Schools and safeguarding • Page 4
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Safe Schools Alliance
Focuses on children, specifically on safeguarding and the correct interpretation of the Equality Act. A group made up of parents and professionals that produces resources to support parents who seek to challenge harmful school materials and policies that prioritise sex self-ID over the privacy, safety and dignity of all...
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ScotPAG
A forum on gender dysphoria and gender ideology from the perspective of professionals in healthcare, education, and social work. Founded in 2023 with the aim of establishing a clearer picture of how gender-related issues are handled in health, education and social work, challenging poor practice and offering a gender-critical alternative based...
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Thoughtful Therapists
Founded in 2021, a group of psychotherapists and counsellors who campaign to raise awareness of the negative impact of gender ideology on mental-health services, in particular for children with gender dysphoria. Work has focused on government proposals to ban “gender-identity conversion therapy” and on the Memorandum of Understanding on...
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Schools left to write own transgender rules “behind parents’ backs”
Louisa Clarence-Smith for The Telegraph Sex Matters board member Rebecca Bull is quoted in this article. Headteachers will continue to decide whether to tell guardians about a child changing their identity.
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What Hilary Cass needs to tell schools: social transition is incompatible with safeguarding
On 28th July Dr Hilary Cass, the eminent paediatrician commissioned by the government to review paediatric gender-identity provision in the NHS, made an announcement that vindicated everyone who has criticised that provision, often at considerable personal cost. The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), England’s sole NHS clinic for under-18s...
29th July 2022
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Why do single-sex services matter?
In February 2022 Sex Matters undertook a survey to find out why single-sex services matter to people. The response was astonishing. In a little over a week we received over 7,000 replies, nine out of ten of them from women. Many included details about how the loss of everyday...
19th July 2022
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Why single-sex services matter: privacy, dignity, safety and choice (full report)
Full report (133 pages): see also 30-minute read and key findings. Over the past few years many single-sex services and spaces have been changed to mixed sex, but few of the people who use them have been asked how they feel about this. Our report amplifies those voices.
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Why single-sex services matter: privacy, dignity, safety and choice (key findings)
Key findings: see also full report (133 pages) and 30-minute read. Over the past few years many single-sex services and spaces have been changed to mixed sex, but few of the people who use them have been asked how they feel about this. Our report amplifies those voices.
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Why single-sex services matter: privacy, dignity, safety and choice (30-minute read)
30-minute read: see also full report (133 pages) and key findings. Over the past few years many single-sex services and spaces have been changed to mixed sex, but few of the people who use them have been asked how they feel about this. Our report amplifies those voices.
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Groups defending sex-based rights
Overview of groups opposing sex self-ID in the UK, set up by individuals and collectives concerned by the failure of established third-sector organisations to defend women’s sex-based rights, child safeguarding and evidence-based policymaking. Also listed on our website.
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Sex Matters response to “More in Common”
More in Common is an organisation that seeks to “build societies and communities that are “stronger, more united, and more resilient to the increasing threats of polarisation and social division”. Perhaps as a response to this challenge from Maya Forstater, it has applied its approach to the gender wars....
16th June 2022
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Sex self-ID in Scotland and transgender unemployment
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 was an extraordinary piece of legislation intended for an extraordinary group of people. It was passed to allow people who had transitioned under medical supervision to change the legal sex recorded on their birth certificate “for all purposes”. Now the Scottish Government is...
14th June 2022
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Is the Attorney General wrong about the law, or is Stonewall?
The Department for Education is developing new guidance for schools on how to accommodate children who identify as transgender. Attorney General Suella Braverman gave an interview which suggests that the guidance will be based on the principle that children who identify as transgender have not changed sex, and therefore...
29th May 2022
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Attorney General clarifies the law for schools
In an interview with the Times, Suella Braverman said schools should treat children according to their sex, not their self-identified gender. Sex Matters welcomes Braverman’s comments, which align with Sex Matters’ guidance. The Department for Education is currently drawing up new guidance for schools. Braverman said: “Under-18s cannot get a...
27th May 2022
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Is Scotland going to turn the UK into an identity-laundering haven?
As part of Sex Matters’ response to the Scottish Parliament consultation on GRA reform we raised security concerns. This has been reported in the Telegraph and the Times, and Maya Forstater had a Thunderer piece in the Times. Identity matters The involvement of the state with an individual’s identity...
18th May 2022
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What is behind the campaign to ban conversion therapy?
The campaign to ban “conversion therapy” has come out of nowhere, to suddenly dominate the priorities of organisations such as Stonewall, Gendered Intelligence, Mermaids, GIRES and the LGBT Foundation. There have been protests and petitions, and these groups pulled out of a planned international conference on human rights when...
4th May 2022
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Why ban talking therapy?
How a campaign to criminalise the most effective treatment for gender-distressed children made it from the margins to the mainstream: we look at the history of conversion therapy.
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Send our new guidance to a school you know
Schools are calling out for clear guidance on sex and gender to answer questions such as what should they do when they face demands to socially transition children or to keep the secrets of a child who identifies as trans.
25th April 2022
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Sex and gender identity: keep your pupils safe and comply with the law – guidance for schools in England
This revision of our May 2021 guidance, produced together with Transgender Trend, draws on the interim report of the Cass Review, recent legal cases on freedom of belief, the EHRC’s new guidance on single-sex services and a YouGov survey of teachers, as well as government guidance and legislation. Republished with...
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Girlguiding settles gender-critical case
Girlguiding UK has released a statement saying it has settled its legal case with Katie Alcock. Katie Alcock and fellow guide leader Helen Watts were expelled from Girlguiding after an investigation into their social-media activity when they raised safeguarding concerns about Girlguiding’s policy of admitting male children and adults...
19th April 2022
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Most secondary schools now have trans-identified pupils: Sex Matters’ new survey
Anyone who interacts with young people will surely have noticed that trans identities are becoming more common – and varied. To get a measure of scale of this social shift, Sex Matters commissioned YouGov to poll secondary-school teachers about their experience of trans-identifying pupils. The findings provide the first...
11th April 2022
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Separate and single-sex service providers: a guide on the Equality Act sex and gender reassignment exceptions
Advice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, released on 4th April 2022. Read our statement about it.
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Independent counsel agrees with our guidance for schools
Last year Sex Matters, together with Transgender Trend, produced guidance for schools. The Good Law Project recently published legal advice by Dan Squires QC. His conclusions support much of our guidance, although he disagrees with us on one important point – how simple and straightforward it should be to...
1st March 2022
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It’s not too late to talk to your MP!
Sex Matters supporters have been speaking to their MPs about the proposed legislation on conversion therapy. Their reports from face-to-face and telephone meetings highlight the need for a proper review of the proposals. Supporters who have managed to speak to their MPs tell us that some have been surprised...
2nd February 2022
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Banning conversion therapy: a response from the Bayswater Support Group
The UK’s largest support group run by and for parents of children, adolescents and young adults who identify as transgender responds to the government consultation.
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Clear rules and girls’ schools
Why the Girls' Day School Trust's single-sex policy is lawful and important.
11th January 2022
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Clear rules and girls’ schools
Why is the Girls’ Day School Trust’s new policy important and what are the implications for other charities and regulators in protecting human rights?
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Whose schools guidance is in line with the Equality Act?
Joint post with Transgender Trend (it’s long; make yourself a cup of tea). You can also download it as a pdf. Boys and Girls and the Equality Act In May 2021 Sex Matters and Transgender Trend published the first edition of our Schools Guidance: Boys and Girls and the...
18th December 2021
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Sexual violence and sexual harassment between children in schools and colleges
The Department of Education’s advice for governing bodies, proprietors, headteachers, principals, senior leadership teams and designated safeguarding leads.
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Conversion therapy position paper
A new law seeks to remove medical gatekeeping by making doctors afraid of disagreeing with a patient’s self-declared gender identity. We ask the government instead to press Pause.
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Press pause on conversion therapy law
The Government is consulting on its proposal to introduce a new law banning “conversion therapy”. They are aiming to introduce a Bill to parliament in time to celebrate this as an achievement at their “Safe To Be Me: Global Equality Conference” in June 2022. They are therefore undertaking a...
14th November 2021
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Government launches conversion therapy consultation: Sex Matters’ response
A rushed six-week consultation has been launched, with the claim that this will stop under 18 year olds making irreversible decisions. But will the threat of criminal penalties be used to pressurise parents and therapists who don't take an affirmation approach to gender identity?
28th October 2021