Updates • Page 7
-
It is time for a public inquiry
The Nolan investigation In an explosive documentary just released by the BBC, journalist Stephen Nolan shines a bright light on the relationship between public bodies and Stonewall. The podcast series focuses on the BBC, the Scottish and Welsh Governments, the NHS and Ofcom. It sets out how Stonewall as...
13th October 2021
-
Is there evidence of an urgent epidemic of conversion therapy?
One piece of evidence that is often cited in support of a ban on “conversion therapy” is the the Government’s LGBT Survey undertaken in 2017. 108,000 people responded. 2% of all respondents reported having previous undergone conversion therapy and a further 5% said they had been offered it. A...
6th October 2021
-
NHS Hospitals: “single-sex” accommodation cannot be mixed sex
The NHS’s current policy places rapists who identify as women in “single-sex” hospital bays and mental health units for women. Sajid Javid has promised to review this policy. Sex Matters today publishes our policy proposal for how to do this. As an NHS nurse told a panel at the...
6th October 2021
-
The EHRC must step up and provide clarity on single-sex services
The Equality and Human Rights Commission is consulting on its strategic plan for 2022–2025. We have made a submission in the form of a letter to the incoming head of the EHRC, Marcial Boo. Sex is one of the nine protected characteristics for which the EHRC is responsible. Fostering...
5th October 2021
-
Inclusion or Fairness: New Guidance for Sport in the UK
Sex Matters response to the Sports Council Equality Group Guidance on Transgender Inclusion. On September 30, the Sports Council Equality Group (SCEG), which is composed of members of the five major sports councils within the United Kingdom, published new guidance for UK National Governing Bodies and Sports Governing Bodies....
30th September 2021
-
Ofcom bows out of the Stonewall Champions scheme – but read the small print
Sex Matters has recently learnt that Ofcom is leaving the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme because of concerns that remaining a member “could harm perceptions of Ofcom’s impartiality”. Ofcom, the communications regulator, has been a member of the Stonewall Diversity Champions programme since 2007, spending over £12,000 in 2019 and...
25th August 2021
-
Sex and gender: belief and agnosticism after Forstater
The August 2021 edition of The Employment Lawyers Association (ELA) Briefing features a very helpful article by Akua Reindorf of Cloisters on the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) Judgment in the Forstater case. She asks “Has the EAT’s decision in Forstater brought any light to the heated debate on the...
2nd August 2021
-
Book campaign update
There has been an amazing response to our campaign to put copies of Helen Joyce’s book Trans: when ideology meets reality into the hands of influential people.
29th July 2021
-
Gender studies and sexualised threats
Students of Gender Studies at the London School of Economics are taught to view sexualised threats against women in public life (if dressed up in the language of “queer”) as something to applaud.
26th July 2021
-
Employers: Consider Stonewall Risk
Should I stay or should I go? At least 40 organisations that we know of have left Stonewall including the Cabinet Office, Ministry of Justice, Ofsted and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Anglian Water Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Care Commissioning Group Cabinet Office Cancer Research UK...
7th July 2021
-
Were we unkind?
We have had this email about yesterday’s post on the prisons judicial review to which we think we should respond: The first thing we want to say to the writer is “thank you”. We mean that. If one of our own supporters writes this to us, then it’s a...
4th July 2021
-
The law must protect women in prison
Today the High Court handed down a shocking and disappointing judgment, that the Ministry of Justice has not broken any law in its policy of housing fully intact men who identify as women in women’s prisons, despite the judges recognising: “a statistically greater risk of sexual assault upon non-transgender...
2nd July 2021
-
Fighting for the principle of collecting data on biological sex
A guest post by MurrayBlackburnMackenzie. Scottish Parliament Public Petition: Call for signatures In early June MurrayBlackburnMackenzie (MBM) lodged a petition with the Scottish Parliament Public Petitions Committee. It calls on the Scottish government to require Police Scotland to accurately record the sex of people charged or convicted of rape...
27th June 2021
-
Beyond the rainbow: a view from inside the civil service
Sex Matters Anonymous: A gay civil servant speaks.
18th June 2021
