Updates • Page 7
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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.
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Lib Dems revise “transphobia” definition
The Liberal Democrats have revised their definition of transphobia in the light of recent legal cases. The previous policy which drew on the work of “organisations such as Stonewall and TransActual UK”. But following advice from two KCs (one, from Karon Monaghan KC, has been published), it has now...
14th November 2022
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Trans rights are human rights!
Sex Matters is a human-rights organisation. We believe that universal human rights form a powerful framework for thinking about how a diversity of freedoms can be respected, while protecting against harm and maintaining an open and prosperous society. It is sometimes argued that those who call for clarity on...
9th November 2022
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Toilets Matter: a Sex Matters webinar
Maya Forstater and Helen Joyce of Sex Matters were joined by journalist Rose George, author of The Big Necessity, on 18th November 2022 in the run-up to World Toilet Day.
8th November 2022
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Why are judges still calling rapists “she” in court?
The Equal Treatment Bench Book is a guide to judges on how to run an inclusive court room. But it is not based on the law, and it is leading judgments astray. Sex Matters has published a new report on the problems with the Equal Treatment Bench Book. In...
7th November 2022
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Sex Matters welcomes headteachers’ guidance
Sex Matters offers a qualified welcome to the new Guidance for maintained schools and academies in England on provision for transgender pupils published by the Association of School and College Leaders, Chartered College of Teaching, Confederation of School Trusts (CST), Institute of School Business Leadership, National Association of Head...
7th November 2022
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New guidance for barristers curtails freedom of speech and promotes discrimination
The Bar Standards Board has been holding a public consultation on its new guidance on the regulation of non-professional conduct use of social media by barristers. Barristers are bound by their duties “not to behave in a way which is likely to diminish the trust and confidence which the...
6th November 2022
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Open letter to Minouche Shafik of the LSE
Members of the Open University Gender Critical Research Network have written to Baroness Minouche Shafik, Director of the London School of Economics, to ask for an independent review into the LSE’s Department of Gender Studies. Sex Matters joins them in calling on the LSE to launch an independent investigation...
6th November 2022
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Petition champions
After just three days we were over a quarter of the way to the 100,000 signatures needed to prompt a parliamentary debate. We’ve now got more than 40,000 signatures. Thank you to everyone who has already signed the Make the Equality Act Clear Petition. Every signature helps! If everyone...
5th November 2022
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Campaign update: Day 1
Yesterday we launched the Make the Equality Act Clear petition, calling on the government to clarify, with a legislative amendment, that sex means sex in the Equality Act 2010. It got an amazing response. In less than 24 hours, 15,000 people signed the petition, and the number is continuing...
3rd November 2022
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We call for a “Cass Review for Education”
Sex Matters together with Bayswater Support Group, Fair Play For Women, LGB Alliance, Safe Schools Alliance and Transgender Trend have written to the new Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan, to draw her attention to the problem of gender ideology being promoted in schools. We ask her to:...
1st November 2022
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Sex Matters writes to the new Chair of Stonewall
Iain Anderson is Stonewall’s new Chair of Trustees. This morning he made his first public appearance, on the BBC. Laura Kuenssberg asked him about engaging with women who are “gender critical”, saying they are asking questions about the trans rights debate and “feel like they have been shut out...
30th October 2022
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Is Sex Matters a feminist organisation?
The Sex Matters team is just back from a fantastic time at FiLiA, Europe’s largest feminist conference. But Sex Matters is not a feminist organisation. We simply subscribe to the radical notion that women are human beings, with full human rights. We also attended the LGB Alliance. But Sex...
27th October 2022
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Sex Matters writes to MSPs
Tomorrow 27th October is the Stage 1 debate on the Gender Recognition Reform Bill by the Scottish Parliament. Sex Matters has written to MSPs and sent them a copy of our “Sex and the Law” booklet. Equality law remains an area which is reserved for UK wide legislation, yet...
26th October 2022
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Don’t water down the schools guidance – a plea from a 14-year-old girl
“Cynthia”, 14, writes… I recently read in The Times that Ministers were seeking a “compromise” concerning the Department for Education’s long-awaited transgender schools’ guidance and, as a 14-year-old-girl in secondary school, to say I am furious is an understatement. It is absolutely vital that we – teenage girls who...
19th October 2022
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Sex Matters launches survey
Sex Matters is launching a survey about being gender-critical at work in the UK. Please take the survey and share your experiences
17th October 2022
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New media handbook on sex and gender
Sex Matters is publishing a handbook today, which aims to give journalists the confidence to write accurately, clearly and professionally about sex and gender. The past decade has seen a determined effort by transactivists and gender-identity lobby groups to make it impossible to talk about biological sex in a...
14th October 2022
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Teenagers and gender identity
A trickle of teenagers, and especially girls, identifying out of their sex has become a torrent in recent years. Our new publication, part one of a series of three, is aimed at the parents of those teenagers. The authors, Matilda Gosling and Stella O’Malley, combine research expertise with practical professional...
10th October 2022
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What’s wrong with WPATH version 8?
Guest post by James Esses, of Thoughtful Therapists On 6th September 2022, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) published its updated Standards of Care: Version 8. WPATH was founded in 1979 as a self-regulated membership body. Its stated purpose is to “promote evidence-based care, education, research, advocacy,...
20th September 2022
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Reclaiming Kenwood Ladies’ Pond for women
Take action: if you have experience to share as a Ladies’ Pond user let us know using the survey. The Kenwood Ladies’ Pond on Hampstead Heath is an iconic open-air single-sex service in London that was changed to running on the basis of gender self-ID, without consideration for women...
29th August 2022
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The Attorney General clarifies the law on single-sex services
On 10th August 2022 the Attorney General Suella Braverman gave a speech at the think-tank Policy Exchange. She noted that both public and private bodies are struggling to understand their obligations in relation to single-sex services and the protected characteristics of sex and gender reassignment. Her speech aimed to...
26th August 2022
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NHS Confederation: leadership needed
“It is now — not the good times — where all that work you did on purpose and values matters. Like a winter coat, integrity is only tested in storm.” Matthew Taylor The NHS Confederation is the membership body for NHS services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Its...
26th August 2022
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Sex Matters writes to the NHS Confederation
The NHS Confederation is the membership body for NHS services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Its members employ over 1.5 million staff, care for more than a million patients a day and control £150 billion of public expenditure. It recently sought bids for a piece of work to create:...
24th August 2022
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Converting minds or bodies?
A riposte to the Good Law Project’s published advice on conversion therapy
16th August 2022
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Sex and the law – share our short guide
What does intersex mean? Are you allowed to mention someone’s sex if they don’t want you to? Has someone with a gender recognition certificate changed their sex? Do you have the right to privacy when you’re taking your clothes off? Is it discrimination to keep male people out of...
4th August 2022
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What Hilary Cass needs to tell schools: social transition is incompatible with safeguarding
On 28th July Dr Hilary Cass, the eminent paediatrician commissioned by the government to review paediatric gender-identity provision in the NHS, made an announcement that vindicated everyone who has criticised that provision, often at considerable personal cost. The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), England’s sole NHS clinic for under-18s...
29th July 2022
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Employers must reconsider their policies and relationship with Stonewall after Allison Bailey’s victory
Allison Bailey has won her claims of direct belief discrimination and victimisation against Garden Court Chambers. The Employment Tribunal unanimously found that Miss Bailey was discriminated against and victimised by her barristers’ chambers on the basis of her gender-critical beliefs. Importantly, the judgment recognises that the whole of Allison Bailey’s...
27th July 2022
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If you can’t say sex, how can you say sexual harassment?
An employment tribunal in Leeds has handed down judgment in a case involving catering staff at a Sheffield NHS Hospital Trust. A female employee reported that a male colleague had asked her to go into a private room and then had quipped about removing his underwear. Another reported having...
20th July 2022
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Why do single-sex services matter?
In February 2022 Sex Matters undertook a survey to find out why single-sex services matter to people. The response was astonishing. In a little over a week we received over 7,000 replies, nine out of ten of them from women. Many included details about how the loss of everyday...
19th July 2022
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Will the next Tory leader #RespectMySex?
Boris Johnson is on his way out, and the contest to decide who will replace him as prime minister and leader of the Conservative Party will begin shortly. At the time of writing, there are at least 15 potential contenders, but there is no obvious favourite, as there was...
8th July 2022
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What does the Forstater judgment mean for employers?
On 6th July 2022 an employment tribunal found that Maya Forstater had been directly discriminated against by the Center for Global Development because of her beliefs. This follows on from the precedent-setting judgment of the Employment Appeal Tribunal in June 2021, which found that the “gender critical” belief “that...
8th July 2022
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A win for free speech and sex-based rights
Sex Matters’ Executive Director, Maya Forstater, has won her employment tribunal case against her former employer. Here is her press statement: Maya Forstater, who took a claim for belief discrimination against her former employer, the Center for Global Development, has been vindicated by a ruling that she was unlawfully...
6th July 2022
