Updates • Page 6
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.
-
A policy in search of evidence
Why we need to treat with caution claims about the specific harms of keeping trans-identifying men in male prisons
21st March 2023
-
Sex Matters in the Equality Act webinar
Helen Joyce talked with our chair, Naomi Cunningham, and our executive director, Maya Forstater, on Thursday 30th March 2023 about the Sex Matters proposal to amend the Equality Act to clarify that the protected characteristic of sex refers to biological sex, and not “sex as modified by a gender-recognition...
20th March 2023
-
What can parents do about gender ideology in schools?
At Sex Matters, we often hear from parents concerned about what their child is being told at school about gender identity. They may hear about lessons in which sex is described as fluid, changeable or a spectrum, or in which gender stereotypes are presented as defining whether someone is...
10th March 2023
-
New MoJ transgender prisoner policy: Sex Matters’ response
Sex Matters welcomes the Ministry of Justice’s announcement that men who identify as women will no longer be housed in women’s prisons if they have male genitalia or have committed sexual or violent crimes, with exceptions only to be made with ministerial authority. We join Woman’s Place UK and...
6th March 2023
-
IPSO’s updated guidance – our response
IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation, has published draft Guidance on reporting of sex and gender identity to replace its 2016 publication, Guidance on researching and reporting stories involving transgender individuals. Sex Matters has written a response to the consultation and hopes that the final guidance will be improved...
2nd March 2023
-
Lesbians without liberty
If you heard of a country that passed a law banning lesbians from creating formal associations based on their sex and their sexual orientation you would think that it was an authoritarian regime, stuck in the dark ages of gay rights. You would expect Stonewall and Amnesty International to...
24th February 2023
-
Searching for a simple answer
What does a gender-recognition certificate actually do? The question comes into sharp focus when people are forced to undress, or have to submit to intimate touching. It is a question of central importance to HM Prison and Probation Service’s policy on searching. Human rights As the Divisional Court in...
22nd February 2023
-
Child gender medicine: the evidence – webinar
At this Sex Matters webinar, on 23rd February 2023, our director of advocacy, Helen Joyce, talked with sociologist Michael Biggs and social-science researcher Matilda Gosling about current practice in child gender medicine, and the poor quality of the research it is based on. Watch the recording For other Sex...
14th February 2023
-
Call out bad reporting with our new tool
Media coverage of sex and gender is often confused, biased, misleading or simply wrong. This has become clearer than ever in recent weeks as the spotlight has fallen on Adam Graham, a man who decided he was a woman after appearing in court on rape charges. As in previous...
7th February 2023
-
How UK Athletics was misled
UK Athletics has put out a statement saying – with regret – that it cannot lawfully exclude trans-identifying men who have GRCs from participation in women’s events. The material part of the statement says: “10. There is a duty in s.9(1) of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 to treat...
3rd February 2023
-
Why are lawyers giving faulty advice about women-only sports?
The governing body for the sport of athletics in the United Kingdom, UK Athletics, has called for the government to amend the Equality Act in order to guarantee the legality of female-only sports. While Sex Matters agrees with UKA that female-only sports are essential to provide safe and fair...
3rd February 2023
-
Sex Matters at the Education for Women’s Liberation conference
UCL Women’s Liberation SIG and WPUK Saturday 4th February 9am to 10pm Institute of Education UCL, 20 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AL Come and see us at the Women’s Liberation 2023 conference! Visit the Sex Matters stall Pick up petition cards and postcards for Sex Matters campaigns. Meet Maya, Helen and...
2nd February 2023
-
Charlie Falconer’s testimony
The Women and Equalities Committee held an evidence session on 31st January on the Gender Recognition Reform Bill and the Equality Act. It featured Robin White, Barrister at Old Square Chambers; Naomi Cunningham, Barrister at Outer Temple Chambers (and Sex Matters’ Chair); Dr Michael Foran Senior Fellow, Policy Exchange...
2nd February 2023
-
What did we learn from the census?
Key points The questions In 2021 the census for England and Wales included a voluntary question on gender identity for those aged 16 years and over. There was also a mandatory sex question which sought to collect information on people’s sex, which was clarified in court by Fair Play...
31st January 2023
-
Sex in the Equality Act
The government has provided an initial response to our petition. It is over six weeks late and answers a different question from the one that we are asking. Its response focuses on single-sex services. Under the Equality Act 2010, providers are already able to restrict the use of spaces/services...
27th January 2023
-
Sex Matters in the Media webinar
On Thursday 26th January at 7.30pm, our director of advocacy, Helen Joyce, talked to communications consultant Conrad Roeber about the media’s failures in reporting on sex and gender, and what readers and viewers can do to make things better. They discussed the Sex Matters Media handbook, our guide for...
18th January 2023
-
Freedom of belief matters
Sex Matters has submitted input to Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the United Nations’ Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. He is compiling a report for the UN Human Rights Council on the right to freedom of religion or belief in relation to...
18th January 2023
-
The UK government is right to challenge the GRR Bill
Scottish Secretary Alister Jack has made an order under Section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 to prevent the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill from receiving Royal Assent, and Sex Matters welcomes this. We are particularly pleased that the government has recognised that changing both the size and...
17th January 2023
-
Statement on the UK government’s decision to block the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill
We are very pleased that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Scotland have decided to use their constitutional powers to stop the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill from going to royal assent. As we wrote in our briefing on the Bill and its implications for the...
16th January 2023
-
Petition at 70,000. We write to the Minister again.
Our petition now has over 70,000 signatures, and those who have signed it will know that the Chair of the Petitions Committee has written to the Government calling for an initial response by Wednesday 18th January. We have also written to the Minister, Kemi Badenoch, asking for a response....
16th January 2023
-
What guidance from the Department for Education needs to say
As a survey commissioned by Sex Matters and carried out by YouGov last year showed, there has been a huge increase in the number of school pupils identifying as trans or non-binary, alongside huge disagreement about how best to manage this. The one thing that schools agree about is...
13th January 2023
-
Stonewall is scaremongering: write to your MP
Stonewall has been sending out alarmist emails to MPs which misrepresent the law. On 9th January Kemi Badenoch, the Minister for Women and Equalities, announced that the government would be updating its list of approved overseas countries and territories for gender-recognition certificates. She explained: “There are now some countries and territories...
13th January 2023
-
Why Scotland’s self-ID bill should be referred to the Supreme Court
The UK Government has to decide what to do about Scotland’s Gender Recognition Bill by 19th January. There has been quite a bit of legal commentary about using the power of Section 35 of the Scotland Act (read Michael Foran’s and Joshua Rozenberg’s pieces). Scottish Secretary Alister Jack has...
6th January 2023
-
Support Sex Matters to win back our rights
It has been a busy year of publications and petitions, press and politics. Campaigners for sex-based rights have made some significant gains in shifting the debate. But in the last days of the year the Scottish Parliament voted for self-ID and a court ruled that biological sex has been...
23rd December 2022
-
Was the concept of biological sex really ended in 2004?
This is the second in our series of posts about the Haldane judgment. Philip Larkin famously wrote that “Sexual intercourse began / In nineteen sixty-three Between the end of the Chatterley ban / And the Beatles’ first LP”. Protection against sex discrimination followed not long after, in 1975, with...
23rd December 2022
-
The question for the next four weeks
The Gender Recognition Reform Bill looks set to be voted through by the Scottish Parliament. But before it becomes law it has to be given royal assent.
22nd December 2022
-
Risks in the final rush to legislate self-ID in Scotland
The Scottish government’s plans to allow anyone from age 16 upwards who is ordinarily resident in Scotland to obtain a gender recognition certificate (GRC) without any medical assessment are due to be voted on by the Scottish Parliament tomorrow, 21st December. The vote comes barely a week after the...
20th December 2022
-
Sex Matters responds to CPS consultation
Sex Matters has responded to the Crown Prosecution Service’s public consultation on its proposed revision to the section on “deception as to gender” in its guidance on prosecuting rape and serious sexual offences. In fact what the chapter should be called is “deception as to sex”. The case law...
19th December 2022
-
UN expert calls for an “act of compliance”
On Friday 16th December Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the UN Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, sent an extraordinary letter to the Scottish Government claiming that “legal recognition of gender identity” via self-identification is an “international human rights imperative”. He has now...
18th December 2022
-
Labour should call for a pause before voting on the gender recognition bill in Scotland
Sex Matters has sent an urgent open letter to Anas Sarwar, leader of the Scottish Labour Party, and Jackie Baillie MSP, calling on Labour MSPs to demand more time to consider the implications of the Haldane opinion before voting on the Gender Recognition Reform bill (Scotland). The Labour Party,...
16th December 2022
