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Sex Matters’ advisory group is growing

Welcome new Sex Matters advisory group members

Sex Matters’ work depends on many friends, some in the background and some with a public face.

We launched our advisory group in January 2022 as a group of friends of the organisation with experience and expertise from different spheres. They show how widespread support is for the idea that “sex matters in law and in life and it shouldn’t take courage to say so”. And they connect our small team with wider networks. 

The members of the advisory group all share our aim of re-establishing that sex matters. They endorse our core principles of reality, clarity, democracy and human rights. They serve in a personal capacity and have no responsibility for the organisation or its governance (that is the board).

Today we are delighted to welcome 13 new advisory group members.

Saphié Ashtiany is an equality lawyer who has served as an equal opportunities commissioner, an ambassador for diversity in public life and on the commission of inquiry into women, power and inequality at the London School of Economics. She is currently on the board of a number of arts and other charities working to improve the lives of people in the UK. 

Dr Harvey Belovski is emeritus rabbi of Golders Green Synagogue. He is an organisational consultant and head of rabbinic recruitment for the United Synagogue, chief strategist and rabbinic head of University Jewish Chaplaincy He is a faculty member of the Senior Faith in Leadership Programme at Windsor Castle and co-lead for March of the Living UK’s multi-faith Holocaust trips to Poland. 

Dr Shereen Benjamin is an expert on children with complex needs, particularly girls and young women, with many years of experience in teaching. Her PhD considered how perceived academic ability intersects with aspects of identity such as gender, sexuality and social class for children with learning difficulties in mainstream education. Since 2005, she has taught at the University of Edinburgh, specialising in education. 

Emma Burnell is a public-policy professional who has worked for the Fabian Society, the National Housing Federation, the Trades Union Congress, New Local Government Network and the Institute for Public Policy Research. As well as writing two plays, she has a broad portfolio as a print journalist and has appeared on a range of radio programmes.

Tracy Edwards MBE is a round-the-world sailor who has achieved many record-breaking firsts. She skippered the first all-woman crew to complete an around-the-world race in 1990 and the first to win one in 2024, and created the world’s first mixed-sex professional racing crew in 2000. She was the first woman to win Yachtsman of the Year. Many of her endeavours have raised funds and awareness for girls’ education. 

Dr Michael Foran is a lecturer in public law at the University of Glasgow. His writing – for UnHerd, The Critic, The Times, The Telegraph, Holyrood magazine and the Scottish Legal News – focuses on explaining the law relating to sex and gender. His first book, Equality Before the Law, was based on his prize-winning doctoral thesis. His second, Sex, Gender Identity, and the Law, will be published next year.

Dr Az Hakeem is a consultant psychiatrist and a medical psychotherapist who has specialised in treating adults with gender-identity conditions. In the 12 years he ran a service for adults with gender dysphoria, less than 2% of his patients decided to pursue physical treatments. He has written two books: Trans: exploring gender identity and gender dysphoria and more recently Detrans: when transition is not the solution. He is a member of CAN-SG, a professional patron of LGB Alliance and an Honorary Clinical Associate Professor at UCL Medical School.

Neale Hanvey was MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath from 2019 to 2024, and the Alba Party’s Westminster leader. He entered politics in 2012. Born in Belfast but raised in Scotland, he trained as a nurse in both general care and mental health, and worked in London for University College Hospital and as divisional nurse director for rare cancer at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, after getting his MSc at City University. He returned to Scotland to enter politics and now lives in Fife. 

Ann Keeling recently stepped down after seven years building the non-profit movement Women in Global Health. She has worked with governments, agencies and charities around the world to help develop policies that advance human rights, equality and social justice, with a focus on women’s rights, social development and global health. As head of gender-equality policy in the Government Equalities Office, she oversaw early development of the 2010 Equality Act. 

Catriona Moore has worked on public-policy issues for charities and public-sector organisations across health, social care and education, and has served as an elected councillor in a London borough and as governor of a special school. A SEND specialist, she campaigns for the rights of disabled children and their families.

Stephen O’Rahilly was knighted for services to medical research in 2013 and is a fellow of the Royal Society. He is an honorary consultant physician at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, and a professor of clinical biochemistry and medicine at the University of Cambridge, where he set up his lab in 1991. His research discovered the mechanisms underlying many inherited metabolic and endocrine disorders, leading to improved diagnosis, targeted therapies and new specialist services. He also took the lead in establishing the Institute of Metabolic Science, now leading the world in the study of metabolic diseases. 

Naomi Passman was the co-founder of the first SEEN (sex equality and equity network) in the civil service and now chairs it. As a solicitor she has experience in the private and public sectors, and has headed an in-house team of lawyers in local government and been deputy director of the Government Legal Service. She has also worked to combat male violence over many years as chair of a charity that runs a refuge and outreach service for women suffering domestic abuse. 

Ellen Pasternack is research manager at the think tank Civitas and co-chair of the Women in Think Tanks forum. She has written on policy, culture, and biology – especially the biology of sex differences – for The Telegraph, The Spectator, The New Statesman and others.

They join our existing advisory group members:

CEO Maya Forstater said:

“I’m proud to welcome these 13 new members of our advisory group, each of whom brings something different, and all of whom have agreed to help support our mission of campaigning for clarity on sex in law and policy.”

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