Updates • Page 2

For a weekly email listing the previous week’s updates, join our mailing list.

To see updates organised by topic, go to Where sex matters. Click on a tag at the end of any update to see other updates and resources with the same tag.

Sex matters and the new government

The UK has a new prime minister and we now know there will be a new Labour government, with a significant majority in the House of Commons. The Labour Party has pledged to provide greater support for victims of violence against women and greater protection for women’s rights at...

5th July 2024
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
Stonewall redefines trans to exclude crossdressers

Stonewall has expelled crossdressers from the trans umbrella Stonewall’s long-standing definition of “trans” changed on 27th June 2024 to drop “crossdresser” from the list. Before then, it said: “Trans people may describe themselves using one or more of a wide variety of terms, including (but not limited to) transgender,...

28th June 2024
Updating the NHS Constitution

The NHS Constitution is a crucial document that sets out commitments to patients and staff. All NHS bodies, and private and third-sector providers supplying services in England, are required by law to take account of the constitution in their decisions and actions. As part of the 10-year review, new...

26th June 2024
What are the facts about applying for a GRC?

The Labour party says in its manifesto that it will: “modernise, simplify, and reform the intrusive and outdated gender recognition law to a new process. We will remove indignities for trans people who deserve recognition and acceptance; whilst retaining the need for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a...

24th June 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
Another fall in public support for changing sex on birth certificates

The latest results from the annual British Social Attitudes survey show a further fall in support for the law that allows people to change the sex recorded on their birth certificate. It seems that the more this is talked about, the less people like it. Each year the British...

12th June 2024
Calls to ban conversion therapy put children at risk

Proposals to ban conversion therapy or conversion practices are likely to feature among the pledges of political parties as part of their general-election campaigns. On the face of it, banning conversion therapy sounds like an uncontroversial and positive step. But voters and the politicians who seek to represent them...

11th 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
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
Being clear about our beliefs

Sex Matters was founded as an organisation based on human rights. We believe that the rule of law, and the underpinning human rights, are crucial to protect people against unjust and capricious treatment by the state. We also believe that ideas and behaviours promoted in the name of gender...

29th May 2024
GE2024: Stand up for single-sex services

A summer election has been called. Sex Matters calls for clarity in law and a return to policies based on the objective reality of sex, not the subjective feeling of “gender identity”. Parties must be absolutely clear when it comes to sex-based rights. Every party must STAND UP FOR...

22nd May 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
The Jo Phoenix case should be a wake-up call for universities

In 2019 Professor Jo Phoenix became the target of a campaign of harassment from her colleagues at the Open University (OU) after she raised concerns about the silencing of gender-critical voices in academia. This ramped up in 2021 after she co-founded an academic research network for the rigorous exploration...

16th May 2024
Dispelling the suicide myth

For almost ten years, lobby groups have been promoting the idea that for gender-confused children there are only two options: transition or die. The claim that childhood transition prevents suicide has been used as an argument for social transition in schools, for giving puberty blockers and hormones, and for...

10th May 2024
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
Sex and the NHS constitution

Sex Matters welcomes the announcement by the Department for Health and Social Care that it is updating the NHS Constitution for England to reflect the Equality Act 2010 and protect single-sex care. Secretary of State Victoria Atkins said:  “We have always been clear that sex matters and our services...

1st May 2024
Welsh parliament to debate the Cass Review

Almost two weeks after the publication of the Cass Review’s final report, the Welsh government has yet to make an official statement. But at least we will hear from government ministers during a debate in the Welsh Parliament today. Welsh Conservative Darren Millar MS, the Senedd Constituency Member for...

1st May 2024
Legal opinion says promotion policy discriminates on basis of gender-critical beliefs

Earlier this year Sex Matters was approached by Dr John Armstrong, a reader in mathematics at King’s College London (KCL). Dr Armstrong was applying for promotion, but was concerned that the “EDI” (equality, diversity and inclusion) section of the application, which required applicants to demonstrate their commitment to ideas...

20th April 2024
Getting “sex” right in digital verification services

The UK government is developing a system for digital verification services (DVSs). The Data Protection and Digital Information Bill which is now at committee stage in the House of Lords is establishing the legal framework for this. The legislation will lead to the development of a “digital identity and...

17th April 2024
The Cass Review is a damning indictment of what the NHS has been doing to children

Dr Hilary Cass has submitted her final report and recommendations to NHS England in her role as Chair of the Independent Review of gender identity services for children and young people. Hilary Cass’s report demolishes the entire basis for the current model of treating gender-distressed children. Its publication is...

10th April 2024
How gender ideology broke the census

The 2021 census of England and Wales reportedly cost £900m. Amid much fanfare, data on the transgender population was collected for the first time. But the exercise seems to have gone wrong. The question on gender identity may have been misunderstood, giving strange results. The Guardian reported: “The proportion...

5th April 2024
“Misgendering” and the Scottish Hate Crime Act

On 1st April, the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act came into force. The law has generated headlines across the world, mainly due to concerns about its potential impact on freedom of speech; in particular, gender-critical speech. One of the most controversial aspects is the extension of so-called...

5th April 2024
Sex Matters is a charity!

This week the Charity Commission has approved our application to be registered as a charity. Sex Matters is now established as a charitable incorporated organisation with objectives to : The board of trustees is Naomi Cunningham (chair), Dr Michael Biggs, Rebecca Bull, Julia Casimo (treasurer) and Dr Emma Hilton....

5th April 2024
Why does the BBC keep getting sex and gender wrong?

In November 2023, BBC Woman’s Hour interviewed Steph Richards – a man who has publicly documented his harassment of women in the name of trans-rights activism – because he had been appointed as CEO of a micro-charity, Endometriosis South Coast. This is part of a pattern where the BBC gets...

23rd March 2024
“Be nice!” says the BBC’s director-general

The director-general of the BBC, Tim Davie, appeared at the parliamentary select committee for culture, media and sport this week. He was asked by Damian Green MP about the complaint upheld against Justin Webb for clarifying that transwomen “are, in other words, male”. Webb was reprimanded by the BBC’s...

22nd March 2024
Has the EHRC forgotten about children and safeguarding?

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published its response to the Department for Education’s draft guidance for schools in England on gender-questioning children. It says that DfE’s approach “is compatible with equality and human rights law”, but calls for a clearer explanation of the legal concepts underpinning it. ...

21st March 2024
Imported gender ideology is damaging the NHS

The NHS is losing essential data that keeps people safe Everyone’s medical records should show essential information about them, including age, sex and medical history. But lobbying by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), a transgender ideology activist group, has led to confusion and obfuscation in the...

12th March 2024
Will you ask your MP to support a bill to protect women and children?

This Friday a private member’s bill in the House of Commons presents MPs with a chance to discuss changing the law to clarify the meaning of “sex” in the Equality Act, stop the social transitioning of children in schools and ban healthcare providers from prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex...

11th March 2024
WPATH: The truth about “gender-affirming healthcare”

What are the “WPATH files” and why are they in the news? The “WPATH files” are documents leaked from the internal chatboard of an organisation called the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). They shine a light on how so-called “gender-affirming care” or “transgender medicine” is leading to...

5th March 2024
Bias at the BBC

What’s the issue? The BBC’s director of complaints has ruled that the presenter Justin Webb broke the BBC’s rules on impartiality when he commented, in a discussion about a women’s chess tournament on Radio 4’s Today programme, that “trans women” are male. This is shocking behaviour from the BBC:...

1st March 2024