Updates • Page 7

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
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
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
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
Edward Lord recused from hearing gender-critical belief case

A recent hearing of the Employment Appeal Tribunal considered whether trans rights activist Edward Lord was a suitable person to hear a case of gender-critical belief discrimination. The case of Kristie Higgs v Farmor’s School concerns whether restrictions of the free-speech rights of critics of the transgender movement are...

5th July 2022
Information Commissioner strikes down secrecy of Stonewall scheme

The Information Commissioner has ordered the University of Oxford to disclose the scores and feedback it received from Stonewall as part of the lobby group’s controversial Workplace Equality Index scheme. Following a Freedom of Information appeal undertaken as part of the “Don’t Submit to Stonewall” campaign initiated by Legal...

1st July 2022
Male and female in the Equality Act

Last week Old Square Chambers hosted a seminar about single-sex services and the law. Barristers Nicola Newbegin and Robin Moira White argued that biological sex is something that “popped up” recently in relation to the Equality Act. The meaning of the protected characteristic of “sex”, they said, is ambiguous and...

21st June 2022
Who is Edward Lord?

Can a person who accuses everyone who disagrees with radical gender ideology of “transphobia” be the right person to hear a case about discrimination for gender-critical belief?

20th June 2022
Sex Matters response to “More in Common”

More in Common is an organisation that seeks to “build societies and communities that are “stronger, more united, and more resilient to the increasing threats of polarisation and social division”. Perhaps as a response to this challenge from Maya Forstater, it has applied its approach to the gender wars....

16th June 2022
What is conversion therapy?

Stella O’Malley of Genspect explains… “Gay conversion therapy” is the term given to attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation from gay to straight. This includes demeaning and painful practices such as electric shocks, forced watching of pornography and, in extreme cases, “corrective rape”. Such abhorrent practices are now...

15th June 2022
Sex self-ID in Scotland and transgender unemployment

The Gender Recognition Act 2004 was an extraordinary piece of legislation intended for an extraordinary group of people. It was passed to allow people who had transitioned under medical supervision to change the legal sex recorded on their birth certificate “for all purposes”. Now the Scottish Government is...

14th June 2022
Sex Matters briefing for conversion therapy debate

On Monday 13th June there will be a Westminster Hall debate on introducing “gender identity” into the planned government bill to ban gay conversion therapy. This is a debate following a public petition. It is not a government motion, but a government Minister will respond. This is Sex Matters’...

11th June 2022
We have been worthy of respect for a whole year!

A year ago today Maya Forstater won a critical judgment in the Employment Appeal Tribunal, establishing that gender-critical beliefs are “worthy of respect in a democratic society”. The judgment had many implications: Employers should not refuse to employ someone because they have expressed gender-critical views online. Organisations should recognise...

10th June 2022
“Conversion” therapy or just therapy?

On 23rd May 2022 an article appeared in the i news stating that Dr Az Hakeem was under investigation for attempting to “practise transgender conversion therapy”. Dr Az Hakeem is a psychiatrist now in private practice after more than 15 years working in the NHS. He is Fellow of...

8th June 2022
Sex realists gaining ground at Westminster

Debates on new laws in Parliament are one of the key battlefields between sex realists and sex denialists, with one side seeking clarity on sex, and the other seeking to conflate and confuse sex and gender identity. A long-term strategy of the sex-denial lobbyists has been to propose legislation seemingly...

31st May 2022
Is the Attorney General wrong about the law, or is Stonewall?

The Department for Education is developing new guidance for schools on how to accommodate children who identify as transgender. Attorney General Suella Braverman gave an interview which suggests that the guidance will be based on the principle that children who identify as transgender have not changed sex, and therefore...

29th May 2022