Updates • Page 3

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.

What is the indelible mark left by the NHS Rainbow Badge scheme?

The organisers of the NHS Rainbow Badge scheme have announced that it has come to an end due to lack of funding. But project lead Alex Matheson says that “the project has left an indelible mark” on NHS trusts. The scheme was created in a London hospital in 2018...

22nd February 2024
Lords debate conversion therapy

On Friday 9th February 2024 Baroness Burt’s Private Member’s Bill proposing a ban on “conversion therapy” was debated in the House of Lords. Twenty-nine peers spoke against it and fifteen in favour. This was the first time some important arguments had been heard in Parliament. While those in favour...

21st February 2024
Conversion therapy… again

The proposal to legislate to criminalise “conversion therapy” is back again, this time as a private members’ bill introduced by the Liberal Democrat Baroness Burt. It is being debated in the House of Lords today. Private members’ bills don’t usually become law, but they do give a chance to...

9th February 2024
GANHRI should stand up for the EHRC, not join in the abuse

Together with 38 groups defending sex-based rights, Sex Matters has written to GANHRI calling on it to stand up for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), as reported in The Telegraph today. Britain’s human-rights regulator is facing a campaign of reprisals for acting to protect those with gender-critical...

5th February 2024
Responding to the schools guidance consultation

The Department for Education published draft guidance for schools in England on gender-questioning children for consultation at the end of last year. The closing date for responses is 12th March. Sex Matters is publishing its draft response to the consultation today, to help others who are developing their submissions....

1st February 2024
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 The policy (currently withdrawn for review) states that: “once a transgender colleague has transitioned, they...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
Lobby groups tell schools to ignore DfE guidance

The Department for Education’s guidance on gender-questioning children was published in December – but many schools are getting materials from organisations they think are trustworthy telling them to ignore it. Below is a summary of what the larger organisations are sending out. Since “The Key” alone reaches more than...

31st January 2024
Who should develop guidelines on transgender healthcare?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is developing new guidelines for transgender health. It announced the proposed members of the group to do this on 18th December 2023 (see the Daily Mail report to find out who’s who). The planned guidelines are set to cover: Following complaints about the short...

30th January 2024
Mermaids’ letter shows what the DfE needs to do to make its guidance work for schools

In December 2023, the Department for Education released draft guidance on gender-questioning children for schools and colleges in England. The consultation on this guidance is open until 12th March. The guidance tells schools and colleges that they can and should say “no” to demands to: The guidance is quite...

26th January 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
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
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
The DfE’s schools guidance – the report card

New draft guidance for schools in England has been published by the Department for Education this morning. In January 2023 we set out a 10-point scoring framework for the guidance. We said it should: This morning we mark the DfE’s work. Report card The overall approach is helpful, and...

19th 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
Section 35 appeal rejected

The Court of Session has rejected the appeal by the Scottish Government against the UK Government’s Section 35 order to prevent the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill becoming law. The Scottish Government’s argument that the Secretary of State for Scotland “acted irrationally by failing to acquaint himself with the...

8th 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
Kemi Badenoch brings sense to the sex and gender debate

The era of “No Debate” is finally over. And it came to a spectacular close in the most important debating chamber in the country, if not one of the most important in the world.

6th December 2023
Will you support Sex Matters in 2024?

It has been a tumultuous year. Gender-critical campaigners in the UK have achieved major wins alongside setbacks and frustrations: Sex Matters is just one small organisation working with many others on these issues. Our focus is on how sex matters in law and policy. We work to clarify the law, to...

29th November 2023
An Epic crisis is unfolding in the NHS

Since October, several NHS trusts in England have been using new £450 million NHS patient-data software produced by US-based IT company Epic Systems. This has been programmed by local teams to record the “gender identity” of babies. For adults, the system has been programmed to register patients according to...

29th November 2023
This is male violence against women

Today is White Ribbon Day, the start of an annual 16 days of activism opposing violence against women. Politicians, celebrities and business leaders will make laudable declarations to “end violence by stopping the silence”. But many will remain silent, or even excuse or encourage the escalating campaign of intimidation,...

25th November 2023
The escalating campaign of intimidation and violence against gender-critical women

After nearly 15,000 people signed our letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Joanna Cherry KC MP asked Laura Farris, Minister for Victims and Safeguarding, if she would condemn the escalating campaign of violence and intimidation against women in the name of “trans rights”. The minister responded that she had read our letter...

24th November 2023
Sex-based language matters in healthcare – webinar

On Thursday 30th November 2023, our director of advocacy, Helen Joyce, talked to Karleen Gribble, an academic at Western Sydney University, and Elaine Miller, aka @GussieGrips, a physiotherapist and comedian, about the harmful trend to erase sex-based language when talking about women in health and social care, and in...

22nd November 2023
Putting remembrance in context

Today, 20th November, is Trans Day of Remembrance, which has been marked annually since 2011 and is intended to commemorate the deaths of trans-identified people caused by transphobia. It has rapidly become a fixture in transactivists’ campaigning calendar. Unevidenced claims about the outsize risks faced by trans people, the...

20th November 2023
“Please, please make it stop.”

On 9th November we delivered a letter to the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, calling on him to act to defend gender-critical women from threats, violence and police harassment. The letter was signed by nearly 15,000 people. More than 3,000 of them also added a personal comment to the letter, and...

15th November 2023
Guidance for service providers on single-sex services

In the light of the For Women Scotland judgment.

View
Sex Matters delivers letter to Prime Minister

The Sex Matters team were joined by women’s rights activists to deliver the #DefendUs letter to 10 Downing Street today. The letter, signed by almost 15,000 people, asks the Prime Minister to take urgent action to halt the escalating campaign of violence and intimidation against women in the name...

9th November 2023
The ONS should admit its gender-identity question failed

The Office for National Statistics has released the final summary of its investigations into the quality of the England and Wales census data from the “gender identity” question. A clear assessment of the quality of the data is important, both because the data will be used to drive understanding,...

8th November 2023
No conversion therapy in the King’s speech

Sex Matters welcomes the news that the government has not committed to bringing forward a bill to ban “conversion therapy” in the King’s speech today. We think that any bill which criminalises forms of talking in relation to gender identity would: What next? We note that those who have...

7th November 2023
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
It’s time to ban modern conversion therapy

The campaign to ban “conversion therapy” focuses on historic abuses, like this one that happened in 1964: “During the appointments, I was taken to a dark room and strapped to a wooden chair. Doctors gave me painful electric shocks while images of women were projected on the wall in...

25th October 2023