Single sex services
-
New poll finds voters want to make the Equality Act clear
As reported in the Telegraph, Daily Mail, Express and Sun today, voters across the political spectrum are more supportive of making the Equality Act clear than making it easier for people to change their birth certificates. Sex Matters commissioned a representative survey from an independent polling company to find...
1st July 2024
-
Why do people think “transgender rights” have gone too far?
It’s not just about self-ID Support for the law that allows people to change the sex recorded on their birth certificate has fallen a long way over the past few years, most sharply when self-ID was being proposed, in 2018–19 in the UK and then again in 2021–22 in...
14th June 2024
-
Despite the election, you should still respond to consultations
You can still make a difference by responding: here’s how.
7th June 2024
-
Action guide
We want to make sure that every candidate seeking to be an MP hears that people want them to STAND UP FOR SINGLE-SEX SERVICES. Every voice counts – our campaign action guide has a poster to print out, ideas for what to say to canvassers who come to your...
-
It’s time to make the Equality Act clear
For the past 18 months Sex Matters has been calling for the government to make a simple one-line amendment to clarify that “sex” in the Equality Act really does mean biology, and not self-identification or paperwork. The Conservatives’ announcement today that they would do this if elected is hugely...
3rd June 2024
-
This damning judgment should be a wake-up call for the women’s sector
Adams v Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre This week, an employment tribunal ruled that caseworker Roz Adams was subjected to unlawful discrimination and constructive dismissal by Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC). The tribunal agreed with Adams’ description of what she had suffered as a “heresy hunt” at the hands of...
22nd May 2024
-
The Charity Commission must step up to protect single-sex charities
Single-sex charities play an important role in meeting the needs of one sex or the other in many areas, including healthcare, mental health, social issues, sport and education. Although charities are a form of voluntary action, the state requires that charity trustees pursue the charity’s objects, including when those...
20th May 2024
-
Roz Adams v Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre
An employment tribunal ruled that caseworker Roz Adams was subjected to unlawful discrimination and constructive dismissal by Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre.
-
The government wants examples of bad guidance on single-sex services
Send in the evidence! The government has issued a call for the public to input evidence of bad policies and guidance on single-sex services. UPDATE: Read Sex Matters’ guidance on how to submit evidence The Equality Act allows for clear single-sex services – including everyday facilities like toilets, showers ...
2nd May 2024
-
Digital verification services
– how the government can solve the problem about sex (or else sleepwalk into chaos)
-
Single-sex toilets in schools
Are your daughter’s safety, dignity, health and privacy important at school? Single-sex toilets are being removed in schools despite the Equality Act’s legal protections. The WRN has a range of resources you can use to highlight this problem and talk to your child’s school.
-
Is a GRC really a licence to search?
FairCop has published an advice from a KC on the lawfulness of the National Police Chiefs’ Council policy that tells forces that officers who transition can search (including strip-search) members of the opposite sex. The policy (currently withdrawn for review) states that: “once a transgender colleague has transitioned, they...
1st February 2024
-
We call on politicians to support women’s services
Women’s sector leaders talk to parliamentarians about our research On Wednesday 18th January MPs and peers gathered with leaders from the women’s sector to discuss Sex Matters’ new report, Women’s services: a sector silenced, at a cross-party meeting in the House of Commons. The panel discussing the report’s findings...
19th January 2024
-
Briefing on report Women’s services: a sector silenced
For the Westminster meeting on 17th January 2024, a briefing on our report on the effects of gender-identity beliefs on the women's sector.
Read the report.
Read the summary. -
Women’s services: a sector silenced – new report
A major new report launched today by Sex Matters reveals in shocking detail that leaders in the women’s sector who advocate for female-only services are routinely subjected to investigations, ostracisation, bullying and employment loss, and have been pressured into adopting policies that compromise women’s welfare and safety. Yet a...
16th January 2024
-
Women’s services: a sector silenced
This report by Matilda Gosling and Sex Matters examines the effects of gender-identity beliefs on the women’s sector, based on interviews with leaders of organisations providing services to women who have experienced male violence.
Read the summary version -
Women’s services: a sector silenced – summary report
A summary of our report examining the effects of gender-identity beliefs on the women’s sector, including the results of an independent poll in January 2024, asking if the British public supports the provision of female-only services for women. (Read the full report.)
-
Sex and the police: confusion over the law and state-sanctioned sexual assault
Update on the review into activism and impartiality in policing HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) has today published a letter with interim findings from his review of the politicisation of the police, which was started in September 2023 at the request of the Home...
10th January 2024
-
Gender-critical civil society submits report to GREVIO on sex and the law
Sex Matters, Fair Play For Women and Transgender Trend, together with LGB Alliance, the Women’s Rights Network, For Women Scotland and Merched Cymru, have submitted a report on the UK’s implementation of the Istanbul Convention. The Istanbul Convention is about violence against women The “Istanbul Convention” is the Council of...
31st December 2023
-
Sex and the law at the end of 2023
This blogpost is based on a briefing sent to the Women and Equalities Committee in advance of its session with the Women and Equalities Minister, Kemi Badenoch.
15th December 2023
-
Resisting violations of women-only spaces
The chair of Sex Matters’ board, barrister Naomi Cunningham, was asked to speak at a conference in Edinburgh on Tuesday 5th December to celebrate the first anniversary of the opening of Beira’s Place. Beira’s Place, based in Edinburgh but covering the whole Lothian region, is a trauma-informed service for...
7th December 2023
-
Guidance for service providers on single-sex services
In the light of the For Women Scotland judgment.
-
It’s time to act
Following the judgment in the For Women Scotland appeal, it is time for the government to act.
2nd November 2023
-
Court rules that GRC changes sex for the Equality Act
For Women Scotland’s appeal against the Haldane judgment that a GRC changes a person’s sex in relation to the Equality Act has been rejected. In the case of For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers CSIH 37 the Court of Session has handed down a judgment that: “a person...
1st November 2023
-
Sex Matters at FiLiA
The Sex Matters team had a fantastic time at the FiLiA conference in Glasgow from 13th to 15th October. Over 1,400 delegates from all over the world gathered to talk about women’s rights. Hundreds came to talk to us about the next stage of our campaign to clarify the...
17th October 2023
-
Sex Matters to intervene in For Women Scotland case
Sex Matters has been given permission, as a human-rights organisation, to intervene in the For Women Scotland case being heard by the Court of Session Inner House in Edinburgh on Wednesday 4th October. Our submission will urge the court to consider whether Lady Haldane’s interpretation of the meaning of...
2nd October 2023
-
Making the Equality Act clear – the story so far
This is the story so far, but it is just the beginning. The next stage in the campaign is to get the government to take action before the election, and get more people to stand up and say “I support single-sex services”. Will you be part of it?
-
Campaign update and appeal
Sex Matters is campaigning for the government to make a one-line change to the law to make clear that the protected characteristic of “sex” in the Equality Act means sex. This would make it easier to protect single-sex services, sports and associations. Read about the story so far, from...
22nd September 2023
-
Stonewall chair speaks (and then recants)
Iain Anderson, chair of trustees for Stonewall, has given an extended interview to Sky News’s Beth Rigby. It is well worth watching the whole thing. In the interview Anderson seemed to be trying to distance the organisation from the extreme position it has taken, saying that he recognises that...
22nd July 2023
-
Reality vs. Trans Ideology | Helen Joyce & Peter Boghossian
Peter and Helen discuss the definition of sex, why trans men should be allowed in women’s spaces, the tragedy of the commons, fa’afafine, evolution, the “thought-terminating cliché,” the tribal fear of rejection, the cultivation of mental illness, why institutions are losing their North Stars, and much more.
1:10:31 on... -
Westminster Hall debate on our petition to make the Equality Act clear
Monday 12th June 2023 For the full official transcription of the debate, see Hansard. In the Chair, Judith Cummins began by reminding everyone that the petitions being debated indirectly related to two ongoing legal cases in the Scottish courts, but that reference to those would be allowed. Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower)...
13th June 2023
-
How did NHS body get the law so badly wrong over its rules on same-sex care?
Sonia Sodha for The Guardian
Sex Matters’ chair Naomi Cunningham as quoted as a barrister specialising in discrimination law.