Is talking about human rights “hateful”? Judge for yourself
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The Good Law Project (GLP) has started a campaign against Sex Matters, saying that it has identified “46 examples” of Sex Matters “spewing hate”, including “harassment and discrimination”, which it says “breaks charity law”. It says it has submitted a formal complaint to the Charity Commission.
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Sex Matters was founded as a human-rights charity to create space for debate and understanding of laws and rights concerning sex and gender identity. We think that there are conflicts of rights and that it should be possible to talk about them openly and freely. We believe that this is how everyone’s rights can be protected, and institutions can be held to account.
As Akua Reindorf KC wrote in the Reindorf Review in 2020:
“The mere discussion of what ‘trans rights’ entail cannot be regarded as a violation of those rights in a context where the proper extent of those rights is clearly not settled either in law or in public opinion… and where there is a potential conflict of rights.”
Sex Matters and the wider movement we are part of have had some success in making it easier and safer to talk: in person and online, at work and in Parliament, in the media and in courts. And some people don’t like that.
What does GLP think is “hateful”?
GLP has not published its complaint or shared its 46 examples with us but it has published a selection of quotes and links on its website. When we looked at what it had identified as “inappropriate and offensive” conduct it was simply a set of examples of us pointing out the serious harms done by those promoting gender identity.
They include a powerful and insightful speech given by Sex Matters’ director of advocacy, Helen Joyce, at the Genspect Bigger Picture conference in September 2024, where she argued that the new belief system based on gender self-ID has co-opted and corrupted the language of rights and is harming women, children and vulnerable people, and breaking medical and scientific thinking.
As Helen explained (emphasis here and throughout added by GLP):
“Self-ID means that a man who strips off in front of naked women in a supposedly women-only space is doing something right and proper if he identifies as a woman.… This is not just a destruction of human rights, it’s a full reversal. And it’s not just any old human-rights violation, it’s state-sanctioned sex crime – voyeurism and indecent exposure – and an Article 3 violation. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that being forced to undress in front of someone of the opposite sex violates Article 3 – the right not to suffer torture, inhuman or degrading treatment. And note that Article 3 is an absolute, not qualified, right.”
We published the speech, together with the one she gave at the first Genspect conference, in Killarney in 2023, in a booklet called Sex, gender identity and human rights, which we sent out with our Christmas cards in 2024.
GLP also highlights a letter from Sex Matters to Bridget Phillipson, at the time the Minister for Women and Equalities, sent in May 2026 to welcome the new EHRC Code of practice on services, public functions and associations.
In the letter, Sex Matters’ chief executive, Maya Forstater, raises concerns about the section in the new code on “asking about sex”. The section warns service providers against challenging people who appear to be using the wrong facilities. As the letter explains, this will enable situations where sex-based harassment is allowed. We said:
“There is no legal basis for this instruction, which in effect licenses men to enter women’s facilities and claim that it is inappropriate, and possibly unlawful, to challenge them. Telling women (and staff supervising single-sex spaces) that they must second-guess themselves when they become aware of a man engaging in the deviant behaviour of accessing a female-only space is unwanted conduct related to the protected characteristic of sex. It ‘violates a person’s dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment’. Section 111 of the Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful to instruct, cause, or induce another person to commit an act of discrimination, harassment or victimisation.”
GLP also complained about an interview of Maya Forstater on Talk TV in January 2026 concerning the Hampstead Ladies’ Pond.
In the interview she answers the interviewer’s question about what the problem is if a man who “feels they’re in the wrong body” uses the women’s pond, but changes “discreetly” in a cubicle:
“The ponds aren’t very discreet. They’re communal, open changing rooms and open showers. What you can’t do is let someone in and then say, ‘But you can’t use those changing rooms. You have to use a discreet changing room.’ If you let someone in, you let them in on the same rules as everyone else. At the same time, if there are women using the communal changing rooms and showers, they’re naked. If somebody walks past, the man might be dressed, but he’s walking past naked women. That’s a situation of harassment. You can’t let that happen. You have to have clear rules about who’s allowed into those kind of situations, and it’s really obvious what the decent rules are.”
GLP also highlights an interview of Sex Matters’ director of campaigns, Fiona McAnena, in January 2026 on GB News.
The interviewer asks why some men insist on using the Ladies’ Pond instead of accepting the “amicable” solution of the mixed pond. Fiona says:
“I think there are a number of answers to that. Some people would say that this is a voyeurs’ charter. If any man can declare he’s a woman, it’s not the nice, decent, respectful men who are going to come into the Ladies’ Pond. It’s a different kind of man. There may be some men who genuinely think that what they feel makes them like a woman. But we can’t see their thoughts or their feelings. All we can see is their bodies and their behaviour. Some women would say it is an intentional act of violation of women’s boundaries, and that those men enjoy it. I couldn’t say. All I know is that, as you say, they have a choice. They could be respectful. They could allow us all our privacy, and they’re making a conscious choice not to.”
GLP included in its complaint a personal interview of barrister Naomi Cunningham in Holyrood magazine while she was chair of Sex Matters, which Sex Matter’s CEO had promoted. In the personal and moving interview she talks about her journey and what motivated her to get involved in legal work in this area. Naomi said:
“Rage does still fuel me because there are so many things to be profoundly angry about: the grooming of children into mental ill-health and physical mutilation; the gas-lighting; the bullying and silencing and cancelling; the corruption of so many of our institutions; the sheer waste of time, money and energy on dealing with such obvious nonsense.”
And GLP complained about a quote from Helen about Girlguiding in an article in The Telegraph:
“By thinking it could redefine sex and make up its own rules, Girlguiding UK showed no concern or understanding for girls’ rights and boundaries. But it also failed to think clearly about what boys confused about their sex really need, which isn’t validation in a falsehood. This shameful episode of harming children in the name of ‘inclusion’ went on for far too long, but at least it is now drawing to an end.”
It also complained about an interview on Talk TV in which Helen said it was wicked to lie to children and to subject them to sterilising medical treatment:
You don’t put people in boxes just because of what sex they are, but you do not lie to them either. So these people committed real human rights abuse against vulnerable children. And now that they’re really dragging their feet on admitting that fact. Children need honesty, and they need boundaries from the adults around them. They need adults to keep the world safe and accurate for them. To tell them what’s what, to make sure that they grow up safe and secure and confident.”
GLP complained about an article on Helen’s personal Substack about schools too. Helen wrote:
“In this issue I’m going to pick up the question of how to stop schools spreading genderism. Schools are by no means the only place children are picking up this neo-religion, and I don’t underestimate the difficulty – teachers have been indoctrinated in it for at least a decade, and in some countries for much longer. But the education system is the main vector of infection that is, at least theoretically, under the direction of authorities and open to the influence of parents and voters.”
Sex Matters is proud of its work
The governing document of Sex Matters commits it to three aims:
- to promote human rights where they relate to biological sex
- to advance education about sex and the law
- to promote the sound administration of the law in relation to sex and equality in the law.
We take our charitable purpose and the human-rights framework seriously. We don’t say things to be offensive but to raise awareness of harms and of human rights issues. We hope the Charity Commission watches and reads our output.
There is nothing in the clips and quotes we have seen from GLP that we are not proud of saying. We believe that lying to children and vulnerable people about sex undermines safeguarding, that subjecting them to sterilising treatment based on a false promise of changing sex is a grave human-rights abuse, and that allowing men who wish they were women to use women-only services undermines women’s human rights to fairness, safety and dignity.
We set this all out in our human-rights framework, which we submitted to the regulator when we applied to be a charity. As we explained:
“These abuses of human rights and patterns of discrimination often arise from misunderstandings and misrepresentations of human rights and equality frameworks themselves. For example any recognition of the sex of a person who identifies as transgender is labelled as ‘harassment’.
“In order to resolve conflicts between the rights of women and those of transgender people, these conflicts need to be identified and discussed openly and clearly. Where conflicts or rights are ignored or made unspeakable, rights may be undermined.”
We explained why clarity about sex matters for human rights again in the Supreme Court in 2025, when we intervened in support of For Women Scotland:
“For example, in the case of a rape crisis service, it is self-evident that women using the service would want and reasonably expect to find a female-only space. The presence of a biological man in such a situation effectively destroys the purpose of such a service and, worse still, can serve to retraumatise the very women for whom the service is intended to be provided. The impact on women of facing (or hearing) male individuals in women’s refuges or counselling services can be devastating. Many women self-exclude from the services, or are compelled to pretend that men are women, at great cost to their mental health.”
Our arguments were accepted by the Supreme Court, and we were specifically thanked for making them.
And we are preparing to make the case again in November 2026 when the Hampstead Ponds case comes back to court.
We have published long-form legal analysis explaining why the Supreme Court judgment does not remove, diminish or breach the rights and protections of trans people, and an illustrated easy-reading version of the law. We’ve produced a model policy for schools in line with statutory safeguarding guidance, as well as guidance for the media on reporting on sex and gender identity. Every week we discuss issues on our podcast and we answer hundreds of email queries every month.
GLP says we have ignored our responsibility to serve the general public. We think that what it actually objects to is that we have done too much.