Updates • Page 6

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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.

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
Beware the Gender Borg: a cautionary tale

Guest post by Paul Chase

11th 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
Clarify the Equality Act: sign the petition

The Equality Act 2010 protects everyone’s rights and covers everything from schools to hospitals, pubs to sports, and everybody’s workplace. It includes protection against sex-discrimination, and allows single-sex services. But on 13th December a judge in Scotland pronounced that Equality Act does not recognise biological sex as a protected...

16th December 2022
The “gender-affirming” care model is built on sand

Our new report shows that the “gender-affirming” model of care for teenagers is based on evidence that falls apart under examination. Researchers and clinicians often argue that gender-questioning teenagers need puberty blockers and hormone treatment because their mental health will suffer without them. But all long-term studies showing mental-health...

15th December 2022
Scottish court rules that sex is about paperwork, not biology

This is the first in our series of posts about the Haldane judgment. A judgment handed down on 13th December in the Scottish court of session highlights the importance of a Sex Matters campaign to persuade the UK government to clarify the meaning of sex in the Equality Act 2010. SIGN...

13th December 2022
Why we have written to UCAS about data

The latest attempt to destroy data on sex by replacing it with data on self-declared “gender identity” is in the higher-education system. The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), the national undergraduate admissions service that acts as gatekeeper to all university places, is planning to change an already-flawed question...

7th December 2022
Hadley Freeman interviewed on Woman’s Hour

On 5th December 2022, Hadley Freeman was interviewed by Emma Burnett on BBC Woman’s Hour. She talked about why she was leaving the Guardian, after 22 years of working for the paper. The audio with subtitles available on Youtube. We have added links to relevant media articles, and to...

7th December 2022
Petition to make the Equality Act clear – campaign webinar

Maya Forstater and Helen Joyce of Sex Matters were joined by campaigners @MsGiveZeroFox and @satiricole on 6th December 2022. Watch the recording For other Sex Matters webinars, see our YouTube channel. About the webinar Since our petition was launched in early November, more than 38,000 people have signed, calling...

29th November 2022
Our response to the NHS interim service specification consultation

The NHS’s public consultation regarding the interim service specification for youth gender services ends on 4th December. We would encourage people to respond, including parents, teachers, school leaders and clinicians. We have published our full response. Sex Matters joins Transgender Trend and the Gay Men’s Network in welcoming the broad direction...

29th November 2022
Mass harassment in HM Prisons and Probation Service

As reported in The Telegraph today, HM Prisons and Probation Service’s Pride in Prison and Probation (PiPP) staff network has circulated documents for Trans Awareness Week telling MoJ staff to recognise a series of words and phrases as “transphobic dogwhistles”. The PiPP is an official staff network, with a...

20th November 2022
Helen Joyce speaks at Caius College

On 25th October 2022, Sex Matters’ Director of Advocacy Helen Joyce spoke at an event at Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge, entitled “Criticising gender-identity ideology: what happens when speech is silenced”. This page documents the events surrounding the talk. Criticising gender-identity ideology: what happens when speech is silenced...

15th November 2022