check the person’s likeness against a photographic identity such as a passport or driving licence. If there is a mistake in the record (for example criminal convictions that relate to the wrong person are returned) the applicant can contest the results. Police may then ask for fingerprints to prove their identity. 

A key issue that has been raised by campaigners is the vulnerability of the overall system to sex offenders changing their names (and potentially also their gender) and using this to hide their past record and get access to children and vulnerable people. Research by the BBC found that between 2019 and 2021, over 700 registered sex offenders went missing from the police record.⁴⁷

In addition, individuals who identify as transgender are able to use the “Sensitive Applications Route” which means they can choose not to have previous names disclosed on the face of the DBS certificate or directly to their employer.⁴⁸ To do this they contact the sensitive applications team, which sets up a case file related to all their previous identities. This allows all their previous names to be included in the check without being disclosed to their prospective employer. 

Campaigners have argued that this makes it easier to hide identities.⁴⁹ The Disclosure and Barring Service has responded, saying: 

“Our Sensitive Applications process introduces no additional risk to DBS checks; it merely affords transgender applicants with the legal protections that they are entitled to.”⁵⁰ 

However, the existence of the sensitive application route means that if an individual’s current identity is clearly not the same as their biological sex, the staff member undertaking checks of their previous names is discouraged from asking questions. They must assume that the person has used the “sensitive route” to make full disclosure, but they have no way of checking this. Meanwhile, staff in the sensitive application team lack the local on-the-ground information and face-to-face contact to probe that an applicant has disclosed all previous names.

Over the past five years over 4,000 sensitive DBS checks have been undertaken. It is not known how many transgender applicants have undergone DBS checks outside of the sensitive route. 

Figure 9: Sensitive route DBS checks by year⁵¹

In response to a freedom-of-information request, the DBS service said that the only difference between an application under the sensitive applications route and the regular route is that an application under the sensitive route “will be checked against both male and female gender within the system whereas a non-transgender application will only be checked against the declared gender”.⁵²

This reveals a critical risk in the DBS system for transgender applicants who choose not to use the sensitive route. A transgender person who is “out” about being transgender and happy not to use the sensitive route will record all their previous names on the form, but the DBS will only search police national computer (PNC) records and the barred list based on their current “gender”. It would therefore miss convictions linked to the person’s previous name because it would be searching for the wrong “gender”. This loophole is not caused by the applicant withholding any information.

A further risk caused by the treatment of the “gender” field is that it is likely to give employers false confidence that they can ignore the sex of an employee when thinking about safeguarding, and to make them fear that they are not legally entitled to ask a person’s sex. But in many roles for which a standard or enhanced DBS check is needed sex matters, for example in relation to providing personal care or intimate care or in searching, or for working in a single-sex setting such as a women’s refuge or providing care on a same-sex basis. In these situations a responsible employer is likely to want to know, record and use information about the sex of the individual, but the DBS certificate and the existence of the sensitive route suggests to them that  they cannot. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has confirmed that it is lawful to restrict a role based on actual sex.⁵³ However, in practice there is no administrative means for a potential employer to ask an applicant for verified evidence of their sex. “Safer recruitment” for working with children and vulnerable people, such as in care situations, requires not just a robust process of checking police records, but also having honest and searching conversations about people’s motivations and life history.⁵⁴ But this is undermined by the design of the DBS system, and its assumption that it is legitimate to hide previous names even when applying for a highly sensitive position.

Birth certificates 

The Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA)⁵⁵ allows a person to have a new birth certificate issued which indicates that they were born the opposite sex. This requires a diagnosis of gender dysphoria (with reports from two doctors) and two years’ worth of documentary evidence of “living in the opposite gender” – paperwork such as wage slips, passport, utility bills showing a new name, title or “gender marker”. It can also include letters from employers, voluntary organisations or others. It does not require medical or surgical changes to a person’s body, or a personal appearance before a panel. It is not an assessment that a person “passes” in everyday life as a member of the opposite sex. 

Since the outset of the scheme in 2004, 8,464 full GRCs have been issued. The rate of issuance has recently increased from a fairly steady rate of around 300 a year to 1,088 in the last financial year.⁵⁶

Figure 10: Number of full GRCs issued per year

When a person receives a GRC, a copy is sent to the appropriate Registrar General (for England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland), depending on their birth registration), who makes an entry in the Gender Recognition Register (which is not open to public inspection). This enables the connection between that entry and the entry in the birth register to be traced. The entry is used to create a new birth certificate which records the acquired name and gender.

The ability to change identity in this way creates a risk of identity theft, as it leaves a “discarded identity” in the birth register. This was noted by Lady Hale in the case of C v Secretary of State [2007]: 

“There is a particular risk of identity theft in the case of transgender customers. A fraudster may obtain a birth certificate in the customer’s original name and use this, along with other evidence, to obtain a National Insurance number allocated to that name (two linked examples of this were detected in 2012).” 

However, for the purposes of digital verification of sex, a person’s original birth registration is an authoritative source.

The GRA does not require that history be rewritten in people’s memory or perception, but Section 22 creates some constraints over direct disclosure of the fact that a person has a GRC. It makes it a criminal offence for a person who has acquired protected information about someone with a GRC while acting in an official capacity to disclose that information to any other person. It provides for specific circumstances (such as for the purpose of a social-security system or in pursuit of crime) in which disclosure without permission is not an offence. 

In practice, any information system that records a person’s current legal sex and previous name and title is likely to reveal that they have changed their legal sex. 

Organisations that keep a record of a person’s legal sex over time therefore place an extra layer of protection around these records, flagging them as sensitive and often keeping part of the record as a physical file in a locked filing cabinet. For example, the Department of Work and Pensions is required by law to treat people according to their recorded sex when it comes to calculating pension entitlements. It therefore keeps records of a person’s current and previously recorded sex, as well as names. It has a “Special Customer Records Policy” for protecting the records of categories of customers whose information is sensitive. This includes members of the Royal Family, MPs, VIPs, people in high-risk employment, victims of domestic violence and people with witness-protection orders.⁵⁷ It is applied to anyone who has a GRC (unless they ask for it not to be). 

A person who has changed their legal sex through a GRC therefore has records marked as restricted. Customer-service advisors can access them only with permission, with part of the record kept on paper. 

This policy was designed to protect the privacy of information, but it has the unavoidable consequence of drawing the attention of frontline staff to its existence. The operation of the policy causes inconvenience and delay in accessing benefits, and advisors may be able to deduce the reason why a customer’s account is flagged as restricted.⁵⁸ 

The confidentiality afforded by Section 22 was intended to be limited, and to be applied only to a tiny group of people. In practice, however, it creates problems for any organisation seeking to record information about sex, or to apply straightforward sex-based rules in general, because it makes them afraid to ask, record or act on anyone’s sex in case they might have a GRC. As a result, many organisations do not record anyone’s biological or legal sex at all, instead recording “self-identified gender”. This avoids the potential risk of Section 22 liability, but also makes it impossible to routinely and reliably verify anyone’s sex from their records.

1. UK Parliament (2024). ‘Parliamentary Bills: Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]’.
2. UK Parliament (2024). ‘Parliamentary Bills: Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]’.
3. UK Government (accessed November 2024). Office for Digital Identities and Attributes.
4. UK Government (2023). UK digital identity and attributes trust framework beta version (0.3).
5. Information Commissioner’s Office (accessed November 2024). A guide to the data protection principles.
6. European Court of Human Rights (2024). Guide on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
7. Regina (WA (Palestinian Territories)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021].
8. See Bellinger v Bellinger [2003] UKHL 21.
9. For example for the purposes of marriage and pensions (and thus HMRC and DWP records).
10. Very rarely someone’s biological sex may be misdiagnosed at birth.
11. Figures compiled from freedom-of-information requests through Who Do They Know.
12. Figures compiled from freedom-of-information requests through Who Do They Know and Steph Spyro (2024). ‘Changing gender on official papers is “too easy” amid record high for driver’s licences’, Express.
13. Ministry of Justice (2024). Tribunal Statistics Quarterly: April to June 2024.
14. Office for National Statistics (2023). ‘Gender identity’, Data and analysis from Census 2021, and Scotland’s Census (2024). Sexual orientation and trans status or history.
15. Michael Biggs (2024). ‘Gender Identity in the 2021 Census of England and Wales: How a Flawed Question Created Spurious Data’, Sociology, 0(0).
16. NHS (2009). Sex and Current Gender Input and Display User Interface Design Guidance.
17. UK Government (2023). UK digital identity and attributes trust framework – beta version.
18. UK Government (2023). UK digital identity and attributes trust framework – beta version.
19. UK Government (2024). ‘Authoritative sources’, How to prove and verify someone’s identity.
20. Information Commissioner’s Office (2024). Information Commissioner’s response to the Data (Use and Access) (DUA) Bill.
21. Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (2015). Letter from the Strategy Policy and Communications Directorate, What Do They Know.
22. London Gatwick Airport (accessed November 2024) ‘Security screening’.
23. James Issokson (2019). ‘It’s Time to Enable People to Use Their True Name on Cards’, Mastercard.
24. Edgar A Whitley (2018). Trusted digital identity provision: GOV.UK Verify’s federated approach.
25. Sex Matters (2021). ‘NHS: let’s talk about sex’.
26. Ross Tucker, Emma N. Hilton, Kerry McGawley et al (2024). ‘Fair and Safe Eligibility Criteria for Women’s Sport’, Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports 34, no. 8 (2024): e14715.
27. NHS England (2024). ‘Birth notification process’.
28. UK Government (1953). Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953.
29. Corbett v Corbett [1970].
30. Home Office Identity & Passport Services (2013). Applying for a passport: Additional information for transgender and transsexual customers.
31. Murray Blackburn Mackenzie (2021). ‘ONS guidance for the sex question in the 2021 census in England and Wales’.
32. Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (2018). Letter in response to freedom of information request FOIR7098, What Do They Know.
33. Figures compiled from freedom-of-information requests through Who Do They Know and Steph Spyro (2024). ‘Changing gender on official papers is “too easy” amid record high for driver’s licences’, Express.
34. Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (2018). Stonewall Workplace Equality index response.
35. NHS (2009). Sex and Current Gender Input and Display User Interface Design Guidance.
36. NHS (2009). Sex and Current Gender Input and Display User Interface Design Guidance.
37. NHS England (2024). Guidance on collecting and submitting data for the data items on gender within the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS) v5.0.
38.  NHS England (2022). CP-IS NHS number matching information.
39. NHS England (accessed November 2024). ‘Data collections and data sets’.
40. Kavya Kartik (2024). ‘“The computer won’t do that” – Exploring the impact of clinical information systems in primary care on transgender and non-binary adults’, Ada Lovelace Institute.
41. General Medical Council (2024). Trans healthcare.
42. NHS Primary Care Support England (accessed November 2024). ‘Adoptions and Gender Reassignment’.
43. Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (2020). ‘MFT signs contract with Epic for ambitious new EPR solution’, 26th May 2020.
44. Epic (2017). ‘More Inclusive Care for Transgender Patients Using Epic’.
45. Sex Matters (2023). ‘An Epic crisis is unfolding in the NHS’.
46. National Police Chiefs’ Council (2023). Minimum POLE Data Standards Dictionary.
47. Alex Homer (2023). ‘Hundreds of UK sex offenders went missing, figures show’, BBC News.
48. UK Government (2022). ‘Transgender applications’.
49. Keep Prisons Single Sex (2022). DBS Checks and Identity Verification: Safeguarding loopholes created by change of identity
50. Hayley Dixon (2022). ‘Trans criminals can use “loophole” to hide previous convictions when applying for jobs’, The Telegraph.
51. Disclosure and Barring Service (2024). Freedom of Information requests, What Do They Know.
52. Disclosure and Barring Service (2024). Letter in response to freedom of information request 2399, What Do They Know.
53. Equality and Human Rights Commission (2024). Guidance on discriminatory adverts.
54. The Safeguarding Toolbox (accessed November 2024). ‘Warner Interviewing’.
55. UK Government (2004). The Gender Recognition Act 2004.
56. Ministry of Justice (2024). Tribunal Statistics Quarterly: April to June 2024.
57. McConnell v The Registrar General for England and Wales [2020] and Department of Work and Pensions(2014). Response to freedom of information request, What Do They Know.
58. McConnell v The Registrar General for England and Wales [2020].

The post Sex and the Data Bill appeared first on Sex Matters.

These organisations were writing about the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) before the leak of WPATH files and include useful introductions to what WPATH is and what it does. See also our recent blog post about the leaked WPATH files and why they matter.

Reduxx

In May 2022, the independent feminist news outlet Reduxx published an exposé of the SOC8 chapter on “eunuch identified people”, showing how it drew extensively on research collected from the Eunuch Archives, a hardcore fetish site featuring child sexual exploitation fantasies centred around stopping little boys from going through puberty.

Critical Therapy Antidote

In November 2022 Peter Jenkins of Thoughtful Therapists wrote for Critical Therapy Antidote, a broad-based collective whose members are committed to maintaining the clinical therapeutic space as functionally apolitical, a fascinating article on the influence of WPATH on gender medicine in the UK, both in the NHS and in private clinics. Jenkins is a counsellor, trainer, researcher and author of Professional Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy: Ethics and the Law (Sage, 2017).

CAN-SG

This collective of British clinicians campaigning for evidence-based approaches to gender distress describes WPATH’s influence in the UK as extensive in its FAQs: 

“In the UK, activism calling for widespread adoption of SOCv7 influenced the creation of NHS policies on transgender health (Gender Identity Research and Education Society, no date), such as guidance produced by the Royal College of Psychiatrists (Wylie et al., 2014).”

WPATH’s influence on the NHS

NHS training and guidance

In 2013, an NHS guide for GPs and other healthcare staff on gender-dysphoria services (archived version) was “informed by the seventh edition of the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care”. This marked a clear shift towards WPATH’s “affirmative” model of care, which redefined the role of therapists and clinicians as facilitators of transition without question rather than providers of objective, neutral healthcare and support.

GIDs treatment protocols

The House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee’s discussion of transgender equality in 2015 reveals how influential WPATH was in shaping the treatment approach of the NHS’s Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock clinic in London. The shift away from defining gender dysphoria as a psychiatric condition in need of compassionate mental health support and towards defining it as a normal healthy variation of human existence in need of affirmation and medical intervention is in line with WPATH’s “depsychopathologization” campaign of the early 2010s.

Relevant extracts from the committee’s first report of its 2015–16 session:

191. GIRES explained to us that homosexuality was once classified as a disease, until its removal from the World Health Organization (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD) in 1992. Attitudes in respect of gender identity are now likewise shifting. Under the ICD, “transsexualism” has been, and still is, classified under “Mental and Behavioural Disorders”. Consequently, “treatment in the UK has, typically, been led by psychiatry.” However, the WHO is expected to revise the ICD accordingly. The “psychopathological model” of trans identity will be “abandoned, in favour of a model that reflects current scientific evidence and best practice”. This will accord with the Standards of Care promulgated by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which describe trans identity as “a common and culturally diverse human phenomenon that should not be judged as inherently pathological or negative”.

200. A number of witnesses argued for the “informed-consent model”, which is said to be used by some private providers of gender-reassignment / confirmation treatment in the USA. This entails imposing a minimum of clinical preconditions for treatment, on the basis that if the patient is able to give informed consent their wishes should be treated as Paramount.

201. Counter-arguments to this approach focus on: the requirement on clinicians to observe established clinical, professional and ethical standards (including those set by WPATH); and the need to ensure that finite NHS resources are spent appropriately and effectively. In addition, the informed-consent only model is not used in any other area of practice within the NHS.

203. We subsequently received a further written submission from NHS England explaining that the current clinical protocols are in accordance with UK Intercollegiate Good Practice Guidelines and WPATH clinical standards. 

244. Bernadette Wren, Head of Psychology and Associate Director at the Tavistock Clinic, told us that its treatment protocols are based on WPATH guidelines which are almost universally observed in Europe.

Read the full House of Commons report.

The NHS’s Standard Contract for Gender Identity Development Service for Children and Adolescents in 2017 (for the period 2016–2020) – its specification for what the service will deliver – repeatedly refers to the seventh version of WPATH’s Standards of care (SOC7).

NHS gender clinics referred to WPATH as recently as 2019.

A document from the Tavistock clinic which applies to the period between December 2022 and September 2024 says that clinical practice in the gender identity clinic (GIC) follows a “modified version of the WPATH Standards of Care v7”.

Two NHS Foundation Trusts – Nottinghamshire Healthcare and Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear – currently link healthcare professionals, including GPs, to the current version of Standards of care.

The Scottish Government’s gender-medicine protocol

In 2012 the Scottish Government wrote a Chief Executive Letter (which had to be followed) to health boards with the Gender Reassignment Protocol for Scotland:

“The protocol incorporates recommendations from the 7th edition of The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care, September 2011. The protocol sets out those procedures which may be provided on the NHS; procedures exclusive to gender reassignment should be accessed via this protocol.” 

In 2021, the update to the protocol advised the use of WPATH’s guidelines as a reference point.

“The updated GRP should also take into account relevant international guidance including the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) Guidelines.

“The NGICNS may wish to consider the following when establishing a programme of work to undertake a review and complete an update of the GRP: Ensuring an updated GRP is consistent with relevant WPATH guidelines.”

In 2022, the Scottish government planned to update the protocol in line with the latest version of Standards of care (SOC8). 

“The review will be based on principles of human rights and person centred care.

It will take into account in relation to gender identity healthcare:

Advances in evidence including World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care.”

Campaign groups urged the Scottish Government to abandon SOC8, but their concerns were dismissed. Plans to implement SOC8 were dropped only after the media reported on SOC8 controversies.

Instead, the new government guidance on endocrine and fertility preservation – which refers to WPATH – was published later in 2022. This is the current guidance for Scotland.

“The recommendations below are therefore based largely on national and international guidelines (e.g. WPATH).”

NHS Scotland

According to current documents from the Sandyford NHS Gender Clinic, its practice is still based on WPATH SOC7.

Sandyford Gender Identity Services booklet (adult services):

“Your treatment will be monitored and run in accordance with the guidelines set out in the ‘Standards of Care’ as laid down by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) ( www.wpath.org ) – and in the Gender Protocol for Scotland.”

The Young People’s Gender Service booklet does not refer to WPATH but follows its SOC7. 

Wales

The LGBTQ+ Independent Expert Panel commissioned by the Welsh Government wrote recommendations in a March 2021 report in which WPATH is cited several times. In one of these, it is described as the source of “authoritative international clinical guidelines” that “support the use of puberty blockers for trans youth, as one component of a holistic model of care”. In another, its 2010 De-pathologization statement is cited as the authority for the panel’s claim that regarding gender distress as requiring specialist psychiatric diagnosis “is now recognised as an inaccurate, stigmatising, and outdated approach to trans identities, which are a common and culturally-diverse human phenomenon which should not be judged as inherently pathological or negative.” Many of the panel’s recommendations were carried through to the Welsh Government’s 2023 LGBTQ+ action plan. 

Health Education and Improvement Wales provides continuing professional development modules for GPs working in Wales. These are open-access and available online. WPATH’s Standards of care version 7 is recommended in the “Resources” section of the module on Gender Diversity. 

The Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee is responsible for commissioning gender identity services in Wales. Its Specialised Services  Commissioning Policy: CP182a Policy Gender Identity Service for Adults (Non-Surgical) says the policy should be read “in conjunction with” WPATH SOC7 and cites WPATH as a source in its “evidence” section.

WPATH’s influence on UK medical organisations

British Medical Association 

The BMA guide Inclusive care of trans and non-binary patients recommends an affirming approach to patient care, as outlined by WPATH. The document links directly to WPATH’s SOC7. The document was last updated in March 2022.

General Medical Council

The GMC’s web page on professional standards for trans healthcare directs its members to WPATH’s Standards of care version 8 (SOC8).

The Royal College of Psychiatrists

In its 2013 Good practice guidelines for the assessment and treatment of adults with gender dysphoria, the Royal College of Psychiatrists referred to WPATH’s standards of care as an example of the sorts of “good clinical practice” that “have informed these UK standards of care”.

“The World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s (WPATH) standards of care for transsexual, transgender and gender non-conforming people have informed these UK standards of care (World Professional Association for Transgender Health, 2011). The endorsement by several medical Royal Colleges, allied medical professional societies and service user groups sends a strong signal for the adoption of these guidelines across the UK and beyond.”

(These guidelines were due to be reviewed in 2018, which does not appear to have happened. The document says that as of April 2023 a review is underway.) 

WPATH’s influence on private gender clinics

Gender Plus states that its practice is guided by WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) Standards of Care. Two team members, Drs Aidan Kelly and Lyndsey Moon, are WPATH members, and Sarah Favier has presented to WPATH members.

Gender GP states on its website that “its doctors follow the peer-reviewed, published International Guidance from the WPATH”. The private clinic follows WPATH’s criteria for assessing surgical readiness, and boasts that its “medications are prescribed in line with international standards of best practice, like the WPATH Standards of Care”.

Activist groups pushing WPATH’s approach to gender medicine

Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES)

GIRES, a charity founded in 1997 by the parents of a trans-identified young person, sought the adoption of WPATH’s Standards of care in the UK by serving on the intercollegiate committee that published the Good Practice Guidelines and the two NHS England clinical reference groups that developed the specifications for gender identity services, respectively for adults and young people. 

GIRES also funded the translation of WPATH’s SOC7 (2012) into 17 foreign languages, thus spreading its influence beyond the Anglosphere.

“WPATH gratefully acknowledges the generous support of GIRES (Gender Identity Research and Education Society) of the UK, which has made our SOC translation efforts possible.”

Stonewall 

In July 2023 Stonewall released a statement on NHS England’s revised interim service specification produced after the interim report of the Cass Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People, saying that it welcomed “the specification being more clearly aligned with relevant international clinical standards, in particular WPATH Standards of Care 8”.

Mermaids

Mermaids is probably the most influential of the various organisations pressing for gender services in the UK to align with WPATH. It repeatedly refers to WPATH as an authority when lobbying to lower the age at which children can be prescribed puberty blockers and hormones by NHS gender services. In its FAQs, it argues for early provision of puberty blockers, citing “the globally recognised Standards of Care V8 from WPATH”.

In a document that predates the publication of SOC8, Mermaids describes WPATH as “the leading authority” in gender medicine and says that the development of SOC8 is being carrying out by “world-leading experts in transgender care, including Mermaids CEO, Susie Green, who is a contributing member for the Children’s Chapter”.

In a public response to the NHS England consultation on changes to youth gender services, it says that a child’s gender “may be fluid and develop over time,” but that according to “international best practice”, this is “not sufficient justification to negate or deter social transition”. The authority it cites for these claims is SOC8. 

In the guidance it produced for the general public on how to respond to the consultation, it urged members of the public to mention WPATH in their responses, again describing its standards of care as “international best practice”.

Press For Change

This lobby group, one of the oldest in the UK (it was founded in 1992), describes itself as the leading expert in transgender law. It has been closely aligned with WPATH for decades. In 2007 one of its co-founders, Stephen Whittle, became the first non-medical professional and first trans-identifying person to serve as WPATH’s president. In the same year, Press For Change welcomed the change of name to WPATH (from the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association) as signalling a shift away from a “built-in pathology-based vision” of gender medicine towards a “more client-centred emphasis”. 

TransActual

This ‘by and for’ trans-identifying people lobby group welcomed the initial draft of SOC8 in the main, but was disappointed that the new guidance still retained any elements of caution. It complained about the chapter on adolescence, in particular, saying that it was:

“bizarre for the editors to have left any references to the widely debunked theories of ‘social contagion’ and ‘rapid onset gender dysphoria’ within the text, as the critique of them renders the references entirely irrelevant and unnecessary.”

(These theories have not in fact been debunked, and evidence supporting them continues to mount up.)

Scottish Trans

This lobby group has played a key role in encouraging the Scottish National Party and the devolved SNP government in Holyrood to introduce legal gender self-identification and to move from sex-based rules in areas such as prison allocation towards gender-based ones. Its vision is explicitly aligned with WPATH. In 2015, responding to a statement by WPATH in support of legal gender self-identification, it described WPATH as “long regarded as the world’s foremost authority on the medical treatment of transgender people”. 

LGBT Foundation

In this national charity’s response to the interim service specification, it urges NHS England to move away from “gender dysphoria” – a clinical term that conceptualises gender distress as a condition in need of treatment – to “gender incongruence”, which sees trans identification as a natural human variation, with medical treatment understood as being simply what the person wants. It describes the newer concept as “WPATH-approved”, as well as “more up-to-date and aligned with international clinical best practice”.

Gendered Intelligence

This charity, founded in 2008, lobbies for legal gender self-identification and the removal of gatekeeping in gender medicine. It offers a variety of training courses for individuals and organisations, in which it cites WPATH as an overarching authority on everything to do with trans people, from gender self-ID to medical approaches. For example, in a course on “Working Alongside Trans, Gender Diverse and Questioning People” aimed at therapists and counsellors, one of the topics covered is “The WPATH (The world Professional Association for Transgender Health) Standards of care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People and how they inform good practice”.

The post WPATH in the UK appeared first on Sex Matters.

Introduction

This report examines the effects of gender-identity beliefs on the women’s sector. It is based on interviews with leaders of organisations providing services to women who have experienced male violence.

The provision of women’s services is based not only on the practical need to provide services to men and women separately, nor even on the need to keep women physically safe from men who might attack or exploit them, but on the fundamentally different experiences, disadvantages and needs of women, both as victims of male violence and as offenders. 

Men tend to experience public, isolated incidents of violence at the hands of strangers. Women, by contrast, are most commonly abused in the private sphere by a man they know and on an ongoing basis. This abuse is often sexual. 

Women’s specialist services include rape-crisis centres, refuges, domestic-violence outreach projects and support for trafficked women and women in prostitution. These organisations offer multiple services in response to the wide-ranging needs of women and children who have experienced trauma at the hands of men. Some are “by and for” organisations, focused on women with particular characteristics of religion, ethnic group or disability.

Women’s services also include those that engage with women as offenders, encompassing women’s prisons and probation services, and women’s centres offering liaison, diversion and resettlement programmes for women involved in the criminal justice system. There is significant overlap between serving women as victims and as offenders because most women who have offended have also been victimised. Women in the criminal justice system have typically suffered far worse crimes than they committed: histories of violence and abuse, relationship problems and coercion by men feature strongly in women’s pathways into crime, alongside addiction and mental-health problems. More than two-thirds of women in prison have experienced domestic abuse, and more than two-thirds of women who are convicted of criminal offences have suffered head injuries, with the overwhelming majority caused in adulthood by male partners.¹

Services take the form of listening and counselling, providing information and advice, helplines, groups, training, support in engaging with the legal system and statutory services, accommodation, and support for survivors to become activists themselves. Organisations support women who have experienced violence in the past as well as those currently experiencing violence, and their children. Those in the voluntary sector were often set up – and are still partly governed and staffed – by women who are themselves survivors. 

Providing women’s services has always been a battle. Demand chronically outstrips supply. Women’s welfare is given too little attention by police and local authorities. Funding is precarious, often short-term and insecure. Underfunded services struggle to build capacity, plan for the future and recruit and retain staff. They face fierce competition in bids for public contracts from housing associations and large contractors, which may be more commercially efficient but are less responsive and less empowering and have less understanding of particular communities. Some local authorities are commissioning “gender-neutral” domestic-abuse services, leading to specialist women-centred services losing their contracts. 

In recent years, the sector has also faced a new challenge: the idea that people have gender identities that are unrelated to their physical bodies and more important than their sex. It is argued by those who promote this belief that “transwomen” (males who identify as women) are women and should be treated as women for all purposes, including within services that would otherwise be female-only. This belief, packaged as inclusion, has become influential across many parts of the public and voluntary sectors, and is often accompanied by calls for legal self-ID (allowing people to change their sex for legal purposes simply by saying so).

This report explores the practical effects of this belief on the sector, the people who work in it, and the women whose lives and well-being depend on the support the sector is able to provide.

The sector in numbers

The public supports women’s services

In January 2024 Sex Matters commissioned an independent poll¹⁵ of a representative sample of the public. This revealed that the British public overwhelmingly supports the provision of female-only services for women who have been the victims of rape, sexual assault or domestic violence. There is also strong support for those services to be clear that they exclude all males – including males who identify as women.

8 in 10 agree that women who have been the victims of rape, sexual assault or domestic violence should be able to access support in a female-only environment. 

7 in 10 agree that services for women who are victims of rape, sexual assault or domestic violence should state whether they offer a female-only environment or include male people who identify as women. 

6 in 10 agree that services for women who are victims of rape, sexual assault or domestic violence, when advertising for female support workers, should be allowed to exclude men who identify as women from applying.

“No problem”?

We commissioned this research in part to respond to the narrative advanced during debates about legal gender self-ID: that the women’s sector sees no conflict between women’s rights and the interests of men with transgender identities, and is unaffected by laws allowing people to change their sex as recognised by the state. 

• In 2018, Stonewall and nfpResearch published a report on trans inclusion in domestic and sexual-violence services. It carried the logos of key women’s-sector organisations and painted a picture of a sector that accepts that “woman” is a term based on self-identity, not biology. It implied that female survivors of male violence experience no negative impacts when they share support services with males who identify as women.¹⁶

• In Scotland, a joint statement published by Engender, Scottish Women’s Aid, Rape Crisis Scotland and others said: “All violence against women organisations that receive Scottish government funding provide trans-inclusive services. The requirement for trans inclusion plans has been in place for six years, and has not given rise to any concerns or challenges of which we are currently aware. Rather, trans women have added to our movements through their support, through volunteering, and as staff members of our organisations.”¹⁷ Edinburgh Rape Crisis is run by a transwoman.

• More recently, a group of Scottish NGOs wrote to the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls reprimanding her for intervening in the debate on self-ID in Scotland, saying: “All rape crisis services in Scotland are inclusive of transwomen and have been for 15 years. In those 15 years, there has not been a single incident of anyone abusing this.”¹⁸

• The Women’s Equality Party adopted a motion supporting the right of transgender people to self-determine their gender and to obtain gender-recognition certificates on that basis, while also reaffirming its support for single-sex services to be provided “as allowed by exemptions under the Equality Act, as long as they do so lawfully”.¹⁹

But women using these services are in a vulnerable position that allows them little pushback against the way that services are delivered: they know they risk losing access if they provide any challenge.²⁰ Those providing them are subject to funding pressures, career pressures and social pressures. Many tell us they are concerned but are afraid to speak up. 

It is particularly concerning that many of the public bodies with statutory obligations under the Victims’ Codes for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are past or present members of the Stonewall Champions or Workplace Equality Index schemes and have been trained, ranked and incentivised by Stonewall to adopt its approach, which is that transwomen are women and should be treated as women for all purposes.²¹

The work of Dr Shonagh Dillon and Dr Karen Ingala Smith, both leaders and experts in the women’s sector, has done a great deal to discredit the claim that this approach causes no problems, and to challenge those who say there should be no debate. Dillon conducted interviews with people with a range of views on sex and gender for her PhD. She found that even proponents of legal self-ID recognise, in many cases, the value of female-only services.²² She interviewed five people whose organisations participated in the Stonewall and nfpResearch project, and found their views to contradict the Stonewall findings. “What was clear was they wanted to be able to support trans clients in a safe environment, but not necessarily in the same space as women.”²³

In her recent book Defending Women’s Spaces, Ingala Smith refutes the implication of the Stonewall and nfpResearch project that female survivors experience no adverse impacts when they share support services with transwomen. She argues that risk assessments cannot allow for the safe admission of males into female spaces, and that women who have been subject to male violence may have a trauma response to the presence of males, however those males identify. Being forced to accept men as women is a form of gaslighting that may compound the harms these women have already experienced.²⁴

Professor Jo Phoenix has researched and written about the importance of single-sex provision for women in the criminal justice system, and argues that conflating women and transwomen does not serve the needs of either group.²⁵ Ex-prison governors Kate Donegan, Rhona Hotchkiss and Ian Acheson, and Richard Garside of the Centre for Crime and Justice, have also highlighted the vulnerability of women in the criminal justice system and argued for female-only settings.²⁶

One of the first women’s refuge providers to openly and proudly defend single-sex services in the face of challenges to the definition of woman was Nia.²⁷ In March 2022, The Women’s Resource Centre ²⁸ and the Women’s Aid Federation released statements defending the provision of single-sex domestic-abuse services. The Women’s Aid statement was condemned by Galop, an LGBTQ+ charity, which said that it was “inaccurately conflating trans women with perpetrators of abuse and violence”.²⁹ When the Equality and Human Rights Commission raised concerns about the proposal to enact legal self-ID in Scotland, including its effect on practices within the criminal justice system, the response by Stonewall was to declare the commission “not fit for purpose” and seek censure by the United Nations.³⁰

During debates on the Gender Recognition Reform Bill in Scotland, concerns were raised about the adverse effects of legal self-ID on the ability to provide women’s services by the EHRC and the UN Special Rapporteur for Women and Girls, as well as groups such as For Women Scotland, Murray Blackburn MacKenzie, Fair Play For Women, Keep Prisons Single Sex, Woman’s Place UK and Sex Matters. Those who raise such concerns face intimidation, threats and violence.³¹ 

These concerns, presented by the UK government in its reasons for blocking the bill, were upheld in December 2023 as reasonable by the Court of Session.³² 

We know from hundreds of hushed and fearful conversations with those working at the frontline in the women’s sector that there are similar dynamics at play both within the sector and inside organisations. In her research, Dillon reports that some interviewees “felt silenced and unwilling to enter the debate because of the aggressive nature of transgender ideology”. We commissioned this research to capture and amplify some of those voices. 

The Equality Act and the Istanbul Convention

We also commissioned this report to explore with leaders in the women’s sector the practical importance to them of the definition of sex in law, specifically in relation to the Equality Act, and whether clarifying that it means the objective, biological categories of male and female would make a difference. ³³

The Equality Act makes it unlawful to discriminate against or harass people on the basis of their sex, while also making provision for single-sex services (which by their nature involve discriminating on the basis of sex). The public-sector equality duty requires that public authorities must have due regard to the need to advance equality of opportunity between those who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not. This means they have to consider how policies impact on women (and men) and on transgender people, as well as on other groups. 

The question of what defines people as a member of the group “women” for the purposes of the Equality Act has been uncertain. There are three possibilities:

• Actual sex. Woman means someone who is female (i.e. born female). 
• Self-identified gender. Being a woman is a self-defined status. 
• Certified sex. The Gender Recognition Act allows people who meet certain criteria to change their sex for some legal purposes. 

Guidance given for several years amounted to self-ID by stealth,³⁴ encouraging service providers to consider self-identified gender instead of sex. Dillon’s research suggests that many within the sector perceive self-identification into women’s spaces to be “already law”.

Our research was undertaken while the legal interpretation of the Equality Act was being considered by the courts. In December 2022 the Scottish Court of Session declared that sex in the Equality Act means a person’s natal sex, unless they have a gender-recognition certificate.³⁵ This means that sex does not equate to self-identified gender, but nor does the law recognise that biological women as a group share a protected characteristic. This judgment was upheld in the Inner House of the Court of Session in November 2023.³⁶

Biological males who have become “legally female” through the acquisition of a gender-recognition certificate (GRC) can still be excluded from a women-only service provided this is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

This complex legal situation and history of incorrect guidance mean that services do not always feel comfortable offering services that are truly single-sex. In 2019 the Women’s Resource Centre published a report that highlighted a lack of confidence in using the Equality Act to provide single-sex services.³⁷ Fair Play For Women also highlighted that organisations fear using the single-sex exceptions for fear of legal challenges and loss of funding.³⁸

This research aims to identify how these legal issues affect the ability of people working in the sector to do their jobs effectively, as well as the effect on their organisations, on female survivors of men’s violence and on women prisoners.

While single-sex services (that exclude males even with a GRC) remain lawful, the complexity of the situation over the definition in law will exacerbate and further embed the hostile environment for women’s-sector organisations. 

While the Equality Act concerns formal equality between men and women and is symmetrical in its protections, it has long been recognised that substantive equality depends on protecting women in particular. Treating women in the same way as men – especially in relation to criminal justice – ends up reproducing violence. 

The UK has ratified the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, which is founded on the recognition that “the realisation of de jure and de facto equality between women and men is a key element in the prevention of violence against women”. It recognises that violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between women and men, which have led to domination over, and discrimination against, women by men and to the prevention of the full advancement of women. It requires parties to take legislative and other measures specifically to prohibit discrimination against women, and to provide specialist support services to women who are the victims of sexual and domestic violence. 

A question we ask at the end of the report is whether the UK de facto laws are compliant with the Istanbul Convention. It is clear that the Istanbul Convention relates to women and men as the two sexes.³⁹

Methodology

Interviews were carried out by Matilda Gosling, who is the lead author of the report. The introduction, conclusions and recommendations have been written in conjunction with Sex Matters.

Interviews were held between July and September 2023 with 19 sector leaders. A snowball sampling approach was used to identify leaders with concerns about the impact of gender-identity beliefs on the women’s sector.⁴⁰ No more than one person was interviewed from each organisation to avoid skewing the findings towards experiences within a single entity; an exception was made for two leaders who were interviewed together. Two subject experts (who also lead, or have recently led, women’s organisations) were interviewed: Dr Shonagh Dillon of Aurora New Dawn and Dr Karen Ingala Smith, recently of Nia. Jess Phillips MP was interviewed as a sector specialist. These experts’ views have been attributed where they relate to general points about the sector; where they relate to more personal experiences, they have been anonymised unless they have requested attribution. All other interviews are reported anonymously to protect the identities and positions of those who have contributed, and to allow interviewees to speak freely. This anonymity was part of the research design. 

In a couple of instances, job titles have been amended, an identifying word omitted or a timeframe changed in order to protect participants’ identities. All details have otherwise been presented as they were relayed during the interviews.⁴¹ Interviewees were able to view a draft copy of this report to check that their stories had been anonymised sufficiently and to make small adjustments to language where necessary.

Matilda Gosling and Sex Matters would like to extend their deep gratitude to everyone who so generously contributed their time, insights and experiences to this research, as well as to those who helped to facilitate the introductions needed to set up the interviews.

Key findings

Services for women are being undermined

• Female service users are made to feel unsafe. Women suffer from poorer-quality support and are less likely to talk about their experiences when services assert that anyone who identifies as a woman is one.
• Women’s trust in the service is undermined. Women are forced to put others’ needs before their own, mirroring their histories of abuse and violence.
• Some women self-exclude if services are not female-only. Many traumatised women will not attend if services make clear that they may include men. 
• Women’s safety and security is compromised. Incidents of abuse, assault and access obtained on false premises have already happened. 

Sector leaders are being silenced

• It has required great courage to defend single-sex services. The issue of sex and gender can become another fault line in partnership conversations that may already be very fraught. Leaders who speak up risk their services losing funding and being unable to continue to deliver high-quality services to vulnerable women. 
• Sector leaders who stand up for clarity about sex face vitriolic personal accusations. They are ostracised, vilified and misrepresented. Many face complaints, investigations, disciplinary procedures and loss of work – any of which can result in devastating effects on their mental health and their careers. 
• Leaders are forced to make compromises that do not protect women or their organisations. Many leaders respond to the toxic debate by trying to please and placate colleagues, self-censoring, being hyper-vigilant, being publicly neutral or leaving matters up to staff members’ personal choice.
• Pragmatic conversations about how to meet different needs are being suppressed. The divisiveness of the debate and the forces acting against speaking clearly mean that serious discussions about how to meet different needs are not happening. This is a source of frustration to sector leaders who are concerned about everybody’s welfare.

Organisations are in turmoil

• Decision-makers are hamstrung. Boards disagree among themselves and, when they do not have clearly written policies, they are vulnerable to ideological capture. There have been board resignations and organisational stalemates.
• Internal cultures have become toxic. Tensions about this issue are having a negative effect on staff, many of whom are also survivors. Disagreements between gender-critical and trans-activist staff create fractures.
• Managing this issue is a drain on scarce time and financial resources. Boards and leaders spend significant time dealing with tensions and complaints and managing employment conflicts related to this issue. 
• The ability to provide services to meet women’s needs is compromised. Organisations cannot communicate their services clearly or signpost referrals safely; there is an ongoing risk of safeguarding failures and litigation; meaningful data and therefore knowledge about what is needed are lost. 

Lack of clarity about purpose makes the sector vulnerable

• There has been a loss of shared vision and mutual support across the women’s sector. Large providers and second-tier organisations – those that do not deliver services directly – have been slow to step up.
• Some organisations provide single sex-services but make ambiguous public statements to protect themselves. This leaves their governance, leadership, staff and clients vulnerable to pressure, uncertainty and risk. 
• Leaders of organisations that state clearly and proactively that they offer single-sex services feel abandoned and undermined by others in the sector, though there remain pockets of support between women who feel similarly.
• The ability of the sector to advocate for the value of women-only services has been undermined; coalitions advocating for women’s services stay together by not talking about this issue.

The commissioning environment is hostile

• There is strong pressure from commissioners and funders to be “trans-inclusive” by including males who identify as women in what would otherwise have been female-only provision. 
• Organisations that are clear about providing female-only services face competition from those that are ambiguous. Both are under pressure from competition with generic providers that are not focused on women. 
• Policies in the criminal justice system shape women’s services. The close links between programmes for diversion from incarceration, resettlement and rehabilitation and the women’s sector mean that policy decisions about prisons and probation have knock-on effects for the women’s sector. 
• The public-sector equality duty and standards that should protect women’s needs are being used to undermine them. Lack of clarity about the meaning of “woman” turns these instruments into weapons which attack rather than defend single-sex services for women. 

The needs of TI/GQ service users are not understood or met 

• There is pressure not to recognise difference. The needs of males who identify as women are different from those of women. Organisations set up to meet the needs of female survivors are not well-equipped to meet those needs. 
• Vulnerable female survivors and prisoners self-identifying as men are having their identities unthinkingly confirmed by the institutions meant to be supporting them. 
• The needs of transmen and female detransitioners are ignored. As a subset of vulnerable women, they have particular issues and create challenges for women’s services. 
• The ability to collect data is destroyed by a shift to asking questions only about identity, not sex, so services cannot be designed to meet needs.

Barriers to provision of single-sex services

The women’s sector has experienced significant and ongoing barriers to the provision of single-sex services. While many of these barriers are explored in more detail elsewhere in this report – for example, the silencing of women who speak out, and making service commissioning contingent on mixed-sex provision – there are a number of underlying factors that have influenced the development of a widely held perspective that promotes so-called “inclusion” over women’s needs. 

Uncertainty about the law

Interviewees confirmed that in practice many organisations have replaced sex with “gender”, believing this to be the law:

“Recruiters do it, organisations do it, the public sector does it – every fucker does it, and it’s becoming normalised now. Gender is not a protected characteristic, and the more you say it, the more people think it is.”

“We are [currently] having to explain what we mean by women. Everyone knows what it means… It’s a navel-gazing rabbit hole. We have all turned into philosophy PhD students. What is a woman?”

They considered that uncertainty and confusion about the meaning of sex in the Equality Act and how the single-sex exceptions work are key problems faced by leaders in the sector.

“The Gender Recognition Act is really confused. I think there was deliberate ambiguity in the drafting of it, as it is such a slippery concept – but it has real-world implications.”

Lobbying and capture

Several interviewees mentioned the significant influence of trans-activist organisations, and Stonewall in particular, lobbying, influencing and capturing the sector. “It is the capture of the debate by extremist trans-activist organisations,” said one. “It is the fact that women cannot claim their rights. They cannot even talk about it. Even I, in one of the most powerful positions, couldn’t talk about it. I couldn’t raise it as an issue. The capture of the debate has been almost total, and it has disempowered the most vulnerable women in the most extreme way.”

The “No Debate” and “Trans Women Are Women” campaigns were geared up from the start to have a silencing effect, according to one person. Questions from leaders about practicalities would be immediately shut down. Another suggested that Stonewall and other organisations are, in contrast to more reasonable activists campaigning for trans rights, extremists. “They are quite frightening, and they are very powerful, and they captured the public debate. It terrified the politicians and the prison service.” The capture has been further facilitated, said someone else, by the “ethereal” discussions between academics and Stonewall that have failed to engage people experienced in working with women. 

“Lobbying and challenging are used inappropriately against services that are a lifeline for women.”

This capture led to a great deal of pressure on sector leaders to provide mixed-sex services from funders, commissioners and other leaders operating within the sector. “Our role is to prioritise women, and we don’t always feel able to do so,” said one leader. Trans-activist campaigns have been taken up and amplified by organisations that should be representing women’s interests. An interviewee gave the example of the Fawcett Society, whose position “caused other organisations to retreat for fear of saying the wrong thing or being interpreted wrongly. In the bigger picture of all of this, it’s always surprised me that women’s organisations have been under attack from all sides.”

Fear of repercussions

Avoiding potential repercussions is a natural consequence of institutional capture. Dillon commented, “Women watch what happened to other women – to Maya [Forstater], to JK Rowling, to Julie Bindel. They are not naïve about the debate. They know that women are targeted or labelled as bigots.” Another interviewee said that service managers: “didn’t want to be vilified, ostracised, ridiculed, exposed in the media or attacked by other organisations like Stonewall. They didn’t want to lose their jobs.” 

This fear has not been limited to personal repercussions, however. Leaders have also avoided acting due to threats to their organisations’ viability and their ability to offer services to survivors. “You will lose your job, the organisation loses its money and then we will lose the essential services that we need to deliver to survivors. It’s a very difficult environment.”

Phillips saw fear as the key impact on the sector of ongoing debates over sex and gender. “It has caused fear, confusion and worries about litigation, but also fear about getting it wrong,” she said. “These are mainly small organisations that don’t have big management structures… They don’t have teams of lawyers or policy leads. They feel a bit worried. They don’t have the time or capacity to be worried.”

One leader highlighted a difference between organisations focused on service delivery and those focused on policy. “The policy organisations navigated it by avoiding it or talking in code – talking about ‘women’, and ignoring the rest. Those in service delivery were finding it harder, as they were frightened about it if they did, and worried about how to construct language that looked as if it was conforming to the forced inclusivity.”

The sector’s perspective on equality

According to Ingala Smith, “There was a real pressure, for good reason, to side with the underdog and to be aware of people who face additional oppressions. As a sector, we tend to be quite equalities-aware. That has led to a misplaced belief that men with transgender identities are particularly vulnerable, and that’s another false claim that’s been pushed… Talking about suicide rates, talking about increased risks of domestic violence, talking about increased risks of sexual violence and increased risk of homicide – all things that are not statistically supported.”

Staff attitudes

Several leaders mentioned a workforce split in attitudes towards sex and gender: older women are less likely to have been taught gender theory at university, and life experience means they are more likely to have encountered sex-specific discrimination or abuse. Ingala Smith commented: “If you are a survivor yourself and have worked in refuges, I think you tend to have a depth of understanding of what fear and intimidation and control feel like, and what degradation feels like, and you know that real low ebb that you can get to as a women who’s been subjected to men’s violence.”

“By your 40s and 50s, you have had more time for bad stuff and more time to realise your own experience is not just you – it is a pattern, and you need time to notice that. Some people are very unlucky and have to learn these lessons. It takes motherhood or an abusive marriage. It is data. You can do pattern recognition in a way you haven’t [been able to] earlier.”

The consequence of this generational divide is that leaders are often under pressure from their own younger teams to adopt gender theory. “A lot of women’s organisations have young staff teams,” said one interviewee. “It’s a massive issue – leaders being under threat from younger staff who can cause untold issues from within an organisation or outside it.” Ingala Smith believes that the profile of the workforce has also changed as the sector has grown, with the proportion of critically minded feminists being increasingly outweighed by people who have not entered the sector steeped in feminism. Increasing sectoral professionalism has also led to smaller organisations being absorbed into bigger ones that have marketing, media, research or communications teams, members of which may not have experience in frontline service provision. 

Trained confusion

Several interviewees mentioned biased training as a key contributing factor to institutional capture. One said: “Stonewall and Mermaids have had a clear run so far. They have delivered inaccurate, contradictory messages that you cannot discriminate against transwomen in any circumstances, which is not true. The police now believe that transwomen are the most oppressed, vulnerable people in the world, because they have looked at the Stonewall statistics. They have lost the analysis of the oppression of women by sex.” 

“I can see a large part of what is capturing us is the training.”

“The use of lobbying organisations to educate and train staff is absolutely outrageous, and needs to stop,” according to another leader. Much of the training that has been offered has misrepresented the Equality Act by stating that gender – which can be interpreted as gender identity rather than possession of a GRC – is a protected characteristic. The actual protected characteristics are sex and gender reassignment. This, according to one interviewee, has resulted in many local authorities “bringing in gender identity through the back door”.

It is not just trans-activist advocacy groups who are directly responsible, however. An interviewee mentioned a sector-based training organisation she had encountered whose messages had also been shaped by Stonewall. She said, “If they are offering guidance that goes against the law, it has very serious consequences for victims and the sector.” Training by early-career, university-based researchers is another source of information for organisations that can misrepresent underlying arguments and legal bases for decisions.

“All our trainings were around how to be trans inclusive, and not about how to preserve [exceptions] under the Equality Act.”

Lack of nuance in public debate

The black-and-white nature of discussions over sex and gender has been a contributing factor to the lack of healthy discussion and dialogue that would help to feed into the protection of single-sex services. One leader said that while organisations like Sex Matters, Women’s Place UK and Fair Play For Women were making space for discussion in a hostile environment, that space was still lacking in statutory organisations. “It’s not just our responsibility as a women’s movement. It’s the responsibility of statutory organisations [to hear] people’s different views and opinions, and to have a safe space for those discussions.” Another said that it is impossible to have an honest conversation unless you already know that the person to whom you are speaking shares similar views. “So nothing ever changes. The whole thing is so polarised, and the responses that come from the other side are so extreme – ‘You are denying my right to live’ – which means you can’t have a discussion in this context, so you never find this middle ground.”

Impact on female service users

“It has taken away a level of transparency for victims and survivors. Most of them are experiencing rape, violence, stalking and degradation. They are not thinking about [people’s identity]. They shouldn’t have to be thinking about it. Then they enter services and they have a male in that service. It is a level of cruelty.”

Dr Shonagh Dillon

There are a number of key negative impacts on women of having trans-identifying men in female spaces.

Mental-health impacts

One leader had consulted with a range of women using her organisation’s services, saying that the overwhelming reason they wanted single-sex provision related to past trauma. Another leader commented, “Survivors are coping with the trauma of what has happened to them… We asked them about their fears, and they expressed fears that men would be there.”

Mixed-sex service provision can also erode trust and affect survivors’ self-esteem. According to Ingala Smith, “A relationship of trust as a survivor with someone you are working with is very important… The woman can see that it’s a man, and the worker says, ‘No, no, she’s really a woman.’ … How can you expect women to trust you? And what is that doing to their self-belief and self-worth? It diminishes the ability to do the important work around helping women to trust and believe in themselves again.”

Risks to safety

“If you believe that men can be women… there is a safety risk – not because he is trans, but because he is a man,” said Ingala Smith. This is a particular concern in refuges.

Another leader said that having mixed-sex provision “would open the gates for safeguarding concerns. It would become normalised to see men in women’s spaces. I would have real concerns about the opportunities for women to be further assaulted and abused. It would become legitimised as men are accepted into those spaces.”

“We were shocked about a service where they admitted a transwoman who was a sex offender. It has led to people clearing up their policies and their processes.”

Lack of access to services

If services are not single sex, many survivors do not take up the support available. According to a leader, women leave refuges if they encounter intact males, as it is not safe for them to stay there. When support groups are mixed sex, “What do women do? They don’t go. And everyone left behind is congratulating themselves on how smooth the transition has been.” It is not just mixed-sex services that can lead women to self-exclude; they may also avoid using services that are not clear about attendance criteria. While some organisations provide single-sex services under the radar, according to one interviewee: “That’s not good enough for the women who would otherwise self-exclude from services – and there’s plenty of evidence that they do.”

Survivors may also be excluded from services through reallocation of scarce resources towards men. “For every man who comes through the door to use your service, it takes the place of a woman, and services are really, really stretched,” said one leader. Another gave the example of rape-crisis services that “will arrange for men service users to come in on a different day. They are very poorly funded services that can’t run every day of the week so that waiting lists can be reduced.” This implies a knock-on effect on women’s waiting lists. 

Poorer-quality support

If survivors are able to access services and choose not to self-exclude, they may be at risk of poorer-quality support when this is offered on the basis of identity, not biology. Three leaders commented on the negative effects on women of sharing their support services, saying that socialisation and gender norms can lead to transwomen taking up the available space. According to one person, transwomen “tend to continue to exhibit typically male behaviours. They may well take over a meeting, take more than their airtime, exhibit physically threatening behaviour, and they threaten legal action.” Another said that women are much less likely to share their experiences if there is someone who is biologically male in the group. “The transwoman dominates the conversation, and the women don’t speak. Transwomen’s expectations are that they will be listened to through gender norms.”

“The way we are socialised, men do take up more space – not just verbally. They are used to women’s attention, and women who have been subjected to men’s violence are very good at putting other people’s needs before their own, and are often very empathetic and don’t want somebody to feel awful. So you can get women who might basically put the transgender person’s needs above their own, not necessarily recognising that they feel silenced.”

Dr Karen Ingala Smith

Defining services on the basis of identity also means they are less able to meet women’s needs. One leader described her own experience on a placement in a male young offenders’ institute. “I was very conscious every day that I was female – the way I was looked at, the catcalling, the leering. We have bad enough problems around misogyny, and this legitimises it further. For services like ours, would women even use them? Or would they not want to, but have to?”

“The experience of the male body and the male physique is crucial to the experience of partner violence. I had a small ex-husband. I used to be an athlete, but he could hold me up against the wall with one arm. In what world is male physicality not relevant to the social construction of masculinity?”

Ignoring women’s preferences

For some leaders, the fact that many female survivors and prisoners do not want mixed-sex services should be sufficient argument without needing to reference the trauma, self-exclusion, negative effects on self-esteem and other impacts they experience. “I hate that we are having to do this on the basis of dignity and safety,” said one. “I did masses of focus groups for [a large public-sector organisation] and asked about women’s experiences of women-only services. Women who hadn’t experienced it had the reaction of, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ Those who had eulogised about it, and I wish that we were allowed to fight for that.”

One organisation had polled dozens of service users, finding that around seven in ten want women-only spaces, one in ten are happy to have fully mixed provision, and the remaining two in ten have opinions that varied according to context – feeling, for example, that the inclusion of a transwoman who had undergone medical transition is different from someone who had not. Other leaders have polled their service users and found similar results, according to the leader who represents this organisation. “There are outliers – one, for example, in the South of England, where the younger, majority-white women were trans inclusive – but most have found the same.”

Forced compliance

According to one leader, “The expectation has always been that women will put other people’s needs first ahead of themselves. The sense of entitlement from trans-rights activists is something that women have been subjected to their entire lives.” Another said, “Women who have been through this trauma want to make you happy. They don’t want to bring any more difficulty into their lives. They want to be compliant. In an individual one-to-one environment, they are very clear [that they don’t want to share their spaces], but in a group situation, they would be afraid to say that. It’s crucial that we provide a safe environment.”

There are also effects on organisations’ ability to offer future services; these are covered in the section on the impact on organisations. 

Some leaders mentioned that honesty was paramount in the provision of frontline services. According to Dillon, “Those people who stand behind the ideological statements – ‘transwomen are women’ – they are linguistic tricks that victims and survivors could be entering services where there is a male present, and that isn’t explicitly told to them. It is not trauma-informed. You are meant to be upfront and transparent. You are meant to say, ‘I will share any information if it will put you in danger. Likewise, if you have just been raped or fled from domestic abuse by a man, and you are going into a refuge with another man, I should have to tell you.’”

It may be frontline workers and sector leaders who are the ones most likely to highlight the impacts mentioned above, as survivors have so much else on their minds. One interviewee said, “The women that we work with are very traumatised. They are at their most vulnerable. They don’t have time to be challenging those gender norms and asking these questions. Neither would we expect them to. We expect them to be on their journey to recovery.” Someone else said that survivors “are thinking of and surviving the domestic abuse and coming somewhere safe… They have other, more pressing stuff. It’s us workers who are worried about it.”

“Why is the priority on housing the minority group rather than offering the correct care for survivors of domestic abuse? It is not going to be the first thing that is on their minds. They are grabbing the clothes they can find for them and their children, then they leave. But when they get there, if there is a man in that refuge, it is going to have horrible, damaging impacts on those survivors. It is grossly irresponsible of frontline services to put any vulnerable woman in that scenario.”

Some groups of women are particularly affected by self-identification into services, or have particular needs. Several leaders, and especially those from northern cities, mentioned religion as a barrier for some; this is explored more under users of refuges below. Language is another key area; this is relevant to guidance, not just direct provision of services – if, for example, organisations state that “people with a cervix” need smears, women who do not speak English fluently may not get the healthcare they need. Services that meet the needs of lesbians are also under-developed. 

“It is not just about the protected characteristic of sex. It is also about the protected characteristic of sexual orientation, and that often gets lost. Nobody is talking about the impact of gender ideology on same-sex attracted lesbians, as the organisations that were there to support us have left us. We need to be talking about sexuality as well as sex, and that is of relevance to our service users too.”

Impact across different types of service

Counselling and support services 

Female survivors accessing community groups, many of which are mixed sex, tend to keep their heads down when it comes to articulating their needs concerning single-sex provision, according to one leader. “Survivors of domestic violence are very used to this, so it’s replicating those dynamics.” People may simply leave if there is a man in their group. Another leader, who had experienced domestic abuse herself, said that she would leave if she found herself in this situation. “It is partly a physical reaction. I went to a comedy gig. I was sat in the second row, and the jokes were not landing well… The comic started shouting and kicking over chairs. I was surprised by the violence of my reaction… I had my heart in my mouth, absolutely beating. I needed to be out.”

“One service user said, ‘I can’t stand it when I see pronouns in someone’s signature, because it means you are aligned with that way of thinking and I am not, and therefore there are things I can’t say to you.’ She saw a counsellor who said that transwomen are women, and said just how silencing it felt not to be validated in her non-belief in that.”

Leaders are starting to convert their personal experience of survivors’ needs into evidence in order to fortify their positions with funders and commissioners. One is planning to run a consultation with the users of her organisation’s counselling and support services on single-sex services, for example. “The women who we work with tell us – and we do support some males, but they are 5% of our turnover – that they want single-sex spaces. They want to be in an environment with other women, supported by women, where they feel able to disclose… And now we need to prove that. We have to record it and prove it.”

“One women’s centre has gone overboard in saying all transwomen are welcome, and are now facing a lawsuit… They have bent over backwards and lost the plot. Lots of women’s centres are suddenly spending an inordinate amount of time agonising over whether they can support transwomen or not – but they are not looking at transmen. They have been disappeared.”

Services for survivors of rape

Women affected by rape are often incredibly vulnerable and have been abused for years. “They are likely to be women who experienced a lifetime of this kind of abuse,” said one leader. She described a core of difficult, chronic cases accessing rape-crisis services who may have experienced incest and other abuse within the family from brothers, fathers, grandfathers, uncles or friends. Once a childhood pattern of abuse is established, the vulnerability it causes extends into the teenage years and beyond.

“You have this very vulnerable core of people who are often groomed into prostitution. It is not a career choice. They are vulnerable, abused, learning-disabled, maybe autistic, with a chaotic lifestyle and poor health outcomes. These are women who very clearly need to go into a safe space that doesn’t have male people in it.”

Inability to use clear language undermines the core model of rape-crisis support. The same leader described the model of rape-crisis support, which is “to get you to reframe your experience of sexual violence, assault and rape within the social context in which it occurs. It is not about you as an individual, but in a patriarchal society, rape is used as a weapon within toxic masculinity… It is an important way of not seeing yourself as a victim, but understanding you are part of the wider social fabric… Central to this is being able to name what happened to you.” This ability to name male violence within social structures is undermined, said this leader, by being told that the transwoman in rape-crisis services is a woman, or that a rape cannot have taken place on a women’s hospital ward. Survivors “are being gaslit about this issue”.

“In the NHS, the guidance to staff is to tell patients there are no men working [on purportedly single-sex wards], when clearly there are. In closed mental-health wards, it’s a big issue, as there’s lots of sexual assault – as they are such an easy group to abuse, and if they complain, people think they are mad anyway.”

The impact on women who have been raped of not being able to discuss the truth about men in female spaces includes re-traumatisation, fear of accusations of bigotry and a lower likelihood of reporting rape. “There is a high attrition rate in rape cases. Women pull out of the process, and very few report in the first place. That experience of not being believed, of the criminal justice system not working in your favour, we are now making even more difficult,” said an interviewee. These issues are driven, in part, by rape-crisis services no longer fully centring women in their service design. “Rape Crisis Scotland, in Edinburgh, is run by a transwoman and is re-educating rape victims. This is completely out of kilter with the way that rape-crisis services have always put women at the centre.”

“There is an impact on women of not being able to speak the truth. How gaslighting this is for someone who has never been able to speak the truth about incest and constant sexual abuse to be put in a so-called ‘safe space’.”

“A woman has challenged NHS Brighton. The hospital had [said], ‘You must challenge the bigotry of women who ask for single-sex services,’ rather than it being a legal requirement that this request must be allowed. This woman was assaulted in her teens, and wrote to request that she had only women care for her. She had a letter saying, ‘We consider this to be bigotry’. It may be that if you have suffered sexual assault, you are re-traumatised – you are asked to open your legs, you go through labour – it can bring back memories. Women might need particular support. People are interpreting the law in a Stonewall way, which means [women who have been raped] may not be getting access to the services they need.”

This issue affects children who have been raped. An interviewee warned that these children may potentially engage with police services that have abandoned clear sex-based language. “Police have started recording crimes under the gender the perpetrator prefers. If the police are saying to the child, ‘This person is a woman. You have to refer to her as “she” in the interviews,’ it is very difficult to get the child to open up. The child has to have the legal concept of truth explained to them to help check their competence (what does it mean to make things up?). If at the same time you are told that it was a woman, not a man, who did these things to you, you can imagine how confusing it would be.” This leader’s organisation has asked police what will happen in these situations. “It has been impossible to get them to say what they would do. I would like this question to be raised nationally.”

Refuges

Women accessing refuge accommodation need single-sex spaces. This is recognised widely across the sector. “They are the most sensitive space. They are often not staffed 24/7. There are communal lounges, even if they have their own bathroom space. Women are left alone to support each other.” She added, “They would feel worried in intimate, communally shared spaces with someone they perceived to be male.”

“It’s not just Muslim women who want single-sex provision. When we provide single-sex provision in refuges, the women will walk around uncovered. They have freedom to meet and discuss. If we have a male contractor, we give advance notice, and the women disappear or come out fully covered. That’s not a great environment.”

“If you were to say to [women], ‘How do you feel about men who identify as women?’, they would say that they don’t want them living here. What does worry them is children. Children say it as they see it – ‘Mummy, why is that man wearing a dress?’ Those children are being called out for being transphobic, whereas they are just being children.”

Some leaders referenced an incident that took place at Leeds Women’s Aid, when convicted sex offender Katie Dolatowski stayed in “inclusive” refuge accommodation – in other words, it was made available to both sexes – provided through Leeds Domestic Violence Service. Dolatowski, who had sexually assaulted a child, was able to access the refuge by changing his name and official documentation to conceal his previous convictions. One leader commented, “The accommodation was very nearby the single-sex service. I found that odd. Why wouldn’t you have an inclusive service away from the single-sex service in terms of managing risk? People who are inclusive would say, ‘What is the risk?’ I would say, there is a risk of men, regardless of how they identify. We won’t allow men on the premises. We would be very alarmed if there was a male on the premises, as they then have access to vulnerable women and children.”

Religion is relevant to service provision in refuges. “We have had women saying, ‘I wouldn’t come here as a Muslim woman if we had males here,’” said one interviewee. Another, whose female refuge population is about 50% Muslim, said that service users would have to go home if there was a man present. “It would sit outside what they would be allowed to do.” 

Other groups, such as refugees and asylum seekers, may have particular needs. One interviewee had conducted research with women who had been through refugee camps. “This discussion is detrimental to those groups, who are very afraid and very marginalised. It will exclude them from a service that is not for women, by women. We are talking about very traumatised women who went through sexual crimes and trafficking within refugee camps. They are already frightened to go into a refuge or an enclosed space – but knowing they are going to a women’s space is reassuring. It is a deterrent if there are men. We need to consider how this affects the most vulnerable.” 

Those whose experience has isolated them from friends and family are likely to need communal provision in place of dispersed accommodation, according to Phillips. “The best example I can think of where communal refuges are, without doubt, the best environment are for people who have been so isolated that they don’t have any network beyond the people who have abused them,” she said. For these and other women, “the communality of refuge accommodation is often part of the recovery”. Where organisations have a combination of mixed-sex and single-sex refuge provision, dispersed accommodation is likely to be made available to all survivors, whereas communal refuges remain single sex.

Two leaders warned that if the sector could not provide single-sex spaces, providers would in effect become housing associations rather than specialists working to support female survivors. “If we cannot provide female-only spaces, what is the point of the violence against women and girls sector? … We become like any other generic housing provider and can’t offer that specialist provision. We have a model we have built up over many years to meet the needs of women and girls… Trans and non-binary males need a different approach because their experience is different.” Another interviewee mentioned a previous employer who offered refuge accommodation and floating support. “They had an office for male workers based in the single-sex refuge. They were a housing association, not women’s aid.”

Prisons and probation

“If women in prison fall over on this issue, then everybody has lost. If you accept a male-bodied person to be locked up 23 hours a day with a female-bodied person on the basis that the former is a transwoman, you have nowhere to go.”

Women in prisons and probation services are especially vulnerable. According to one interviewee, “Almost all women who are in prison have experienced bullying, violence, control, domination and criminality by men… Almost all women are very vulnerable and fragile, and have often experienced years and years of abuse by their fathers, brothers, partners and children. My view is that they shouldn’t be in prison, but if they are, they need to be protected, safe and given a route out into a different life.”

“The problem came when men who had been convicted of serious sexual offences and violence were fighting hard to get into women’s prisons. Governors were trying to block it and trying to stop it happening. They understood the men’s motivations were malign. They knew their offences. They knew their attitudes; they knew them well. They tried to prevent the transfers, but the decisions were made centrally… That’s how some of the men got into the women’s prisons.”

One leader, who used to spend a lot of time visiting prisons, said, “I started to see men – particularly sex offenders, and men who had been convicted of offences against women and children – suddenly claiming to be women… Governors were saying how confusing and difficult they found it, and they didn’t know what to do. One governor was very upset by it. She knew it was not because these men were really women. They wanted to get access to women.”

“Women won’t do things they could do if they are being bullied and controlled. Access to gyms and classes will be curtailed as they will be fearful of being alone and being bullied. What happens is that it shrinks a woman’s life. That is the point. The point is to expand yourself as a man, and to shrink the woman. And that is what happens in prisons. The opportunities are tiny, and if any of those are taken away… You are not going to go to the gym if in your shower, which is communal, you are frightened of there being a man there. What the woman cannot do is run away. You cannot get away. Your only choice is to stay in your cell. You have no choices. No autonomy. You cannot run, you cannot choose. The choices being made for you by these men is total control, which is why they are doing it.”

While public discourse focuses on the risks to women of being attacked, there are risks around other forms of abuse, loss of services and access to shared spaces, and a sense that they are not safe. An interviewee said: “It’s about coercive control, bullying, domination and access to services, and the legitimate fear that women have – or even just feeling a little uncomfortable. And if I am a female prisoner, I want to feel safe. I don’t want to have to worry about dressing [or] about where I am going to eat.” The coercive control issue in prisons is both subtle and important.

“There was one occasion when I saw for myself a man – who had been convicted of several rapes – pretending to be a woman. He got himself into the women’s wing… It was a big, open space with cells around the sides. The women were standing individually or in groups around the side. And the man – and I say “man” because he was quite big, quite hairy. He had a little girl’s dress on and a little blonde wig with plaits. He clearly was a man.

He was a man, and he was standing in the middle looking very pleased with himself. And I talked to the governor, who was a man, who said he was finding it very difficult, because he talked to this person and said, ‘Look, we can help you look more feminine. We can help you look more like a woman.’ And this man just refused, and said, ‘No, no, I want to look like this.’ He’d found a way of dominating and harming the women without touching them, so he didn’t need to rape or touch or bully. He was dominating. He was cock-a-hoop.”

Women may avoid shared spaces altogether. They may even have their access closed off to accommodate male prisoners who identify as women. One leader mentioned a women’s prison, HMP Downview, that had established a separate unit for transwomen. “The actual building had been a special building set up for the women who were transitioning themselves from the prison to outside, so it was a special place where some of the longer-term women were given extra freedoms. Well, that was taken away from the women, and the men in dresses were put there.”

The impact on women was not restricted to those who were preparing themselves to leave prison. Staffing levels in the main prison were affected, too, when there were already insufficient staff. The interviewee added, “Then, of course, when these men were moved around the prison, they had to be kept separate – so the prison was shut down and the women were locked up while the men – three or four or five men – were moved from one place to another to use the gym or the education block… The harm to women, which these men knew full well was going on, was being inflicted administratively and by co-operating with the men who wanted it.”

Other effects of gender-identity beliefs on women in prisons include the practical realities of sexual activity and distressed prisoners identifying as men. “Effectively you have mixed-sex on a very small scale,” said one leader. “You have to allow for sexual activity, including consensual sex, and pregnancy. You might not like it, but you have to allow for it. There’s a lack of attention to the real world and what will happen.” Female prisoners identifying out of their sex is another issue. Another leader said, “There was a community of young women, at the most vulnerable point of their lives, allowed to come out of an institution and be told they were… men.”

The situation for women in prison has improved recently thanks in part to the scandals caused by transwomen such as Isla Bryson and, in part, by a previous Secretary of State for Justice who said, according to one interviewee, “I cannot believe we are putting intact males in women’s prisons.” The damage caused to women by male criminals identifying into female prisons, though, has been immense. “The number of women in prison is very small,” said another leader, “so a small number of men can have a disproportionate impact. Crime is a man’s problem.”

Probation services have received less attention when it comes to the impact on women of issues relating to sex and gender. A leader gave the example of a younger woman who had experienced “predatory males who were masking as transwomen. She relapsed, and went back to drug use. It shows the damage it did to her.” This leader also described approved premises where people who are high risk can go before or after prison. “There are a few for women, and there have been at least a few instances where a transwoman was in approved premises. One was in breach for making advances to women there. I hope that is changing, but it worries me.”

“If you have a community payback order, you used to get one woman put with a bunch of men, and they had a dreadful time. That was changed – they put women on individual placements in charity shops, where they could learn to use tills and could use their experience to get jobs – but that is all slipping. Women will be more anxious about being stuck with men, and less aware of the risks they have.”

Impact on TI/GQ service users

Interviewees generally expressed a desire to meet the needs of service users who are trans-identified or gender questioning (TI/QG).

Interviewees prioritised the provision of single-sex services to meet women’s needs, which requires excluding all males from female spaces – trans identities were irrelevant to these decisions. Where trans identities became important was in service design that meets their specific needs. 

According to Dillon, “We collect data around gender identity, around sex, around gender reassignment, because it’s what we’re meant to do, and I want to know. I want to know if we’ve got an influx of transmen or transwomen or non-binary victims, because I want to be able to design services for them.” Ingala Smith commented, “Trans people are talked about as if they are a homogenous group, and they are increasingly not. The older male who transitions late in life is so different from a 14- or 15-year-old girl.”

Provision has been made much harder by frontline workers not feeling able to make decisions based on someone’s trans identity. “The thing that’s annoyed me so much,” said one leader, “is that women’s organisations have such a long history of supporting trans people and doing it really well. I’m not saying it was perfect, but it’s been lost. The message of the organisations fighting for this is: ‘Trust women’s organisations to do what they have been cracking on and doing for decades, to make decisions on the ground, to apply their expertise.’ The problem has been creating the impression of a problem that was never there, and by that creating the problem.”

“The attention on this issue is ideological, not practical. It’s not about people. If it’s about trans people getting services, we wouldn’t be in this position. Everyone would have known that women’s organisations were already making decisions that were compassionate, detailed and taking account of individual needs – for example, one-to-one support, maybe groups but maybe not, and support through LGBT charities… It’s astonishing how much was being done, and now it’s much harder.”

The toxicity of the sex and gender debate has, in other cases, prevented services being able to offer well-designed support to trans people. It has led, according to one interviewee, to “an inability to develop practical solutions, to share experiences, to learn from each other and to develop a shared approach”. The same interviewee recommended starting to think about provision in terms of good practice and poor practice – “How you can provide services to trans people while making them feel they are being treated with respect, and how you can provide services to the women who need it.”

“It is astonishing that with all the mainstream, wealthy charities we have, the focus is on the tiny slice of the charity sector that is women’s organisations. If everyone else was doing their jobs properly, we wouldn’t have this ridiculous focus on women’s organisations. I have never met a single person who said a problem for trans people was women’s services not letting them have access, but it has become the focus. Women’s services have, and do, provided services wherever they can.”

Several leaders discussed fitting their own services into the jigsaw of wider provision to meet the needs of all survivors. One said, “I am a feminist. I support single-sex services – but that doesn’t mean I don’t support others to support other services… There is an assumption that you don’t support trans services. I absolutely do; I just don’t see why our services should be given up. Feminism should be about policy, and that means supporting the rights of others to access services that are right for them.”

“It seems that more and more, you have to be a specialist trans service, as well as a specialist women’s service… And we’ve had individual cases where ‘This is a situation with this trans person – can we take them on?’ Sometimes we can. Sometimes we refer on. A lot of time goes into evaluating and referring, whereas for a woman, it’s straightforward. We are learning. You are under a lot of scrutiny to get it right all the time – but it’s OK to say, ‘We don’t know.’”

Female victims and surviviors

Several women expressed concern over the invisibility of transmen in discussions over sex and gender in the women’s sector. One said that there are more transmen in women’s prisons than there are transwomen. Another said that – as biological women – they get put in the “too difficult” box in the prison system. “I know lots of [transmen] have said they want to be in the male estate. It is governors in the male estate saying, ‘We cannot guarantee your safety.’ It’s a supreme irony that, in the next breath, they say they will accommodate transwomen in female prisons with no regard to safety. They assume that women will be more understanding.”

“I think transmen are invisible in this agenda. People never talk about them… This is an agenda that’s totally dominated by male to female transition.”

“I am really, really worried that we are not serving transmen or female they/thems. They are sitting ducks for being abused. We do them a big disservice by putting them in the male category… They are among the most vulnerable women there are, and it’s not right to categorise them as men.”

Transmen may have particular needs, especially if they have identified out of their sex for reasons of risk and safety (of which more below). These needs may include psychological support if they decide to detransition. A leader described working with one woman who had transitioned. After three years, this individual had realised – at the height of five foot one – that transition was never going to work for her. “I’m just a butch dyke, aren’t I?” she said to the interviewee. Another described detransitioning as a “complete, complex nightmare” that women’s-sector organisations are going to have to work through.

“Non-binary women and transmen have approached us as a self-referral. Some of them still go by their female name. Some are unsure; some have had their breasts removed but have not gone any further as they’re still confused. They don’t want a trans service. They want a women’s service. They regress to being female if you ask if they want to be referred to another service. It’s hard for us to get our heads around it. It is confusing, and each case is different. We can refer people to trans services – but we understand this as domestic abuse of a woman, mainly perpetrated by a man.”

One leader touched on the delicate issue of how women’s-sector organisations can support transmen in the context that – if they have been on medical treatment – they very often pass as men, which may traumatise other women who want single-sex spaces. This is particularly tricky given that transmen are female, but may need provision outside single-sex services shared with other women. 

Several leaders said that girls and young women who have experienced abuse are more likely to want to identify out of their sex, as it feels safer. They may feel similarly if they have witnessed their mother being abused. According to Ingala Smith, “Transgender ideology is increasingly dangerous for young women and girls… Research indicates that young women who have experienced sexual violence are more likely to reject the label [of woman].” One leader said, “Watching the father perpetrate abuse on the mother is subliminally saying to those girls, ‘This is what happens to you when you are female and, if you are a boy, it doesn’t happen in the same way. You are safer.”

“Some of them are young… Some are grown women who have experienced trauma in childhood and ongoing abusive relationships. They are often alluding to [their belief that] the way of being safe is not to be female. That is what they are identifying: ‘I have tried all these other avenues to be safe. I am not safe. If I identify as a man, I will be less likely to experience rape, trauma and abuse.’ We are noticing that this is happening more and more.”

Sexual orientation may be part of this trans identification, too. “There is a pressure for a young woman who is exploring her sexuality that she is a man – that she needs to transition,” said an interviewee. Another said that schools are currently the hotbed for gender ideology. “Groups of girls are changing their identity, without any sex-based knowledge or information being provided to them. That’s a serious safeguarding issue… We do a lot of training with young men and boys in schools. We are seeing… this disrespect of the female sex through their social-media channels. We have young members of staff who come to work for a women’s organisation, but say they are non-binary. That’s because they have heard nothing else. Sex-based rights have not been taught.”

“I have experience trying to support people with trans identifications for years. I have found [the huge proportion of girls identifying as trans] profoundly troubling… The Tavistock data rings true. Many are same-sex attracted, autistic, self-harming or experiencing family conflict. They have awful mental health and social difficulties – they are the most vulnerable girls. I feel profoundly troubled at just validating [their identities]… One of the ways I have dealt with this is to approach it like Hansel and Gretel. I have dropped breadcrumbs of ideas on dissent, how ideas spread socially, about not fitting in, sexual dimorphism, Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women – I have put bits of information in place, and come back later. I’ve done that with staff too… I don’t try to do it all at once.”

One leader said her therapeutic teams had successfully worked out how best to support these groups of trans-identifying girls and young women. “We went through a process of going through all the evidence of what young teenagers, especially teenage girls, believe… You do not mess with young people when they are experimenting. You make space for that. You don’t jump onto, ‘Oh, you are definitely that, then.’ [Our staff] are therapeutically trained, quite a lot of them, and… that team, when really pushed to consider all the ins and outs, they got it.”

Male victims and survivors

There was a split between those interviewees who saw a real need to offer services to male trans survivors and those who either thought this need was less than is commonly believed, or that it is already met by the network of LGBT specialist organisations. An interviewee in the first group said of a consultation she had run with service users and staff, “All of the women we spoke to expressed compassion for transwomen… Sometimes, transwomen might be victimised too.” Phillips said, “I am constantly stunned by the effort that hasn’t gone into providing specialist services for trans people.”

“It required [me]… understanding the dynamics and who is really affected by this debate so our services don’t fail them. There are transgender people who have gone through the process, are very vulnerable and need help. Do we support those groups? I reassured myself that we do. I was thinking that we need to approach this in a very composed way, backed up by discussions with women in the sector.”

Others suggested transwomen’s needs are already being met. One leader said that the data used to show the vulnerability of transwomen is based on North American data concerning transwomen who work in the sex industry in order to earn money to fund the medical costs of their transition. Another said her organisation provides an LGBT-specific service, so any further push for access to existing single-sex spaces “is about validation and access to women’s spaces”. She added, “People will tell you that trans people are the most oppressed and victimised, but they are not. [Unlike women,] they’re not killed at the rate of two a week… [My region] is now over-provided for domestic-violence services for LGBT people, while being under-provided for women.”

Several leaders highlighted the provisions they make for transwomen, including one-to-one support services where the alternative is single-sex group work, and housing survivors of domestic abuse in dispersed accommodation as opposed to refuges. 

Others highlighted the particular needs of transwomen – they have particular medical requirements, for example, and service design should account for these. It can be harder to identify what these needs are since the foreclosing of any discussion on gender identity. “You can’t ask. You can’t talk. You can’t work out what people’s needs are. What might need to be different about the services you receive than the support that other women need?… In practice, what do you do if you are in a women’s organisation if a person says, ‘Isn’t this person a male person?’ What do you do? Do you lie? Pretend she is wrong? It’s the practicalities of all of this.”

“The complexity of some of the issues might have come out better if I had been able to talk about it. There are men who have a medical issue. I remember meeting a young man in a male prison. He was clearly very vulnerable, very fragile. He wanted to be a woman. I think, more likely, he was just gay. He came from a community where that was not acceptable, so his way out of it was very extreme. Discussing individuals with very particular challenges got lost.”

“The nuance of the secrecy clause is that it’s secret in 99% of your life. If I am working in Sainsbury’s, nobody needs to know I am a transwoman. But going to the doctor, they do. Being in a prison, they do.”

Impact on sector leaders

Complaints and accusations

Several leaders described complaints and accusations relating to sex and gender that had been raised against them, as well as the aftermath of these personal attacks. Ingala Smith said, “When I was first called ‘transphobic’, I was really worried about that, and the impact on the organisation and our reputation… It’s never nice to be under investigation, but I have it in my stride now. I am careful and measured in what I say.”

“It’s the ‘no debate’, silencing thing that’s new. We’ve always dealt with controversial issues. It’s this bullying that’s new, and it’s in response to some of the gains that women are making… And the ubiquity of porn [means that] the threats thrown at women are much more sexualised than they were 20 years ago. We campaigned against porn in the 1980s, and we were right.”

Complaints from other leaders and trustees can be particularly pernicious. A leader had grievances raised against her for saying that she did not believe transwomen are women, and two had complaints made by colleagues who had read their personal Twitter accounts.

“I’ve seen colleagues being attacked in other organisations for doing things like retweeting a JK Rowling tweet. I have been accused of being transphobic in my own organisation… A formal complaint was made, and an investigation carried out. The upshot of it was that my belief was a protected belief.”

One leader went to an equalities training session upon joining her previous organisation in which attendees were required to state their pronouns and how they were feeling, which she refused to do. “They went round the table. It was wildly inappropriate to state your emotional state in front of strangers. Everyone else did pronouns and some synonym of worried, anxious and uncomfortable.” Later in the training, she picked up on an inaccuracy related to the training content that directly linked to sex and gender. A colleague said, immediately afterwards, ‘We should be leading on this. We should go beyond the law. Let’s call gender-critical people what they are – transphobic. Transwomen are women. Transmen are men.’ … She was shaking. I was shaking, too… I felt scared for me, horrified for the sector and scared for victims, if this is how things are, and the level of knowledge.”

Complaints and accusations have also come in from service users. One leader said that she had received complaints from female service users identifying as trans that they had not been immediately referred to a trans service. The lack of referral was due to the women’s identities shifting over the course of the conversation. “‘We felt you were a woman who was experiencing trauma, and we had to support you as a woman. If you’d said you were transitioning and were a man, we would have said, “Here is your referral.”’ Sometimes trauma can make women think it’s safer to be a man or a boy – we do have a duty to explore that first before sending someone to a trans service.”

Another leader talked about a man who came in to use her service, whom she believed was identifying as a woman to test her organisation’s response. “I was asked to be in the adjacent kitchen with the door open so [my colleague] wasn’t alone with him, because we didn’t know what his purpose was… It was very clear that he was trying it on, and sussing out how receptive she would be to him requesting services. I was told by someone else that he was a known transactivist and testing out the organisation.”

“We couldn’t allow a man who was transitioning to be a woman into our women’s well-being service. We had to prioritise the majority over the minority… This was a man who was transitioning, and he still had a penis – and we just felt that wasn’t safe. Women have been through significant trauma at the hands of men, and we had a bit of pushback. He was initially quite unhappy. He called us transphobic, so we had a battle on our hands with legal and HR experts about how we dealt with it… It takes time, money and expertise to work these things out. We tried to deal with it sensitively. This is a women’s service, and there are specialist services for trans people. There was no way we could put a man transitioning to a woman who is still equipped like a man in a situation where there are groups of vulnerable women.”

Working relationships

Internal relationships

A number of interviewees were supported by their boards of trustees to deliver single-sex services, which had enabled them to manage the issue successfully with their staff. One said, “I am quite lucky – I have a strong, feminist board of trustees. I feel supported to make a challenge.” Others have had to navigate difficult pathways with their trustees and staff. According to a leader who was operating in an organisation where other senior staff did not share her views, “It crops up for me on a daily basis… what room I have to challenge it, and the straitjacket I have within the organisation.”

People named a range of negative impacts on their working relationships. One leader, for example, described the reaction of some former colleagues to her explanations of the Equality Act by saying, “One of the things that has been deeply challenging is that they perceived the law itself to be transphobic – so mentioning the law as it is, even in the most neutral terms, is you being transphobic… That was enough to cause the reactions I described – being labelled a TERF and transphobic and all the other things that have happened.” Other effects included:

• Self-censoring. One prison leader described a situation in which she had witnessed the negative impact on female prisoners of a transwoman in their prison, and tried to discuss this with colleagues. “As far as they were concerned, he was a woman. They were offended, so it was not something I talked about again.”

“You choose your battles…. There was a small group of young women who felt this was their cause – their Vietnam. These were the battle lines that were drawn.”

• Bullying. Of a previous position in which colleagues made clear that her views were unwelcome, one leader said, “They were pretty mean to me in the office. They would leave me out… I worked from home more than I intended to protect myself. They made ageist jokes.”
• Checking views and hypervigilance. Interviewees sometimes try to work out what the views of their colleagues are before having conversations about issues relating to sex and gender. “I am quite wary to find out what their views are before I would be open about my views,” said one. “I am very mindful of not just exposing myself to difficulties.” Another said: “What it feels like to work in the women’s sector is that you are wary of new colleagues. You’re looking over your shoulder.”
• Board resignations. Two interviewees said that board members had resigned following discussions about the provision of single-sex services. One said, “I very badly presented to my board to present the need. It led to the immediate resignation of a board member, who wrote a [long] letter saying I didn’t understand the ethics of the organisation I had been running.”
• Organisational stalemate. In one organisation, differences in trustees’ views have contributed to this stalemate. “It gets messy,” said the chief executive. 

“Commissioners clumsily spoke to women and asked how they would feel about transwomen accessing the service. There wasn’t one service user who said they would be fine with it. But I think my chair feels, ‘Why wouldn’t these spaces offer services to people identifying as women when they have been subject to domestic abuse?’ … I talk about transwomen being triggering for someone who has been subject to violence from males. I think she feels it is discriminatory and not very open minded… It’s an uneasy position with our chair. We do a circular dance where we don’t discuss it and thrash it out. The need hasn’t arisen, but it will in future.”

Several interviewees had found ways to bring trustees and colleagues on board. One leader, in response to pressure from staff members that policies needed to be inclusive, said, “We held firm that you had to understand the data, needs and prevalence, and not be in contravention of any laws… Maya [Forstater]’s court case was massively helpful.” She said that balance in her organisation had become possible because of the robust approach her organisation had taken to balancing the rights and needs of people with different perspectives. Another leader talked about a framework her organisation had developed to allow them to discuss issues respectfully. 

A leader mentioned training her staff on the Equality Act: “Getting people to think about, ‘In what other arena is it OK to say people have to believe what you believe?’ … Everyone agrees [our organisation] should always provide services that match user needs. Getting people to have conversations and break down some of that terrible fear that both sides have. The feedback was really good. It has brought the temperature down.”

In some cases, leaders had discussed with their staff and trustees the detailed implications of using self-identification in place of biology to frame service delivery. One had asked, “‘Do you want [our organisation] to campaign against women’s sex-based rights – for example, a paralysed woman wanting single-sex intimate care for going to the toilet and managing her periods? Are we saying our position is this?’ They don’t want to say that, as largely, they are driven by kindness in wanting to be trans inclusive. I also found sympathy for the rights of lesbians… to say, ‘I am same-sex attracted.’ … We need to be able to answer these questions before we get around to making a public statement about being trans inclusive.”

“The chair needed help articulating the balance of rights and how not doing that could impact on people who are gender critical, service users who are lesbian … [and] women who don’t believe in self-ID. There was a real risk there. I presented information to them that it was not impossible to balance rights, but you have to understand needs and prevalence in different groups. The board decided we would take a balance-of-rights approach.”

Partnerships

“70 to 80% of CEOs are of the view [that single-sex services are needed], 20 to 30% believe that transwomen are women and should have full access to refuge services, and believe in their DNA that if someone comes out, they should be viewed as a woman. It’s difficult, sometimes, to have that different view.”

Some of the conversations with external partners over this issue have been positive, and supportive networks have been developed. Dillon said, “One of the things that I find really valuable about the women in the movement – and there are many, many that believe women are a sex class – is how supportive they can be with each other… Leaders have provided a support for each other. I have felt very supported by women.”

The use of pronouns was highlighted by a couple of interviewees as something that may signal partners’ allegiance to a belief that gender identity takes precedence over sex, making them wary of engagement. Both, though, recognised that some people may use pronouns because of pressure or because it is too difficult to make their own views clear. “I try not to be black and white in my thinking, and assume anybody with pronouns is against sex… I try not to adopt this ‘with us or against us’ sort of mentality.” One leader carefully signals her own beliefs when she meets new people on whose views she is unsure by saying, “I am a friend of Julie Bindel’s”.

“I have, myself, been silenced in an equalities meeting… I was told my views were not acceptable to the group. I was told they were transphobic… and was asked questions designed to close down discussion: ‘Do you believe transwomen are women?’”

Many have had negative experiences with funders, commissioners, activists and other women’s-sector organisations. One leader described the uncomfortable experience of having her social media policed. Another, who often conducts external talks, said, “Everyone is uncomfortable when I speak about sex. They want to move on quickly. You feel it all the time. It takes a great deal of courage.” In a talk she gave to a large voluntary-sector organisation, the equalities lead who introduced her mentioned the protected characteristic of “gender”. She challenged this, as there is no protected characteristic of gender in the Equality Act (the relevant protected characteristics are “sex” and “gender reassignment”). Her challenge was marked by silence. She was not thanked for her time at the end of her talk.

Another leader said her organisation was subcontracted by a larger agency to deliver work with women, as part of which they ran an exercise about women’s experiences and transitions through life. “Women always say some particular things. They talk about their first period, abortion, miscarriage or pregnancy – their pivotal moments – or their understandings about themselves, in that they don’t have children but they are expected to culturally… We got an email from the colleague at the partner organisation saying that one of the women found the language problematic and exclusionary. ‘She will attend the next session to see if you have taken on board this feedback and made changes.’”

“Within the Women’s Aid leaders’ email group, there are two very different camps. There are the feminists making sure women’s spaces are safe. Most women would agree with that. Other women are being pressured by their local authorities to deliver trans services and men’s services… and are therefore more inclusive… but then they are seen as less feminist by the feminists. They are being challenged: ‘You are not putting women first.’ It is very toxic. You can talk about refugees, child abuse – the most horrendous things in society – but nothing gets uglier than conversations about trans inclusion in women’s spaces. That’s because you have funders, commissioners, pushing things a certain way – the people who have the power – and it doesn’t always prioritise the safety of women.”

In some cases, negative partnership experiences took the shape of personal frustration. One leader said, “I had the CEO of a women’s organisation saying that she was a radical feminist who believed that transwomen are women and had pronouns. It is so demeaning… But she is running an organisation that is worth £1.5 million, being bullied by junior staff who insist that people are transphobic and you are going to murder people by whispering the word ‘woman’ in the toilet.”

“I once had a governor of a women’s prison tell me [after raising concerns about vulnerable women transitioning], ‘I wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole,’ and the work we were going ahead with was cancelled. She never answered an email or picked up the phone to me again. While I might have been clumsy in my own participation in the dialogue, I didn’t have that as an intended outcome. Governors talk to each other. It’s a closed shop, a tight-knit community, and if they take against you, you are pretty much fucked. Either they don’t know you, or they don’t care. If there are a bunch of women transitioning in a women’s prison, why would [they] want anyone sticking their nose into that?”

The issue of sex and gender can become another fault line in partnership conversations that may already be very fraught. Ingala Smith said: “As a feminist organisation, you are often the ones in the room who are challenging statutory people about sexism and misogyny. Even if you are attending a domestic homicide review, for example, it can be quite shocking, the lines that people come out with. So you’re always saying, ‘Well, no, she isn’t a bad mother. She was being controlled. She wasn’t making free choices.’ … Local authorities are Stonewall Champions. They are signed up and required to push that agenda… It becomes another battleground in what’s a very difficult area anyway.”

“I was naïve, six or seven years ago, about the alternative view. I couldn’t believe that commissioners thought it was OK for someone who hadn’t medically or legally transitioned to be in services – that they didn’t understand the practical implications and the trauma response. Once I understood that, it was easier for me to deal with.”

The impacts of these negative experiences – whether they are serious personal allegations, relationship ruptures or just frustrations – is that leaders become more guarded and engage more carefully with contentious areas. “And if something is perceived as contentious,” said one, “you spend a lot of time on that – and that’s frustrating, because it detracts from the work you are trying to do.” They have serious consequences, too, for access to funding and organisations’ ability to get commissioned for services, which are covered later in this report. This then affects organisations’ ability to offer high-quality services that meet the needs of women.

“We have navigated discussions with commissioners that are often more difficult. Commissioners want to seek inclusion. They have been quite surprised when there has been push-back… I was in a meeting where I gave an example of a transwoman I know who came out in her late 40s, married and with children, at six foot two with no medical treatment. I [said], ‘What if the person needed refuge space – would it not be advisable to give that person refuge space in dispersed accommodation?’ The answer was, ‘No. Transwomen are women.’”

Some had been successful, however, in forging partnerships with individuals and organisations with whom they disagreed on the matter of sex and gender. One said, “We’ve got a network meeting and agreed that on that point, we can’t work together, but there’s lots on which we can… We know when we refer people what their services are. We have found a way to work together. We have had an adult conversation about it.”

Compromises

Sector leaders described a number of compromises they have had to make in terms of adhering to their own views about sex and gender while ensuring that services are not negatively affected by other people’s reactions to these views.

Providing services to men

The main compromise that many leaders across the sector have had to make is the provision of services that include men – either all men, or transwomen within women’s services. Ingala Smith said, “Some of our contracts require us to support men and, really, if it were down to us, we wouldn’t do that – but we can’t make that choice if we need a certain amount of contracts coming in to stay viable.”

“Where is the line between prioritising women and how invasive you have to be with your questioning to determine what a woman is? And that doesn’t sit with us well either, and ensuring that we are inclusive enough that feels authentic with our values in terms of providing support for women.”

In the wider sector, Ingala Smith commented that leaders are signing contracts that say they see transwomen as women, and some may also be delivering services in that way. One leader said: “On funding, you always have to say your services are inclusive.” Treating transwomen as women does not represent a compromise in all cases, however. “I know there are some people that actually do believe that,” said Ingala Smith. “I find it increasingly difficult to believe they are holding onto those beliefs, but some appear to be.”

“There is an area of compromise for me. In an ideal world, it would be a women’s-sector service providing services for women. When I started, I was proud that we provided LGBT services, whereas now, I am not. But in a way, this protects us. We have been doing it for a long time, and we know what we are doing. Don’t tell us we are transphobic.”

“The first time I went into a prison and had a man in a women’s group, ostensibly it wasn’t a problem. The women were very used to this situation. This was a prisoner like any other prisoner, who happened to be serving their prison sentence in the women’s prison… I have to continue facilitating a women’s group against my own internal structures. I am faced with a position where I can’t say or do anything other than go along with this situation.”

Being publicly neutral

“We try to be non-political, despite what my beliefs might be around single-sex services for women. You are walking on eggshells sometimes. Other times, you are openly and unapologetically trying to get services for women.” Another said, “Not all [trustees] agree that we should be a totally feminist organisation. We try to be non-political in the way that we do our work and the way we respond on social media.” 

“I am completely compromised,” said one interviewee. “I took quite a long time to say to some of my friends that I was gender critical. Many, I would still never tell, as I am scared they would stop talking to me. I have made huge personal compromises.” This interviewee said that she had avoided challenging her organisation’s equality and diversity policies as she was concerned about the implications of doing so.

Leaving some matters up to personal choice

One leader said, “Some of our staff have badges with pronouns, but not everybody has to. We’ve had staff requesting that we require pronouns to go on our signature strips, and we’ve said, ‘No, that’s not necessary.’ … My personal views sit outside the workplace.”

Trying to please and placate colleagues

According to one interviewee, this applies to trustee boards as much as it does to younger staff. “Many have two sides [and], as a leader, you are trying to keep both sides on the level. You are trying to avoid anything that causes the fault lines to emerge, and cause you to lose your job, honestly.”

Others stated that they had not made compromises, and that their service delivery was as they would choose it to be. One said that her organisation had developed alternative accommodation, but they would have done this anyway, as refuges struggle to meet everyone’s needs. 

“The pronouns business – I vowed from early doors never to do it. I know loads of leaders who think… ‘If I don’t state them, it looks like I’m trying to say something I am not.’ And I’m irritated, sometimes… when I’ve seen them appear… It is one of the ways people have been divided. Younger members of staff look at your sign-off, almost thinking that you haven’t clocked onto the latest thing to do, rather than you have made an active choice. And there are actual proactive reasons, including for people who are trans, why you don’t think putting pronouns all over anything is very helpful.”

Speaking out and being silenced

“The real point that I would want to make is that people are not able to express their views within the sector. We talk about domestic abuse being a gendered crime. It is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men and experienced by women. The statistics do not lie. We say that, but we are not prepared to say what a man or a woman is. People are not able to express their views safely… As organisations there to protect women… unless we start naming what this is, we will never provide the safety that women need.”

Sector leaders are operating in a delicate climate in which their personal views and the views of their organisations are often seen to be one and the same. According to Ingala Smith, “When you’re a chief executive of a charity, you understand that although we all have a right to an individual point of view and to be political outside our work context, I know… that if I talk about those issues – even though I am an independent person and have rights to be that – people conflate me and Nia.” Another leader said that the biggest impact of ongoing tensions around sex and gender is “the silencing, the erasure of sex in all forums and a hostile environment that prevents discussion, debate and dialogue”.

Some leaders have stayed quiet either because they did not want their organisations to be negatively affected by their views, or because they did not have the support of their boards to state their views clearly and publicly. One commented, “When I am in work, I represent the organisation. Anything that I communicate is authorised by our board of trustees. My personal views don’t come into it.” Another said, “I wouldn’t want to bring any opprobrium to the organisation [by speaking out], as we support very vulnerable women.”

“As a leader of a charity, especially in the current environment – with precarity around funding, platforms and having access to partners and supporters – unless you have the support of your board, your funders and your staff and, of course, the people you support – then it is completely silencing.”

Every organisation has been frozen by this issue, one leader said. She gave the example of a Scottish women’s-sector organisation that has failed to mention the now infamous case of trans-identifying rapist Isla Bryson (he was initially housed in a female prison). Another pointed out that most organisations have deftly avoided opening this can of worms, with the exception of organisations such as Nia and Aurora New Dawn, which have the support of the staff and trustees. She said that the people to speak up are “women who are secure in their employment or who are exceptionally brave”.

The silencing impact of this debate is interesting in the context of a sector in which women are used to speaking truth to power. “Despite the legions of gobby women, there are few who are brave enough to put their heads above the parapet,” said one leader. “I am one of the cowards. I don’t make my position public, as I don’t want to have my income derailed or to receive hate mail.” There is no way to know how many people want to speak out but feel unable to do so. According to Phillips, “The effect that worries me the most is for those who feel they can’t say anything, or feel they have to go along with it… in terms of service practice and risk. [These are] the ones I don’t know about.”

Well-founded fears seem to be the main reason that leaders feel silenced. They may fear losing their organisation’s funding and the knock-on impacts on the quality of services they are able to provide. One interviewee gave the example of Rape Crisis, saying that it gets money from the Ministry of Justice, as well as the police and crime commissioners. “If these contracts are Stonewall-connected contracts, you can imagine how impossible it feels for individual rape-crisis centres.”

“I know there are some sector leaders who have really struggled with this, and fought really hard within their own organisations to protect women as a sex class – and that takes its toll. People are worried about funding, and that is fair enough. We are on our knees anyway. ‘Do I say something and risk not having any services for women, or do I keep these services and they are not women only?’”

Dr Shonagh Dillon

The vitriol, accusations and backlash already explored above under Complaints and Accusations contribute to this climate of fear. Ingala Smith said, “I have seen fear developing in some women leaders to speak out because they have seen other women being targeted, and they are afraid. I have seen vexatious complaints being made about other women, and I have had vexatious complaints being made about myself.” There has sometimes been pressure for leaders not just to be silent, but to speak out against their beliefs.

One woman said that saying you are pro-woman does not mean that you are anti-trans, but you are nevertheless seen as a bigot. Another commented, “[People] are very fearful of being able to advocate on behalf of a single-sex service because of the backlash we have seen. That then detracts from the service we are delivering to survivors.” Women may also choose not to speak out if they have children at home who might otherwise be exposed to judgement or abuse because of their mothers’ statements, according to one leader.

“I think it is watching the real-life examples of women with decades of experience and tenured professors losing their jobs and their careers, or Suzanne Moore being hounded out of The Guardian. That is the very public consequence, before you look at lesser publicised aspects, which are equally very silencing: the doxxing… the details of children’s schooling. [A famous feminist friend] wakes up every morning to 200 emails hoping her children die, or that she gets raped or gets cancer. People have had child-protection investigations triggered by trans-rights activists. That’s enough to scare people. For liking someone else’s tweet, you get a police officer knocking at the door.” 

The culture of silence plays out in the media, too. One leader said how careful she needed to be when commenting publicly on these issues. “I was hidebound. I was hobbled in what I was able to say… There were things I said and things I didn’t say. I learned to be more subtle. I talked about women and girls a lot, and completely ignored other issues. I didn’t deal with the issue of men wanting to be women. I pretended it wasn’t there and it wasn’t happening.” 

Another said that she would have spoken out, but she was never asked about these issues in the media or through policy platforms. “I was never publicly asked, including giving evidence to parliamentary committees. I was always ready to answer the questions. There was a sense of being silenced… There has been silencing publicly, but also in private conversations. It has been divisive, and I think in my lifetime it always will be.”

“I am absolutely fine with people disagreeing with me, [and] that other people want to have mixed-sex services. Trans inclusion – if that is your policy, fine. What bothers me and still does is the inability to have that debate… We shouldn’t be being called bigots or ostracised.”

Dr Shonagh Dillon

Careless or bad-faith actions on the part of organisations on both sides of the debate may contribute to a lack of trust that makes it hard to speak out. A leader gave an example of friendly fire: “Recently, something happened publicly online. It related to something I had been involved in, with Chatham House rules. It was a very sensitive conversation about this issue. There were comments made online that misrepresented what had been said and done. I was horrified. No wonder people didn’t participate. That was definitely a gender-critical organisation. It was outrageous and incorrect… People have to speak freely and with trust, and you can see why, in the current environment, that it’s been hard to do.”

Seemingly bad-faith actions have taken place elsewhere, too. Two interviewees mentioned a now-infamous report into the women’s sector (see the Introduction) by Stonewall. One described it as a “total misrepresentation”. The other was closely involved in helping draft the responses of one of the women who was interviewed for the report. “The first draft didn’t include what she said. She said, ‘We do run single-sex services; we do take advantages of the [exceptions].’ They said in the first draft that nobody did this. It was an outrageous lie… It came out in the end, and was a bit weaselly. It wasn’t given the priority that other views were. Lots of quotes were not included. Part of the issue around this stuff is when it is reported and then not spoken about.”

“I would put the chilling effect of not being able to speak about this issue at number one. It has the longest-term and genuinely most dangerous impact. If there’s one thing people can’t speak of, it’s easy to develop a culture where anything that is contentious – and all advocacy work, one might say by definition, is about trying to change the status quo – [means that] opposition is silenced and not possible. That puts any advocacy movement in difficulty.”

This chilling effect on people’s ability to speak out about issues relating to sex and gender extends into the world of policy generally and Parliament more specifically. According to Phillips, “I have seen people keep quiet because they are worried about being pilloried about certain things. That definitely will happen in a policy environment.” This point was supported by other interviewees who had policy backgrounds. 

“How women have been excluded, ignored, vilified for talking about our rights and our protections.”

On a more optimistic note, speaking out may not bring the heavy consequences that sector leaders fear. Ingala Smith said, “I found that when I did speak up, the fear of the impact of speaking up was lessened. The fear was greater before I started to speak. I am not going to be bullied and silenced.” There is an increasing ability, too, for women questioning trans-inclusive policies to have a platform. “From what I can tell, they are relatively supported within the sector,” according to Phillips. “I go to the national conferences. I am not seeing the exclusion of some of the most prominent women in this space.”

Social and psychological effects

“I met my abuser at university. He was a very smart guy. He’s still a very smart guy, and very professionally accomplished. He learned his tricks from his father, who was very manipulative. Violence was not the main tactic that he used. He had a whole variety of other kinds of tricks, which I did spot – and then he would just shift the goalposts slightly… The biggest difficulty that I had when I left was not being able to trust my own judgement, not being able to trust my own mind, not having any memories at all… Everything in my life, any place I could go to in my head about my past life, my past memories, my thoughts – they all directed to him. I didn’t experience anger for decades. I wasn’t allowed opinions unless they glorified him or were acceptable to him… He dripped poison into my mind on occasions when we were out in public. I couldn’t trust my own perceptions. 

“The hardest thing, really, has been to re-establish my own faith in my own opinions and my own emotions and my own perceptions of the world. And I’ve done pretty flipping well. But I’m not being told how to think. I’m not being gainsaid, and that’s part of why I’m fighting so hard within my charity. I’m not going to be told the way my perceptions are wrong. And we mustn’t do this to other domestic-abuse victims.

“Victoria Smith – Glosswitch – has written a piece this week in The Critic that talks about what we’ve lost. And I’ve lost my faith in institutions, in other people. I don’t know that it’s recoverable. I mean, I still trust myself. I still trust my own judgements. I fought for that. But just the idea that, yet again, I’m not allowed to have my own perceptions of what is right and wrong. I’m not allowed to have my own perceptions of how I think other people are behaving and how they’re treating me… That mirrors perfectly what happened in my marriage. I’m not going through it again. 

“It’s the truth. That’s what it has cost me.”

The social and psychological effects on the women interviewed for this report of being attacked, put under investigation, losing work – or feeling unable to speak out in defence of single-sex services – have been profound. Interviewees highlighted a combination of causes and effects:

“When I originally started speaking out in 2018, I spoke out on Twitter and got targeted. I was met with zero support from within the movement. None. That spurred me on to do the research. It’s a really unusual feeling to be completely ostracised and stonewalled. I got a few people saying, ‘Sorry this is happening,’ and then nothing. When I did start talking, it is lonely.”

Dr Shonagh Dillon

Being ostracised and feeling alone

Women in the sector are being ostracised from their communities, according to Dillon. She said, “It is a really lonely place to be. There are a lot of women who say, ‘I can’t believe this is the topic I’m being isolated over from within the movement.’” Another leader said, “It is hard and lonely and scary.” Ingala Smith said that this loneliness works both ways, as she gets frustrated with women in the sector who are not speaking out. “As much as they are withdrawing from me, I’m sure I’m doing some of the withdrawing as well.”

“That feeling of solidarity with other women – that feeling of connection – is absent now in the wider sector. When we do this very difficult work anyway, that’s quite hard. You are quite isolated as a chief executive. There’s an emotional impact to this work – to work to support women victims of men’s violence – so to have to be dealing with that, and to feel on the periphery of these women who are your peers is quite hard.”

Dr Karen Ingala Smith

Being talked about

“I know those women have said stuff about me locally,” said one leader. “It’s not just what is going on in front of your face, but behind your back.” She added that it was exhausting and repetitive. 

Becoming vigilant

According to one interviewee, “The [anti] male violence against women movement is small. You see the same faces, especially when you’ve been in it for a long time. You can turn up to conferences, and you wonder whether or not you’re persona non grata.”

“I had been expecting [a complaint] for a couple of years. I wake up every morning thinking, ‘Is today the day where we will be called out?’ The impact emotionally is very difficult. There is no space for communication in that environment. You feel physically and emotionally that it is really very difficult to cope with. I always go back to the reasons why we deliver.“

Personal erasure

Some interviewees felt personally erased by this issue; lesbians have found it to be particularly invalidating. One said, “The words I have always used to describe myself and my sex have been appropriated. They have been taken from me.”

“In everything that I see from local authorities and the public sector, even the way I describe myself and my body is gone. I am a lesbian. I now have to use the words ‘same-sex attracted’ to describe myself. Nancy Kelley [ex-Stonewall CEO] called me a ‘sexual racist’. My sexuality is being erased. It is being replaced by this other thing that I don’t recognise.”

Anxiety, sadness and grief

In a previous role, one interviewee had attended training that told employees to validate identities without question and never misgender. “It was clear they would force me out of my job. I had left a… coercive control, violent marriage. In the course of that, I developed severe mental-health difficulties. I was forced out of the labour market and financially abused. It was a tremendous battle to leave, regain my mental health, get back into the state where I could become employable… I had no savings, no assets, no safety net. I am really reactive around the prospect of being forced out of my job.” Another interviewee said that she felt dismay when she realised the extent of the issue. “I feel disbelief and grief, and think, ‘What can I do to fight against it?’”

“This area has been the subject of so much personal anxiety, primarily around doing the right thing… I was always quite anxious as I saw how complicated this was. I have always been clear that women’s organisations need to tread a line between these two positions. It has never felt like sitting on the fence, but balancing really carefully different people’s views. I have felt very silenced. I have felt badly treated by trying to tread a line. It’s almost easier if you just give in. It’s the only area that I haven’t felt able to speak freely about.”

“I was subject to punitive sanctions at work. I felt it was really impacting my life and my future career prospects.”

Obsessive thoughts

Constant thoughts about the sex and gender issue were present in one leader’s mind for a few years. “I’m thinking at the time, ‘I can’t think about this forever.’ My world contracted… It makes me emotional now.”

“There is not one of us who it has not hit really hard. I thought I was losing my mind. Work was work. At the same time, the women of the world were being eradicated, and all the apocalyptic… body parts, and disposable women, with fundamentalism and orthodoxies becoming more entrenched – I was struggling with this… It really invaded me, and it really took over my mind. I was having to work through that, while trying to be kind, and business-like, and lead and motivate and take care of funders.”

Anger

Many leaders were angry on behalf of the women they work to support and because of the personal impacts that so many had endured. 

“What impacts me most is seeing some in the women’s sector agonising over this and spending months over policy statements. Some women’s centres have young staff who left uni on the crest of the wave of gender ideology. I see the women’s sector trying to tear themselves asunder trying to do the right thing and getting distracted from the day job. I am so angry that it has impelled me not to let this go.”

Weariness

“It gets quite tiresome,” said one interviewee. “When you say the job that you do for the organisation that you do, there is a narrative about being feminist, lesbian, man-hating. A label that we are bigoted because we are transphobic is another thing to carry. I am too old to give a shit, but it’s harder for younger people to navigate that. We have been round the block with the slurs that get chucked your way. It’s tiring… and people are not always interested in finding out why you have taken the position that you have, and we are constantly having to explain why a transwoman might have a different experience to an adult human female.”

Another said, “We’ve spent so much time batting this away, or having to answer stuff, or worrying about whether because [our statement] has been public, we will get funding – and having a hint that perhaps we haven’t got funding because of sticking up for women’s rights. It’s exhausting.”

“It is emotionally gruelling to have to go to work every day, and know that large numbers of people in that room think you are a bigot. That takes its toll. You end up not talking about it a lot of the time, as you think, ‘I can’t hack this today.’ It’s very tiring. It’s emotionally draining… But if we cave in, those services are lost. There are moments I have thought, ‘Can I put up with this any more?’”

Career impacts

“Across the sector, people are not speaking out because they are scared of losing their jobs.”

Leaders mentioned career impacts including professional investigations, disciplinary procedures and loss of work; this section is necessarily short as details make cases identifying. One leader had a job interview that she ultimately was not offered. The official reason was something fairly anodyne, but she was told privately by a member of the interview panel that she had performed brilliantly, but did not get the job because of her views on sex and gender. “‘It would be very divisive.’ I have an email saying that – and I know she is right.” 

Two interviewees talked about consultancy work they have decided not to bid for – either because it was positioned in a way that did not align with their values or because they did not think they would be given it based on their views. Describing a head-to-head with someone in a greater position of power over raising a safeguarding flag relating to vulnerable women, one leader said, “The end result was that I was excommunicated. Work was cancelled. She never spoke to me again.”

One leader, who was investigated by her previous employer, said, “I was a member of a trade union. I could have got free advice and representation by the union – but unions are captured too. So where do you go?” Two leaders expressed fears about future employment linked to having information about their views in the public domain. “The risk to me is that I won’t get hired again,” said one. “The HR world is utterly captured.”

“At points, I have wondered if I am committing professional suicide. I am not going to be a CEO forever. Are there people who wouldn’t employ me or work with me because I have done and said this? Are there people who are smearing me behind my back? 30 years’ worth of work is completely useless. I’m just a bigot now.”

Impact on organisations

Funding and commissioning of services

“The trans-rights activists are very smart in the sense of cutting us off at the knees. We are underfunded anyway, so going after our funders is very effective… It is clearly a tactic.” 

Many interviewees described an impossible funding and commissioning environment for women’s services, through which much of what is commissioned requires services to include transwomen. One woman said, “The commissioners don’t really understand it. They don’t understand what the Equality Act means. They don’t understand when an organisation says there is solid evidence that single-sex services are needed. You don’t have to have many ideologues within a local council for them to have massive sway.” Another leader suggested that grants officers are appeasing their trustees, who are sufficiently removed from service delivery that they do not understand what is at stake.

“Many [statutory funders] have joined Stonewall. It’s slightly defunct now, but for a long time it held a lot of sway, and a lot were Stonewall Champions. As a result, people knew the contracts for services they were competing for were ‘inclusive’, which is a weasel term. It means ‘inclusive’ of one group: trans people.” 

The language of “inclusion” has saturated the funding and commissioning of services. Organisations may be asked to specify whether they are “inclusive”; services are often commissioned exclusively on this basis. “Forcing people to say that they are inclusive or not is part of the problem,” according to one interviewee. Website content and language may be used by funders and commissioners as signifiers of adherence to such a belief system. One leader was informed by a funder, for example, that other funders were querying the use of the word “women” in her organisation’s promotional literature.

“Recently, we were questioned – drilled, actually – about how we respond to trans referrals, about how we respond if men want support, as we are a women’s service. It felt like whatever [we said], our answer was not a feminist one. We had to be more inclusive. I feel like they have boxes to tick, and if you are seen to be too women-focused, it is not attractive to funders. You have to be seen to be inclusive to the minority that affects the majority when it comes to women.”

Leaders mentioned a range of effects on their work of this common promotion of gender identity over sex in the funding and commissioning of services.

“The implications are lamentable. Edinburgh Rape Crisis – look at what has happened there. Or organisations like Women’s Aid who depend on funding from councils. They were set up by women, for women, but now they have to offer services to men in certain circumstances to keep their funding secure. [My local council] passed a Stonewall-influenced resolution that talks about ‘transwomen are women, transmen are men, non-binary’ – all propagandistic stuff… That impacts on the services they deliver and their partnerships. I think it has a chilling effect and a constraining effect.”

Direct loss of current and potential funding

One leader, who had lost a local authority contract, said, “They never explicitly said it, but it was because, in part, we said we would retain at least some single-sex services… [Our leadership team] discussed it and said we wouldn’t say that we would make all services inclusive… as it was wrong. We did that, and knew it was a risk.”

Ingala Smith, who – until very recently – ran London-based Nia, has been told of one local-authority funder who said she would look less favourably at any application from Nia because of its position. “We have had one or two smaller donors and fundraisers who have started working with us, heard about our policy and pulled back,” said Ingala Smith. Some individual donors, however, have provided a counterweight by funding Nia to offer its single-sex services precisely because of the position it takes.

Leaders may be unaware of the impact of this issue on their ability to secure contracts and other funding, as organisations with the power in these relationships may never explicitly state their reasons for withholding funding. As Dillon put it when wondering whether she had lost out on funding for Aurora New Dawn, “I don’t know, because I don’t know what goes on behind our backs.”

Shrinking of the funding pot

Two interviewees stated that funding for women’s services is being diluted as it increasingly has to cover services for men, including transwomen. The issue is not in the funding of these services per se, but that they are coming out of what is already a very small pot. The apportioning of funding is also incommensurate with need when compared with the funding allocated to the much higher volume of female survivors. 

“‘We have domestic abuse for women – we will resource it; then men’s domestic abuse – we will find that too. LGBTQ – we will find that.’ But when it comes down to where this money will come from, it comes from the women’s pot. You have a huge imbalance from total domestic-abuse service users. 85 to 95% have to subsidise [everyone else]. Now with self-ID, domestic abuse – how will that work? Where will the money come from? The resources for women’s services are being hit over and over again.”

Competition with generic providers

An interviewee highlighted the transaction costs associated with providing lots of specialist services. “Virgin and G4S see a major potential market. They can make billions over the country. They can show their unit costs are much lower than a local rape-crisis centre who can’t demonstrate economies of scale. If you are giving women – damaged, difficult things to deal with – women-centred, good-quality services, the costs are very high. A multinational will bid.” 

This is arguably a more general issue with commissioning than it is an issue with the way statutory organisations have replaced sex with gender identity, but a different interviewee stated that this scenario is more likely to take place when organisations push for single-sex services. “If women’s services who prioritise women push back or don’t comply, they commission bigger non-specialist national organisations to deliver services that are not in the interests of women… There were several areas that were commissioning refuge services to people who didn’t have a clue – who were then putting men and women in the same refuges. It was unbelievable stuff.”

“Specialist women’s services have lost contracts to more generic providers. That is a huge loss… It’s dangerous, and it kills people. It is dangerous to not have specialist women’s services that understand the nature of power and control… I have seen bad, generic services that I consider to be dangerous where men are working with victims of domestic violence.”

Jess Phillips MP

Inability to speak freely

According to one leader, “We are not big enough that if we turned around and said, ‘We don’t agree with you,’ they’d find another provider.”

“The main driver has been, ‘Keep your head down and don’t raise this issue.’… When you are in the context of a highly unsustainable sector, with funding going from month to month or year to year… As soon as you don’t have a clear funding path, you have to give staff three months’ notice of redundancy. It’s been a pattern of rape-crisis centres. Women are given notice of redundancy around Christmas, and they are still waiting in April to know if funding has been secured. The same thing happens next year. It makes them behave in a very risk-averse way. They can’t meet the huge demand. A waiting list appears, and once it is so long that it can’t be cleared, the waiting list is closed – so, in effect, there is no rape-crisis service in any part of the country for large parts of the year.”

Questioning of actions and motivations

“Funders,” said one leader. “Fucking funders. Why are you asking me what fucking gender I am? When you look at my website on single-sex spaces, are you doing it to eradicate me from your database?”

Skewing of service provision

This happens in terms of both the services provided and the organisations that get funded.

“It is very competitive,” said Dillon. “Sisterhood tends to go out the door… I don’t doubt that a lot of the bigger [organisations] have stayed entirely quiet on this, and held onto their millions.” Another interviewee said, “When it comes to the design and delivery of services, [this centring of gender identity] skews the services in an irreparable way.” Someone else had wanted, in a previous role, to offer single-sex refuge provision, but ended up delivering a model that offered both. “It was the only way commissioners would accommodate that. It was not optional with that local authority to offer a solely single-sex service… We would not have won the tender.”

“Women’s organisations do not live off public donations. A lot live off foundations, trusts and contracts with the state. A lot of local authorities’ positions have been that transwomen should have access to women’s services.”

While many organisations have been hamstrung by this issue, there are others that have made a decision to state clearly and proactively that they offer single-sex services to women who need them. In some cases, this has not been successful. One leader wrote to council leaders, for example, over a recent motion that said transwomen are women. “I wrote a long report about the need to protect single-sex provision. There was no reaction at first so I chased it up… It was sidelined.” 

Others have seen success through this approach. “At Aurora, we are explicit that ‘This is our policy’,” said Dillon. “You almost have to start with it.” Nia’s approach has been similar, according to Ingala Smith. “Because we decided with the board that we would be unafraid, we’ve decided just to go for it and challenge our funders. One [funder] did a needs assessment, and that needs assessment used what I would describe as captured language. Rather than answer the questionnaire, I wrote a complaint and said, ‘You know, this is not an objective piece of research. You’re taking a position here.’ We decided to go into attack mode. So far, in some ways, that’s served us well.” 

Someone else mentioned the value in asking commissioners at an early stage for an equality impact assessment and a statement on how commissioned services meet their public-sector equality duty. “You have to ask for the equality impact assessment way before you want to challenge [any] decision.”

“What we are doing now is a briefing for funders. ‘This is why it is our approach. This is why it is legal and ethical, and if you don’t like it, sod off.’ You never really know why you don’t get funding, but we have got a lot of funding in… We don’t mess around. We have this other service that is inclusive of trans people. You still have to say all of that.”

Leaders highlighted the need for funders and commissioners to learn about this issue, to listen to the sector and to offer people the opportunity to have discussions without threat of losing funding. “Funders are silent about all of this,” said one. “They are doing what they always do – staying out of anything political.” Another commented, “The misunderstanding and superficial understanding of these issues is pathetic and shoddy for people who are spending public money looking after vulnerable people.” 

“I wish commissioners would consult with specialist providers and have a two-way dialogue… and treat us as a partner who understands the issues more than they do. We need to have good commissioning.”

The funding and commissioning environment could also be improved by more unequivocal national support from national agencies. An interviewee spoke favourably of the statements put out by the Women’s Aid Federation England and the Women’s Resource Centre, but implied how much more they could be doing. “They are under so much pressure from funders, especially statutory funders, not to engage in this problem.”

Internal cohesion

Leadership

Leaders have been better able to forge internal cohesion on issues relating to sex and gender when they have had the support of their boards of trustees, which many still lack. “What often happens is that you have a board where some of the members want a very strong statement that ‘transwomen are women’,” according to one interviewee. Cohesion may be fractured even within boards, however. “Our chair doesn’t like the fact that we aren’t inclusive,” said one person. “Our longest-standing board member is aligned [with my views], as she has grown up in the sector. The other board members aren’t engaged.”

Ingala Smith, on the other hand, was able to navigate these issues due to support from her board when she ran Nia. “I had the backing of my board of trustees before I spoke out. That was really important, because the way to get to a chief executive is to complain to the trustees.”

“We were in the final stages of agreeing our five-year strategic plan, and the board had more or less passed it – but I mentioned the elephant in the room and the threat to single-sex services. I said, ‘If we don’t raise it and speak publicly, I’m concerned we are complicit in the erasure of those spaces.’ We agreed it was a risk that commissioners might not like it, but we felt like we were faced with a choice – either speak up for women’s services and risk Nia losing funding, or not speak up for women’s services and lose women’s services. So we decided to take the risk on the chin and see what happened. We agreed it was a hill we were going to die on. We were committed to single-sex services for women subjected to men’s violence.”

Dr Karen Ingala Smith

Differences in opinion may affect organisations’ abilities to manage crises. One prisons leader described a situation in which the leadership had to deal with trans-identifying male prisoners. “It went into complete meltdown,” she said. “They were terrified. They didn’t know how to handle it. They knew they had problems – they veered from side to side. They had a problem, as there were assaults.”

Employees

A lack of internal cohesion over this issue often reflects the presence of trans-activist staff. As mentioned briefly in the Barriers to the provision of single-sex services section, many of these staff are young; this means they are more likely to have studied gender theory at university or had peers to whom gender theory was taught, and less likely to have had the life experience to demonstrate that a chosen identity is unlikely to protect women from male abuse and violence. 

One leader, who partners with a number of chief executives in the sector, said, “They are constantly having to dance around the demands of their younger staff. Even though they may have persuaded their boards, they have struggled to persuade younger staff. One is a big player in the violence against women and girls sector. It has, for its entire existence, taken a gendered analysis of domestic abuse – and they are under constant challenge from younger staff that it’s not a gendered issue. [It is hard] to run a feminist organisation when [this issue] has dominated staff meetings for the last three years.”

“It is a bit like priests in medieval Europe and the ordinary people… It is heretical and frightening. These are world-destroying questions to ask… If you are schooled in ‘no debate’, you don’t ask questions… There is a lot of debate and a lot is not up for debate as it is really obvious. I don’t expect everyone to come on board, but I do expect them to behave professionally.”

Leaders discussed a number of themes as they relate to employees and their organisations’ internal cohesion.

Internal conflict

One leader gave the example of a group of vocal transactivist staff who persuaded another group of women to sign a vexatious complaint about a member of staff. “Some didn’t really understand what they were signing, but felt that they should support their colleagues or felt afraid of what might happen if they didn’t.” Another mentioned a member of staff who was trying to change the ethos of the organisation from the inside: “She offered to rewrite policies that would include trans-identified males in our services.” Someone else said, “I remember a conversation with a young gay guy who was being bullied out of existence for saying, ‘I don’t think this is right.’ I was so pleased to see other people raising the alarm [over his treatment].”

“We are all seeing a rise in new members of staff who are on a mission to ensure transwomen are included in single-sex spaces. They cause a great deal of difficulty and are looking for ways to discredit the organisation. Every allegation, however inaccurate, must be investigated. A small thing becomes a massive task.”

Silencing of non-activist voices

An interviewee pointed out that many staff recognise the importance of sex, but these voices tend to be quieter. “The ones who have that political goal and want to advocate for it are much more likely to get themselves as representatives on groups… They are there to bang the drum for trans rights. It’s a minority – but, as we know in this arena, that minority is very loud, very capable of making people uncomfortable and making people feel they can’t stay, even though they shout loudly about being silenced.” This means, according to this leader, that people who use a more sex-based framework to approach their work “only speak quietly to people who they know will hear what they are saying”. 

Another leader, discussing a group of practitioners in her organisation, said, “Some were silenced, as they felt they couldn’t say what they really believed… That fear that creates that if you express your view, you might be branded as transphobic is a real issue. It’s not used from an equality perspective, but it’s used as gagging – stopping you believing what you believe. This is the most difficult problem.”

“What I see, hear and witness is that those that support trans inclusion are very vocal in their support for that. They feel able to prevent others from speaking their truth or what they believe, and that leads to a culture where the vast majority of those who work in my organisation are silent about what they believe are essential things like single-sex provision – particularly for women and girls who have experienced abuse and sexual assault.”

How leaders navigate difference

Leaders described various approaches to steering their organisations through internal differences of opinion on this issue. These include leading with the board of trustees and filtering agreed approaches down through the rest of the organisation, and centring a balancing-of-rights approach. Having a culture in which difficult conversations are welcomed has also been useful. One leader said, “We need to practise the skills of having conversations with people who disagree with you.”

“There were employees who had different views and ideologies. We had to start with, ‘Who are we for? Is this still relevant?’ Yes. We are still needed. It means confirming with the board of trustees, who have the last say, and then reiterating with staff what the organisation’s mission is. It goes in the strategic, periodic review. The situation we find ourselves in requires it.”

In some cases, organisational clarity on their single-sex policies have led to greater internal cohesion. Ingala Smith, for example, said, “Now Nia is known for our position, we have people who don’t apply to work with us any more. People get to an interview position, then ask about our policy and don’t take up the job… Over the last year, it seems to have changed even more now. Women seem to be approaching Nia because they like our values, including young women, which is good to see. We did have staff who didn’t agree, and now we very rarely do.”

“It comes down to the training we are doing with them – explicitly asking people to understand that ‘I don’t have to believe what you believe, and if you call someone transphobic, you are infringing their rights, creating a discriminatory atmosphere and putting [our organisation] at risk.’ It sounds more heavy handed than it is, but I am very firm in terms of boundaries.”

This navigation of difference extends to incorporating the preferences of people with different views, where it is appropriate to do so. One leader said her organisation had designed a survey that incorporated a question that was clearly about sex, but that used language that recognised other people might frame the language around that differently. “It is clunky, but it does feel important to put our money where our mouth is. We are not going to force our definitions on you, and we don’t want to exclude people on the basis of belief or non-belief.”

In some cases, leaders are gradually developing the confidence to push back against activist staff demands or are building the confidence in their staff teams to do the same. One said, “Increasingly we are working towards being able to say who is included – and, by implication, who is excluded… There is still a lot of twitchiness… The cohesion of the organisation is difficult, as we are weighing up those services for others with these considerations. I feel really strongly that we need to keep building confidence in the balance-of-rights approach. They don’t have to ascribe to it, but they do need to adhere to it.”

Sector cohesion

“We built up a movement, and now we have to run to stand still. As well as delivering services to women, we have to maintain the integrity of the movement.”

An important impact of tensions between sex and gender identity has been a splintering of the women’s movement, although there remain pockets of huge support between women who feel similarly about this issue working across organisations. One leader commented, “I think it has been very fracturing [between] providers who wish to be inclusive and those who wish to stick to their single-sex roots. It is fracturing for the individual organisations who have put their heads above the parapets to be hounded and harassed on social media.”

A couple of interviewees discussed the statements from Women’s Aid Federation England and Wales, the Women’s Resource Centre and Rape Crisis England and Wales referred to earlier. Women’s Aid, according to one interviewee, “took a long time to do it, and they’re a classic example of both the board and the staff being split and fractured down this issue. Some of them are simply scared for procurement and financial reasons… but they are also genuinely split on values.” Another leader said that Women’s Aid going first took the heat off other organisations, including hers. “It’s never been about putting a line in the sand – what this means for female survivors. It’s been about making sure services are inclusive of transwomen, which is being asked for by commissioners. It took the pressure off us to comment.” 

Of the Rape Crisis England and Wales statement (at the time of the interview, this statement was forthcoming; it has since been published), someone else said: “It has taken a long time and been extremely contentious.” This leader added that at least one senior figure in Rape Crisis did not believe that it was sufficiently trans inclusive. She also pointed out how many other organisations have taken different views on this issue. “Rape Crisis Scotland has taken a particular view. Engender works on violence and has taken a pro-transwomen-are-women approach. The Scottish Women’s Convention has tried to pretend it’s not happening. They get money from the Scottish Parliament and have to be very careful about what they say.”

“The sector hasn’t wholesale gone, ‘Everyone should do this,’ or, ‘No-one should do this.’… Women’s Aid – whether or not some people thought it took a long time – they came to a supportive position for women who were voicing concerns.”

Jess Phillips MP

The fracturing within the sector has led to a loss of shared vision and mutual support from women working within it. Ingala Smith highlighted a lack of trust. “Those you previously assumed to be allies, you can’t any more. You have tensions within the sector that weren’t there before.” Another leader said, “Previously, you had a shared understanding that you were women helping women. You had a shared understanding of what your purpose was, and that no longer happens.”

“There is a sadness in all of this for me. It is a shame that it has broken down natural allies – women that want the best for female survivors and for all victims, and members of the LGBTQ community. And there should be allyship between vulnerable groups of people, and there is a sadness for me in the conversation not being reasonable and sensible and pragmatic.”

Courage is required for those individuals and organisations that have been clear about a need for single-sex services, and there was a sense that some of the more secure organisations that have failed to be honest about their views – whether or not they align with this – need to reflect. “I don’t know how some of the ones with large pay packets and huge reserves sleep at night,” said Dillon. “I have much more sympathy for the small, local charity… If you believe that men can be women, say it. Say it either way. Stand by your principles. Be open. Be honest. It’s the dishonesty or the hiding behind those of us who will stick our necks out – I have lost respect.”

“It takes a tremendous courage to stand alone or with a couple of others to be exposed almost to a shooting. All of the colleagues in the sector who have done that have my gratitude.”

Attempts have been made to form cross-sector official and unofficial partnerships on these issues. A couple of interviewees mentioned setting up groups – a mixture of official and clandestine – to work across the sector. One mentioned a group of women’s centres coming together to form a national partnership. Another said, “Other heads and senior managers in my field I know felt the same. We started to have secret meetings to talk about it… We set up a group to talk to each other and how to deal with it and to offer support, linked with lawyers and people working in the field.”

“We know that a higher proportion of trans-identifying males have issues around violent, abusive and sexual predatory behaviour. We should be there to safeguard that. It would take a lot of incidents… After five more incidents, would we say there is a pattern of behaviour? Would it be enough to say we can’t be inclusive? I don’t know, as the debate is so complex and challenging, and if you have nailed your colours to the mast like that, how difficult it must be to change your mind.”

Time and resources

“Frontline organisations are on their knees. Any time spent on this, which is always popping up and is always there, is exhausting.”

Dr Shonagh Dillon

The drain of women’s-sector organisations’ time and resources through managing this issue came up time and again in interviews. Time and resource drains mentioned by interviewees came in the following forms:

Use of organisational processes

These include internal discussions, development of policies, risk assessments and consultations with service users. “All of those take time and energy from other aspects of your work,” according to one leader.

“I have spent a lot of time with the trustees and staff and training to try to increase our understanding. Nobody wants to think they are being bigoted, as accused. We want to have the law on our side and have justified, legal responses that protect women. I’ve been trying to reassure the teams on our strategy, and I’ve been honest – sometimes we don’t know. We need to explore more. We need to understand more.”

Dealing with funders and commissioners

If organisations are applying the single-sex service exceptions, according to one leader, it is now a requirement to justify these at length. “I have had one funder come back and ask for further clarification on that, even though I provided consultation responses from 700 victims in our service.”

Handling complaints and employment issues

Ingala Smith said, “Over the last few years, there have been numerous complaints about my tweets or the statements that I’ve made, and they’re always dealt with by our very small, voluntary board of trustees – so it is a huge waste of their time. We have a complaints procedure, and if complaints are made, they’ve got to be looked into because the impact of not doing so could be dangerous in terms of safeguarding. So it’s an impact on my trustees and their time and then their ability to do other things that the organisation needs.” 

“I just don’t want small organisations ending up in litigation. If you think about the employment stuff that happens with a small organisation, it takes up so much time and energy… [while] you’ve got people turning up with their belongings in bin bags.”

Jess Phillips MP

Another leader raised the issue of the stalking of social-media accounts. “Trustees’ and chairs’ social media have been looked at for any transphobic statements by staff who have a certain ideology. They want to prove the organisation is not trans inclusive and is transphobic, which causes a number of issues around freedom of speech and the time spent on the work.”

Others talked about time and money spent working with HR professionals and lawyers in the management of complaints. One interviewee gave the example of a colleague in the sector who had to raise funds to pay for external consultancy support in response to “allegations, all unfounded, and demanding action is taken against the leader… It was all disproven.” 

Time spent on the areas explored above is time no longer available to support female survivors. There may be direct impacts on the resources available to support women, too. One leader gave the example of a helpline service, saying that they were under pressure from commissioners to accommodate every caller. “We had a number of perpetrators trying to find information about women and others. This requires us to spend a phone call – precious minutes… putting certain questions across to identify the person’s circumstances without falling foul of being transphobic… Moving from calls with women who were at risk of being killed to having those conversations over the phone is a waste of resources.”

“We always have more work to do than we’re able to do. There is always more demand for our services than we’re able to meet. We are not a big corporate organisation with a big HR department. We’d laugh when someone called us and asked to be put through to the media team. What media team? It was me, and occasionally I have been the woman picking up the phone, too. So we’re an under-resourced organisation, and it’s become another drain on time. As well as the time, it is the emotional energy, the frustration, the feelings of isolation.”

Dr Karen Ingala Smith

Strategy and service provision

“The women’s sector is primarily about campaigning and advocating for women’s rights. The other thing they do is deliver sometimes genuinely life-saving services. If you think about domestic-violence services, and the number of women subject to abuse, homicide, trafficking – they can end in death. These are serious, life-saving services. The women’s sector’s ability to deliver these has been seriously compromised by being unable to name the group that we are working to support. Especially in the violence sector, it is not passive. It is men’s violence against women and girls. The ability to name men is crucial.” 

The impacts of the aspects explored in this report have been devastating for the sector and its ability to provide services to women. The direct impacts on women are covered in the Service users section; this section covers organisations’ ability to design, fund and offer appropriate services, all of which have an indirect effect on female survivors and prisoners.

Compromised ability to meet women’s needs

As noted under the Compromises and Funding and commissioning sections above, many organisations have had to provide services on the basis of professed identity, not biology, to secure funding. This has an inevitable impact on women. “We want to get on with our work, which is not trans rights,” said one leader. “It’s a distraction,” said Dillon. “We have spent inordinate amounts of time arguing about whether men should be allowed in women’s services and people tying themselves up in knots about something so simple that it should be a given. It’s a distraction from the real work. I’d like to spend more time concentrating on women of colour, disabled women, older women.”

“The safety of women becomes more and more compromised – as this discussion confuses the public and the communities that we try so hard to educate about domestic abuse, and the statutory agencies who are very resistant to the training and education that we try to offer them.”

Compromised ability to meet the needs of trans service users

The needs of trans service users are not being served well through this debate. As highlighted earlier, the needs of transwomen tend to differ from the needs of women, and the presence and needs of transmen are getting lost. The spotlight on this issue is also removing women’s-sector organisations’ ability to respond quietly and appropriately to the needs of trans survivors seeking support (for example, by offering them one-to-one services or referring them on to a specialist charity).

“The rhetoric that those of us wanting single-sex services don’t cater for trans people is not true.”

Dr Shonagh Dillon

Compromised ability to advertise services clearly and signpost referrals safely

A number of leaders highlighted their inability to advertise their own services as single sex (even if they were) or their inability to make onward referrals in the full knowledge of whether single-sex services will be available. “It feels like our lines are around being seen to be letting transwomen into refuges rather than saying we provide safe spaces for women,” said one leader. “Why do all frontline services not have public positions? You should know what you are going into. You can only have informed consent if you are fully aware and understand… We have done lots of work… building up the confidence of women, knowing that it is a safe space for them. We are being dishonest by not giving women the information to make informed decisions.”

“I get asked by victims all the time – and by the friends of victims – ‘Can you find out if that service is single sex?’ Usually I can. Sometimes, I don’t know…. I can’t confidently turn around to victims and tell them if there will be men in their services, and that is not right. It is not transparent… I would like to see the Gold Book [a directory of domestic-abuse services] explicitly state whether when they say, ‘women only’, does that mean single sex? That would be the best place for us to be legally sound.”

Dr Shonagh Dillon

Risk of safeguarding failures

Safeguarding risks come in two forms. The first is having men sharing spaces with vulnerable women, and especially those spaces that are unsupervised. The second is related, but allows men who are known to be dangerous to access these spaces – this is what happened at Leeds Women’s Aid, as mentioned earlier, when a sex offender was able to hide a criminal record behind a new identity as a woman. One leader commented, “We don’t do checks on women as they come in, as there is no time, and it would be an additional barrier. We are checking ‘Joanna’, and we are not going to see the litany of stuff about ‘Joe’, which is what happened at Leeds.”

Risk of litigation

A couple of leaders mentioned the case of Sarah Summers, who states on her crowdfunding page that she is “suing Brighton Rape Crisis Centre Survivors’ Network for discrimination because it refused to provide a women-only peer support group. I am a survivor of sexual abuse.”⁴² One interviewee pointed out that Survivors’ Network has a specialist trans group and a single-sex women’s group to which a transwoman was given access, which underpinned the decision to sue. “If you are a membership organisation and one member is being sued in this way, what do you do? And until the statement [from the national representative body] comes out, you don’t have a way of putting out your own position.” 

“Organisations are scared of losing their funding. They are worried about getting individual claims against them. A man turns up presenting as a man, but you are not allowed to [challenge that]. You have no way of policing your service to deliver to the people for whom your services have been designed.”

Impacts on staff who are survivors

Interviewees raised the de-centring of the experience of female survivors among staff. One interviewee said that her organisation had made an internal statement on a safeguarding incident that expressed concern about the impact on LGBT colleagues and offered them support. “There was nothing to say that on our staff team, lots are survivors of domestic abuse and will have accessed specialist services. My big takeaway is that every big communication and everything we do is around being ‘nice’ and being ‘inclusive’.”

Loss of meaningful data and knowledge

Several interviewees discussed the impact of changing data-collection systems to focus on identity in place of sex. One gave the example of a central government department that had replaced sex with gender in a crucial dataset. Another said that the proportion of people who do not respond, or select “Don’t know”, to questions about sex is minimal, but it is at 13% for questions about gender identity. “It skews the data. Only a small number of perpetrators being categorised as female changes the perpetrator picture… We end up creating poor interventions based on the wrong data.”

“It means we can’t protect women’s services if we don’t have the data. You need the data to inform what you need to do next. What the male violence against women sector is good at is looking at the trends and issues for women, and moving with that. If you take away the rawest of data about women as a sex class, how can you argue for the services you need in the future? The policy-capture issue is worse than the gender reform, because it has gone ahead of and against the law.”

Dr Shonagh Dillon

These aspects come together to affect the sustainability of the sector, as well as its ability to deliver services to women. One leader, commenting on organisations’ decisions to offer mixed-sex services, said, “Once decisions like that get made, they are hard to row back. An example is the use of food banks. We were horrified, and now it’s part of the landscape, and it shouldn’t be.” Another said, “We have to try to find a way out of it now. It’s only going to be through the hard graft of the detail – not the ideology.”

Policy conclusions

Sex must be clearly defined

Interviewees were asked about the proposal to clarify the meaning of sex in the Equality Act to a person’s actual sex, not their sex as modified by a gender-recognition certificate. They identified several benefits. 

Meeting the needs of survivors

Several said it would help providers to be able to offer single-sex services and reduce the negative impacts on women of mixed-sex services or ambiguous rules and policies. 

“It is essential that it’s clarified as biological sex, from our perspective. If the Equality Act includes legal sex, we have no recourse to prevent individuals with a [gender-recognition certificate], many of whom don’t go through full physical transition and may not even present differently, and women would stop using our services. Where would these women go? Where would they get support?”

“If you don’t make it a duty and you don’t make it the law, there will always be people who abuse it, and then women will never be safe. We know the statistics. There are always going to be women violated by men, so why make it easier for them?”

Several interviewees said it would encourage and enable organisations to be clear about what their policies are. 

“What the clarification of the Equality Act will enable victims and survivors to do is to specifically ask and expect a public answer.” 

Certainty for service providers

Several said that Equality Act clarification would help to protect services from threats of legal action and allow leaders who have stated their positions publicly to stop worrying.

“… having the back-up that government recognise this and that we can stand up, instead of being reasonably cautious and worrying at 3am what I have put on our website.”

“We won’t have to spend thousands of pounds on solicitors fighting court cases or challenges.” 

Security for the sector

Several interviewees said that if the meaning of sex in the Equality Act and the public-sector equality duty was clarified, then it would be easier to fund single-sex services and for contracts to be awarded on this basis.

“It would give us a lot more confidence to have that definition to hang on, and to go back to commissioners: ‘This is why, and it’s backed up by this.’”

“Clarification in the Act… would be a reality check for all institutions that would bring us back to where we were before this ideology permeated everything.”

“Unless you have a government or a country looking at women’s needs, they will not be safe.”

The sector must speak clearly

Some interviewees raised the possibility that clarity would lead to a backlash. 

“I think [clarification] will be massively helpful, but it will fuel an enormous backlash that’s worse than the current one among some people… I mean, my trans-activist colleagues’ line is: ‘We should be going beyond the law.’ That’s the phrase they use.”

“Clarification has lots of dangers, as well as lots of advantages… Nothing can happen [to solve that] unless you can talk freely.”

Interviewees reflected that there is a shift in the sector, with organisations gaining more confidence to say they will protect single-sex services. That hasn’t made the tensions within organisations go away, but it has shifted the debate. Karen Ingala Smith said: “There is more balance coming into it, which is a huge relief. It’s still not easy.”

Women’s-sector organisations are developing clearer policies that allow single-sex service provision, and adopting public definitions of the word woman to mean “adult human female” (or a similarly biological definition). But many still talk in vague terms about “LGBTQ+” survivors. Ten interviewees stated that their organisations currently have a definition of woman; this is unlikely to be representative of the wider sector, however, due to the profile of those who volunteered to be interviewed for this research. 

“My organisation defines woman as a ‘human female’. As a feminist from the 80s, I find it a failure of all of our fights and struggles that I am asked to define who I am in such a way.”

In some cases, organisations have attempted to strike a pragmatic balance between how they frame their services and how they deliver them. One interviewee commented: “A lot of organisations say they are inclusive, or they fudge it. They don’t have a policy, but they make sure some services are single sex.” Ingala Smith said that many organisations kept quiet in the past about their maintenance of single-sex services, but may have signed contracts and taken funding by stating that they were “trans-inclusive” and believed that transwomen are women. 

“We haven’t agreed a solution [to board disagreement], so we have just done the same thing we have always done – to say that we are under-resourced and have to prioritise women. We’re lucky that there is a trans service in our area, so we refer there. We have a get-out… It helps us to say, ‘We don’t have this specialism.’ We have a waiting list of women who need help. That’s our priority.”

This pragmatism extends to the detail of service delivery, according to Dillon. “Rape-crisis services will make sure – even though funders are being really explicit that ‘You will be trans inclusive’ – they will have separate parts of the building. They will make sure entrances and exits are different for the different sexes, and the toilet facilities. They matter in general life, but they really matter when you are entering a rape-crisis service.” Organisations are often attempting to balance multiple needs, including meeting the needs of trans survivors.

“The vast majority of women’s organisations have made case-by-case decisions, not getting involved in any way. The worry would be that you would be drawn into either side. There are some that have taken a very proactive ‘inclusive’ approach; there are others I admire who have rejected this language for that of ‘prioritising women’ and making case-by-case decisions. There is a worry about being aligned with either of those unless you specifically want to make a point about being on either ‘side’. 

“The thing is the language of ‘inclusive’ tells you nothing about the practicalities of decisions. For example, if you are an ‘inclusive’ women’s organisation, do you ‘include’ all transmen and transwomen? If not, how can you call yourself ‘inclusive’? The fact is that by their nature, women’s organisations are ‘exclusive’ – it is the reason they exist. Like so much of this area, the language is ideological and takes us backwards in terms of practical solutions to real-world issues.”

For those organisations that have chosen to be clear about their provision of single-sex services, leaders have often had to be careful about how these services are framed with their staff, trustees and funders. Viewing policies through an equality-impact lens has been one approach, balancing the rights of different groups of people; another has been to build an evidence base on the needs of service users. According to one leader, “It doesn’t say in our website or publicity what a woman is. We are working towards that. We are working towards a process that takes staff through our service, aims, primary and other user groups… You have to think about toilets and whether people go through a public space. Just back it all up with evidence.”

“Get your policy on your website. Say what you are doing. They should be doing that anyway… They have to be publicly accessible statements on what you believe. Shoring up the Equality Act means there are no excuses left.”

There remain, however, services that do not offer single-sex provision. One interviewee said, “Most organisations don’t go near a definition. Most treat transwomen as women.” Dillon commented: “They are confused about what a woman is… It’s the phrases you see on websites: ‘Women only, however they identify.’ So men.” Some organisations adhere so unshakeably to gender-identity beliefs that they signal this adherence through advertising jobs to self-identified women, according to another interviewee, who challenged the practical and legal ramifications of this practice. Others may be worried about being tainted by association, and decide that the threat to survival is not worth the risk of fighting for single-sex spaces. 

The End Violence Against Women Coalition has published a manifesto that sets out priorities of the sector for the next government, calling for a “comprehensive, whole-society approach to tackling VAWG [violence against women and girls] that looks beyond the criminal justice system and centres those who face the greatest barriers to support and protection”. This will not be possible without a clear recognition of women as a group. 

Several interviewees talked about whether the law could be strengthened to go beyond the permission under the Equality Act to commission and to provide single-sex services, and to make this a duty. Any legislation along these lines would need to recognise sex in order to be effective.

The law must work coherently

The experience of the interviewees shows that the function of the Equality Act is not merely about letting services exclude individuals using the “single-sex exceptions” in Schedule 3. It is about how the Equality Act framework both constrains and enables the governance, funding and policy environment for women’s services, and their management through internal policies, training and employee action. 

Effective organisations within an effective sector need to be able to be clear about their purpose, so that staff and trustees are not constantly in conflict. They need to be able to communicate their services, and the terms on which people participate, in clear language that everyone can understand. They need to be able to record information about service users. And they need to be able to do this without constant fear of legal challenge or loss of funding. For every part of this, they need clear support from the law. 

Fixing the Equality Act and its use is not only about the single-sex service exceptions but also about how the whole act works to recognise women’s needs. Over the course of the interviews, interlocking issues were highlighted that relate to six different parts of the Equality Act:

1. Charities. Specialist services for women who are the victims of male violence are often charities with objects focused on women. This is allowed under Section 193. But trustees and staff are being pressured not to focus on women (or not to be explicit about doing so) even when that is their organisation’s charitable object. 
2. Associations. Organisations (including self-help groups) may also be constituted as associations with members where membership is “by and for” women (or groups of women with particular characteristics) who are victims of sexual and domestic violence. This is allowed under Schedule 16. But again these associations are coming under pressure not to be clear that they are female-only. 
3. The public-sector equality duty (PSED). Section 149 requires public bodies to pay “due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation” and to “advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it”. This means they must remove or minimise disadvantages and meet needs in relation to groups that share protected characteristics. The definition of woman that they use determines whether they direct attention and resources to biological women as a group.
4. Positive action. Section 158 allows for positive action to address disadvantages or needs related to a protected characteristic. This should enable public bodies to provide, fund and commission services for women. But focusing on formal equality (services should be provided for men and women without discrimination) rather than substantive equality (women have particular needs and disadvantages and require positive action), or becoming confused about what a woman is, leads funders and commissioners to remove their focus from women and push for women’s organisations to include men or compete with “gender-neutral” providers. 
5. Single-sex and separate-sex services exceptions. Schedule 3 provides exceptions that allow for the provision of single-sex and separate-sex services, including a statutory defence against any claim of gender-reassignment discrimination or sex discrimination. This has been presented (wrongly) as meaning that each individual “transwoman” would need to be excluded on a case-by-case basis based on a specific risk assessment, rather than that a service may be set up for women only as a matter of policy.
6. Occupational requirements. Similar issues of legal and operational risk are raised when organisations such as women’s refuges try to advertise and hire people of one sex using the “occupational requirements” exception. Organisations misrepresent this provision to employ trans-identifying males in “female-only” roles. For example, Survivors’ Network recently placed an advertisement for an independent sexual violence advisor manager, saying the post was “open to self-identifying women applicants only, as being a woman is deemed to be a genuine occupational requirement under Schedule 9 pt 1 of the Equality Act 2010”.⁴³

Furthermore, the definition of woman that is used by the Equality Act feeds into training, guidance and data collection. Much of the training run on the Equality Act in statutory organisations has been incorrect, and has contributed to the difficult funding and commissioning environment for women’s-sector organisations. 

Fear about the direct legal impact of the Gender Recognition Act in terms of making it unlawful, or even a criminal act, to share information about someone who might have a gender-recognition certificate also creates a chilling effect.

The criminal justice system must protect women

Interviewees also reflected that the constraints on women’s services are caused not only by the law but by decisions made by statutory bodies in the criminal justice system. If organisations provide services funded by police and crime commissioners, the Ministry of Justice or HM Prison and Probation Service, those service providers have to accept whatever definition of women these bodies are using in referring people to them. Definitions are generally broader than people born female together with males who hold a GRC.

While prison-allocation policies have recently been tightened in England (and in Scotland, albeit less so) to make it harder for male prisoners self-identifying as women to be transferred into the female estate, there is no equivalent policy for probation, resettlement and diversion. Male offenders in these parts of the criminal justice system who would not have been housed in the female estate may be treated by commissioners as women – and women’s services are expected to accommodate them. 

TI/GQ survivors should not be forgotten

Interviewees agreed that the definition of sex needs clarification, but did not view this as a solution to everything to do with sex and gender in practice.

Several leaders spoke about the needs of “transmen”, who are a sub-group of women but have specific needs. One leader gave the example of those who pass as men, whose presence in single-sex spaces may be difficult for other female survivors. 

“The presence of people who look and present very male, and live their lives as men – you would have to accept those cases. Think about what that means. Both sides have been in complete denial. Women’s organisations know.”

Ingala Smith worries that they may not come to the organisations that are best placed to help them because those services have been wrongly branded as transphobic. “That is a worry. There needs to be funding identified to provide those services.” These individuals may need support which cannot be provided in the mainstream women’s sector. Interviewees highlighted that dedicated support is also needed for detransitioners.

The UK must be compliant with the Istanbul Convention

Losing clarity about the categories of women and men confounds understanding of male violence against women and girls, and directly enables and mandates specific abuses of women, such as being searched by male prison officers who identify as women or forced to share accommodation in probation hostels. 

The public-sector equality duty and the positive-action provisions of the Equality Act provide on paper for separate services for women, and create the obligation on public bodies to act to remove or address disadvantages, meet needs and encourage participation in public life. But these provisions have been systematically undermined by misrepresentation and misunderstanding of the definition of sex, and so perversely create a hostile environment for the women’s sector.

This is not compatible with the commitments of the UK under the Istanbul convention. ⁴⁴

Recommendations

The UK government

• The government should act urgently to resolve the situation of the definition of woman and man in the Equality Act. This must be done in an integrated, coherent way across the whole of the act. The protected characteristic of sex should mean actual sex, not sex modified by a gender-recognition certificate. This would not remove the general protection against discrimination for trans people, as there is a separate protected characteristic of gender reassignment.
  
  The Gender Recognition Act needs a single amendment to make clear that the fact that a person’s gender has become the acquired gender under this act does not affect the status of the person as a man or woman in relation to the protected characteristic of “sex” in the Equality Act 2010.
  
  This could be done via secondary legislation using Section 23 of the Gender Recognition Act to amend that act and the Equality Act, or through primary fast-track legislation to achieve the same result.
• The government should also review and amend Section 22 of the Gender Recognition Act (which makes it a criminal act to disclose information if a person has a GRC). It should add additional exceptions to allow for the disclosure of information in the operation of single-sex services, and for safeguarding and implementation of the Equality Act.
• The government should provide clear guidance to people applying for gender-recognition certificates, explaining that the certificate does not give them the right to use opposite-sex services or to compel others to pretend that they have changed sex. 

The government should not delay. The now-formalised definition of woman from the For Women Scotland judgment poses a risk to the women’s sector. It will feed into the public-sector equality duty and into training and guidance, making it harder to fund, manage and prioritise female-only services.

Only with a clear recognition of women’s needs as a sex will the UK be able to meet its commitments under the Istanbul Convention. 

England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

Strategies for ending violence against women and girls are set separately in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There are separate prosecuting authorities, prison and probation services, victims’ codes and charters for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. 

• Sex must be clearly included in all data collection and reporting across the criminal justice system. 
• The governments should make clear in their victims’ codes and all communication on violence against women and girls that single-sex services are allowed, legitimate and valued and do not need to admit members of the opposite sex under any circumstances.
• Organisations that are required to deliver rights under the victims’ codes should leave the Stonewall Champions scheme. The governments should review the training that has been provided to those organisations. 

The Equality and Human Rights Commission

• The Equality and Human Rights Commission should issue guidance and model policies for the women’s sector and for commissioners in order to enable the provision of single-sex services with confidence. 
• The EHRC should assess and comment on whether the UK’s legal framework is consistent with international conventions. Is an Equality Act that does not recognise women as a category based on sex consistent with the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Istanbul Convention?
• The EHRC, working with the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and the women’s sector, should produce guidance for organisations with responsibilities under the victims’ code, and for those delivering training for them, on women’s rights and the Equality Act in relation to women as victims and survivors of abuse. 

Charity regulators

• The charity regulators for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland should investigate the situation for women’s charities and determine whether there is a problem in law and in practice that is preventing the legitimate pursuit of charitable objects to address the disadvantage and needs of women (and of men).

The Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence 

This research informed our submission of a shadow report to GREVIO on the UK’s performance in relation to the Istanbul Convention.⁴⁵

• The Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO) – the independent expert body responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Istanbul Convention – should assess whether the UK’s legal framework, as clarified by the Haldane judgment, is compatible with the Istanbul Convention.

The women’s sector 

The judgments by the Court of Session in Scotland, the debate over whether to amend the Equality Act and the promise by the EHRC to update its statutory guidance for service providers all mean that constructive ambiguity by the sector and organisations within it is increasingly unsustainable.

• The women’s sector should engage with the debate on clarifying the definition of sex in the Equality Act and stand up clearly for single-sex services.
• Organisations should recognise that they will not be able to defend and advocate effectively for women-only services, charities and associations without sex being a clear protected characteristic in law. 
• Organisations providing services to women should have clear and public policy positions about whether they provide single-sex or mixed-sex services.

1. Prison Reform Trust (2018). Response to the call for evidence by the National Commission into women facing domestic and/or sexual violence and multiple disadvantage.
2. Women’s Aid (2023). Annual Audit Infographic: Key findings from routes to support.
3. Women’s Aid (2023). Annual Audit Infographic: Key findings from routes to support.
4. Joint submission of the four Women’s Aid federations to GREVIO, December 2023.
5. Based on the Council of Europe recommendation of one space per 10,000 population.
6. Joint submission of the four Women’s Aid federations to GREVIO, December 2023.
7. Prison Reform Trust (accessed December 2023). ‘Women in prison’.
8. Ministry of Justice (2021). Statistics on Women and the Criminal Justice System 2021.
9. Prison Reform Trust (accessed December 2023). ‘Six in 10 women sent to prison serve sentences of less than six months’.
10. Prison Reform Trust (accessed December 2023). ‘Women in prison’.
11. Prison Reform Trust (accessed December 2023). ‘Women in prison’.
12. Home Office (2021). Tackling violence against women and girls strategy.
13. Rape Crisis England and Wales (accessed December 2023). ‘Rape and sexual assault statistics’.
14. Office for National Statistics (2018). Sexual offending: Ministry of Justice appendix tables.
15. PeoplePolling (2024). Victim Support Poll.
16. Stonewall & nfpResearch (2018), accessed July 2023. Supporting trans women in domestic and sexual violence services: Interviews with professionals in the sector, p.14.
17. Engender and others (2018). Frequently asked questions: Women’s equality and the Gender Recognition Act. 
18. Rape Crisis Scotland (2022), accessed December 2023. Rape Crisis Scotland statement on the open letter to Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls.
19. The Women’s Equality Party Sex-Based Rights Caucus (2022), accessed December 2023. Sophie Walker’s Letter to Mandu Reid.
20. Female-Only, Violence and Abuse Survivors (2018). Response to Stonewall
21. Sex Matters (2022). Submission to the Victims’ Bill consultation.
22. Shonagh Dillon (2021). #TERF/Bigot/Transphobe – We found the witch, burn her! A contextual constructionist account of the silencing of feminist discourse on the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004, and the policy capture of transgender ideology, focusing on the potential impacts and consequences for female-only spaces for victims of male violence, p.197. Doctoral Thesis. University of Portsmouth.
23. Shonagh Dillon (2021). #TERF/Bigot/Transphobe – We found the witch, burn her! A contextual constructionist account of the silencing of feminist discourse on the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004, and the policy capture of transgender ideology, focusing on the potential impacts and consequences for female-only spaces for victims of male violence, p.204. Doctoral Thesis. University of Portsmouth.
24. Karen Ingala Smith (2023). Defending Women’s Spaces, p.51. Polity Press.
25. Jo Phoenix (2022). ‘Biological Sex, Gender Criticism and Feminist Criminology’. The Philosophers’ Magazine.
26. Inside Time (2021). Stop sending trans women to women’s jails, say ex-governors.
27. Nia website (accessed December 2023). ‘Statement: nia warmly welcomes the recent statements by Women’s Aid (Federation England) and the Women’s Resource Centre’.
28. Women’s Resource Centre (accessed December 2023). ‘WRC Statement on women-only services and sex-based rights’.
29. Kirsty Weakley (2022). ‘Women’s Aid statement on single-sex services attracts criticism’. Civil Society.
30. Sex Matters (2023). ‘Timeline of efforts to sabotage the EHRC’s work to protect everyone’s rights’.
31. Sex Matters (2023), accessed December 2023. ‘Intimidation, threats and violence by trans-rights activists‘.
32. Outer House, Court of Session (2023). Opinion of Lady Haldane.
33. This research informed our submission of a shadow report to GREVIO on the UK’s performance in relation to the Istanbul Convention.
34. Maya Forstater (2020), accessed December 2023. ‘The incoherence of government guidance’. Single sex spaces.
35. For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers (2022).
36. For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers (2023).
37. Women’s Resource Centre (2019). ‘Are the Equality Act 2010 and CEDAW working for the women’s voluntary & community sector in England?‘.
38. Fair Play For Women (2019). Supporting Women in Domestic and Sexual Violence Services – Giving a Voice to Silenced Women: Evidence from Professionals and Survivors
39. Council of Europe (2018). ‘Ending misconceptions about the Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence‘.
40. Those without concerns have been represented in previous research. The original intention was to interview 15 leaders; this was extended to include leaders who responded after initial approaches had been stopped due to the interview cut-off having been reached.
41. Transcripts were taken live during the interviews, and recordings were checked only for gaps, so there may be occasional small variations in language.
42. Sarah Summers via CrowdJustice, accessed September 2023. Help Sarah’s Legal Challenge to Secure Female Only Rape Crisis Therapy.
43. Survivors’ Network (2023), accessed August 2023. Independent Sexual Violence Advisor (ISVA) Manager – Maternity Cover.
44. Sex Matters and others (2023) Shadow Report on the Implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence
45. Shadow report: Sex and the law in the UK.

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