Maya delivering our One year later report to Bridget Phillipson

The Minister for Women and Equalities, Bridget Phillipson, has promised to present the long-awaited code of  practice for services, public functions and associations for approval by Parliament this month. If she is going to meet her deadline, the parliamentary timetable means that in practice she has to do it in just a few days’ time – during the week starting Monday 18th May. Once it is laid before Parliament, it will come into legal effect 40 days later unless a motion is passed to annul it. The last time that happened was in 1979.

The code, when it comes, will provide a detailed explanation of the single-sex and separate-sex exceptions as applied in different kinds of single-sex services, with lots of practical examples. Perhaps its most important function will be to stop duty-bearers repeating endlessly that the reason they haven’t changed unlawful policies in the year-plus since the Supreme Court judgment in the case of For Women Scotland is that they are “waiting for guidance”.

There was never any reason to wait. The previous version of the code, which dates from 2011, was clearly wrong in saying that “If a service provider provides single- or separate sex services for women and men… they should treat transsexual people according to the gender role in which they present.” That was already true before the Supreme Court judgment. Service providers really should already have stopped pretending to be confused about this.

In cases such as the Red Lion Pub and Croft v Royal Mail in 2003, Green v Secretary of State in 2013 and the first For Women Scotland case in 2022, courts have confirmed again and again that identifying as transgender doesn’t confer the right to be treated as the opposite sex. The Supreme Court made clear last year that having a gender-recognition certificate doesn’t either. Earlier this year the High Court confirmed that the EHRC’s straightforward explanation of what the Supreme Court judgment means in practice for separate-sex facilities accurately reflected the law.

Most recently, on 13th May, news broke that Faye Russell Caldicott (a pseudonym; she was granted court anonymity) had won her case against NHS England. She was represented by our former chair, Naomi Cunningham – congratulations, Naomi! The judgment is a breakthrough, concluding that a policy of allowing trans-identifying men to use women’s toilets, showers and changing rooms amounts to discrimination and harassment related to sex.

NHS England had defended itself by saying it had applied the law as it understood it based on advice from Stonewall, GIRES and Unison. The judgment brushed that excuse away, saying that “reliance on contemporaneous guidance or good practice advice cannot justify an incorrect interpretation of the law”. It was just the latest confirmation that, whether or not the EHRC’s code of practice is laid next week, organisations that have been delaying fixing faulty policies really need to get on with it.

In other news, my colleague Helen Joyce attended a debate at the Cambridge Union, at which Maeve Halligan, founding president of the Cambridge University Society of Women, spoke in favour of the proposition “This House believes modern LGBTQ+ activism fails its community.” You can watch the entire debate on YouTube; both Maeve and her fellow CUSW founder Serena Worley, who spoke from the floor, performed remarkably.

Maya Forstater

The state of free speech on campus

Equality Act-shaped hole at the heart of Sussex judgment

In this week’s episode, Maya and Helen discuss the recent legal judgments that highlight the importance of strong protections for free speech and academic freedom to people who hold gender-critical views.

As Maya wrote last week in Times Higher Education, at the heart of the High Court judgment in the judicial review brought by the University of Sussex is an Equality Act-shaped hole. The Office for Students’ investigation into its failure to protect academic freedom and free speech on campus had been sparked by the hounding of Professor Kathleen Stock, who had been accused of hate by activists for speaking up about misrepresentations of the Equality Act. The High Court overturned the regulator’s £585,000 fine punishing Sussex for infringing on academic freedom and freedom of speech by adopting a policy in 2018 banning so-called transphobic propaganda from its campus and pledging to discipline those committing “transphobic abuse”.

EHRC code: any moment now...

The EHRC Code of  practice for services, public functions and associations is expected to be presented to Parliament for approval before the end of May.

We have published a short explainer about the code: what it’s for, what happens next and why it matters.

Read more…

Hampstead Ponds: update

You may have seen media reports that the City of London has decided to stick with its policy of permitting people to access the ponds designated for the opposite sex on the basis of their “lived gender”. After the vote in support of the plans at a meeting on 12th May, they must now go before another committee on 4th June.

Meanwhile our legal challenge continues: the court has let us know there will be a hearing this autumn.

Read a case update…

In the news

Ben Lynch for BBC News, The Standard and The Mirror broke the news that City of London councillors have voted not to change the policy of allowing trans-identifying men to access the Ladies’ Pond at Hampstead Heath, which is subject to an ongoing legal challenge by Sex Matters. Susanna Siddell for GB News revealed that the City plans to spend £1m on “privacy” upgrades at the ponds. Legal news site LexisNexis published its analysis.

Writing for Civil Society, Léa Legraien covered Sex Matters’ first annual report. Maya was quoted as saying that much of our work has been about pressing institutions, employers, regulators, schools, sports bodies and public authorities to follow the law.

Sam Merriman for the Daily Mail reported that the King’s Speech included plans for a ban on “conversion practices”. Helen said that the real targets are parents, teachers, therapists and spiritual advisors who don’t subscribe to trans ideology, and don’t think the incoherent, subjective notion of “gender identity” is what makes someone a boy or girl, or a man or woman.

Further coverage of our report on sex-based rights in the City included Emma Ann Hughes for Insurance Post, who focused on insurance provider Admiral’s decision to stick with gender-neutral (mixed-sex) toilets, and Oliver Partridge for GB News.

Fiona was interviewed by Kevin O’Sullivan on TalkTV on the news that Harriet Harman has been appointed as the government’s advisor on women and girls. Shortly after last year’s Supreme Court judgment, Baroness Harman claimed it meant that trans-identifying men could still use women’s spaces.

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The news on 29th April that the High Court had overturned the £585,000 fine imposed by the Office for Students (OfS) on the University of Sussex for breaching free-speech regulations was hugely disappointing.

I have written to the chair and chief executive of the OfS calling on it to appeal the judgment, which Sex Matters believes is wrong in law. Our argument has also been published in an article in Times Higher Education.

In short: there is a huge Equality Act-shaped hole in the middle of the judgment.

The OfS started its investigation in 2021, after Professor Kathleen Stock was hounded out of the university (you can read the whole history here). The OfS said: “It’s important to stress that this case – and the OfS’s investigation – is not about the substance of ongoing debates around sex and gender.”

We say it couldn’t be more wrong.

What happened at the University of Sussex cannot be understood unless you recognise that when activists put pressure on the university to adopt a policy banning “transphobic propaganda” in 2018, what they wanted banned were statements that straightforwardly reflect the definition of sex in the Equality Act. What Stock had been targeted for in the first place was pointing out the problem with what those activists meant by “transphobia”.

A large part of the judgment hinges on arguments about the meaning of the terms “reasonably practicable” and “freedom of speech within the law” when assessing whether or not the university had breached its obligation to “take such steps as are reasonably practicable to ensure that freedom of speech within the law is secured”.

It was here that everyone in court appeared to have a collective attack of amnesia. The judgment reads as if my employment appeal tribunal case, and the cases of Jo Phoenix v Open University, Rachel Meade v Social Work England, Roz Adams v Edinburgh Rape Crisis, Higgs v Farmor’s School and all the rest had never happened. It completely overlooks the detailed legal framework for balancing freedom of belief and speech with protecting people against unlawful harassment.

The answer to what is “reasonably practicable” for a university to do is the same as for any other institution: set policies in line with the Equality Act, train staff on those policies and enforce fair and robust disciplinary processes.

So when campus activists started agitating for the University of Sussex to adopt a sweeping new policy in time for Trans Day of Remembrance, it should have just said: “No thanks, we’ve already got a policy that aligns with the Equality Act and covers all nine protected characteristics.”

Perversely, the university cited the fact that it already had a high-level policy protecting free speech and academic freedom when defending itself in court, even though in practice that high-level policy did not stop the university from adopting the activists’ charters.

A further twist in the tale is that the policy Sussex adopted in 2018 came almost word for word from one written by Equality Challenge Uni (now Advance HE) that was in turn based on one adopted by the Association of Colleges in 2005, which was drafted by Socialist Workers Party activist David Renton. Tribunal-watchers will remember that Renton is now a barrister and was Allison Bailey’s roommate at Garden Court Chambers. He refused to express solidarity when she was discriminated against and harassed for expressing views that are in line with the Equality Act. Instead, after overhearing Allison talking on the phone about why trans-identifying men should not be in women’s prisons, he told a colleague that her view seemed “a million miles away from chambers values”.

In 2023 the University of Essex published a paper by Renton and two academics, titled Universities’ Legal Obligations in the Context of Trans Inclusion, Trans Equality, and ‘Gender Critical Activities on Campus. This claimed: “The decision in Forstater has been widely misunderstood and it is worth emphasising that the Appeal Tribunal in that case accepted that Ms Forstater had a protected opinion, does not mean that the manifestations of that opinion were protected.”

It is shocking how a tiny coterie of motivated and persistent people has managed to corrupt the governance of large, expensive and important institutions by promoting a misreading of the Equality Act. Anyone who wants to save the Equality Act and these institutions needs to drag them back to reality.

Maya Forstater

City firms flout sex-based rules

Our new report exposes widespread non-compliance

In this week’s episode, Maya and Helen discuss our latest report, Sex-based rights in the City, which uncovered the widespread failure of the financial sector to comply with the Supreme Court ruling.

Not one of 15 financial institutions contacted replied clearly stating that it provided single-sex toilets, as required by workplace regulations, and restricted access to people of that (biological) sex.

Maya and Helen discuss how we got here, the experiences of those working in the sector and what can be done to bring employers into compliance.

Our new report finds that despite usually taking legal compliance seriously, firms in the financial sector failed to update their policies on access to single-sex spaces in line with the 2025 Supreme Court judgment.

Read more…

In the news

Eleanor Harmsworth for The Telegraph covered Sex Matters’ report on sex-based rights in the financial sector as an exclusive, revealing that none of the 15 companies contacted could confirm that they are compliant with the Supreme Court ruling. The report quotes female staff concerned about this as feeling angry, unvalued and cynical, and points out that on any other topic, a Supreme Court judgment would see City firms rushing to ensure all policies were brought in line with the law.

Maya wrote for Times Higher Education on the High Court judgment in the University of Sussex’s case against the Office for Students. Sussex was successful in overturning the record fine imposed on it for failing to uphold free speech on campus and academic freedom, after an investigation prompted by the hounding of Professor Kathleen Stock. Maya argued that the verdict wrongly overlooked the Equality Act’s role in determining what universities can be expected to do to protect free speech.

Writing for The Telegraph, Cameron Henderson broke the news that education provider Pearson is teaching GCSE pupils that it is “discrimination” and “inequality” to provide toilets only for men and women. Maya said that single-sex facilities ensure safety, dignity and privacy for everyone, as well as preventing discrimination against women, who are harmed more than men are by having to share toilets and changing rooms with the opposite sex.

Helen wrote for The Critic on her experience of both making crime reports and being the subject of them. She contrasts the criminal justice system’s deferential treatment of trans-identifying former police officer Lynsay Watson, who makes serial allegations about gender-critical people and seeks judicial review when police decline to prosecute, with the way allegations of criminal harassment against him are slow-walked or ignored.

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Filing Sex Matters’ first annual return to the Charity Commission and publishing our first annual report has been a milestone for the charity, and for me as chief executive. It is one of the many “first time for everything” experiences the board and I have gone through together, with input from the team. It is part of the board’s statutory responsibility, but together we also wanted to make sure what we produced was useful and interesting for our supporters.

The annual report sets out the charity’s short history, its principles and strategy, the resources we have attracted and how we are using them. If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, you might still enjoy the summary.

We started out around a kitchen table with a rough idea – that “sex matters in life and in law, and it shouldn’t take courage to say so.” Since then, we have experimented furiously to work out how we can most effectively make that vision real, and we will keep doing that.

I’ve never been a chief executive before, so pulling the report and audited accounts together was daunting. But the feedback has been so encouraging. Here is a selection: “We are very proud of you all!”, “What an impressive document”, “Thank you and well done! I’m proud to have been a supporter” and “Thank you for having our backs and being in the frontline of our battles.”

I am grateful to all the trustees, including those who stood down this year, in particular Naomi Cunnigham as chair and Julia Casimo as treasurer, and to Emma Hilton, who replaced Naomi as our chair. Without all their hard work, we would not have got this far.

The annual report has also provoked challenges, mainly by people asking “why aren’t you doing X?” To which my answer is generally: “Because we are doing Y.” My job as chief executive is to make sure the team all know what “Y” is, and why we are doing it, and that they are supported and able to do their jobs. It is the board of trustees who have ultimate responsibility for the charity’s strategic direction, and together with the senior leadership team – me, Fiona McAnena and Helen Joyce – they spend a lot of time thinking about what to do next and how to manage risks and resources.

As you can imagine, a lot goes on behind the scenes. As well as board meetings, we have an annual strategy weekend; this year’s has just taken place.

From left to right: Emma Moore (administrator and help-desk manager), Rebecca Bull (trustee), Helen Joyce (director of advocacy), Michael Biggs (trustee), Emma Hilton (trustee and chair), Maya Forstater (CEO), Fiona McAnena (director of campaigns), Simon Knapp (trustee and treasurer), Anya Palmer (trustee), Charlotte Cadden (trustee).

We welcomed a new board member, Simon Knapp, who is taking over the important role of treasurer.

Simon has worked in senior finance roles across the charity sector and is strongly committed to our mission. (I think there are more people in the voluntary sector like this than you might imagine!)

Last week I also started a short course for new charity CEOs at Bayes Business School, with a cohort of charity CEOs. Some were pleased to meet me, and a few were not. One asked with incredulity how we could be a human-rights charity. I explained that our starting point is that human rights are universal, but this does not mean that transgender people get everything they want: other people have rights too. I gave her a copy of our human-rights framework.

The practical discussions on the course were fascinating and helpful. My big lesson from the first day was that the challenges I face as a CEO are not so different from those faced by other charity CEOs (even the ones who think we are deplorable): sitting between the board and the team and trying to make sure we stay true to our mission, respond to opportunity and hostility, and act effectively.

Back: Hargey Fionntán (Market Development Association), Jennie Lucas (Maggie Oliver Foundation), Katie Nurcombe (Intensive Care Society), Sam Plummer (Youth Connect South West), Christine Fogg (Bayes Business School), Middle: Maya Forstater (Sex Matters), Leonora Sharp (Terapia), Alanna Harris (Canary Wharf Multifaith Chaplaincy), Front: Dan Jones (Settle), Tamara Newman (Committee for Middle East Peace), Elisabeta Pashaj (Downhurst Residential Home), Rukia Augustine (St Albans Food Bank), Kate Heslegrave (St Helena Hospice), James Roberts (Citizens Advice Peterborough), Izzy Ivezic (The Baked Bean Charity).

Many of the worst cases of capture by gender ideology that we at Sex Matters hear about concern charities. Their boards and leadership seem particularly prone to losing sight of their mission and getting confused about the Equality Act. Scope cancelling Janet Murray’s choir from singing at the London Marathon (and then reinstating it with a grudging statement) was just the latest example.

Thinking hard about governance is important for how Sex Matters conducts itself as a charity, but also for understanding how things have gone wrong in so many institutions. One of the most important bits of good governance is identifying and managing conflicts of interests. The Charity Commission has just published new guidance on this important topic. It emphasises that a conflict of interest doesn’t mean something dishonest is going on, and that conflicts are also not always about financial decisions. They can be about personal loyalties and the interests of people or organisations connected to trustees getting tangled up with decision-making.

When charity trustees, public policy-makers, regulators or judges make decisions related to sex and gender, there is too often an undeclared conflict of interest: a trans-identifying family member or friend whom they hold dear, and whose strong personal wishes shape their decisions and the language they use. It is crucial that people who are working for the public good do not confuse this purpose with doing what feels good for the people nearest and dearest to them.

If you work in a charity and are gender-critical, get in touch!

Maya Forstater

Meet the Sex Matters help desk

In this week’s episode, Fiona talks to Emma Moore, who manages our help desk. They discuss common themes, the advice provided to those seeking support and the resources available on our website.

Practical help

This new section of our website makes it easier to find our practical tools and template emails, as well as general advice and tips on What you can do if you have a problem.

Read more…

Hampstead Ponds: the City of London says it is sticking with "trans inclusion"

Sex Matters says: “We’ll see you in court”

The City of London Corporation has published its report on the Hampstead Heath bathing ponds and is planning to take a decision about the final policy to be adopted on 4th June.

We have received an order from the High Court that our case against the City of London will be listed between October and December 2026. We will keep you updated.

Read more…

Don't forget: Consultation on digital identity closes today

The government’s consultation on digital ID closes on 5th May. Here are the instructions on how to take part.

Last week we talked about this on the podcast and our survey got nearly 1,000 responses. Thank you for your thoughtful and constructive comments. There are diverse views and important concerns. But whatever you think about digital ID, you can tell the government to include sex!

Read more…

In the news

Ben Lynch broke the news that the City of London is recommending that the Ladies’ Pond at Hampstead Heath remains mixed sex, even as Sex Matters’ legal case continues, in a piece that ran in BBC London, MyLondon and Ham & High (print only). Maya said that the City of London’s proposal to continue with its approach of allowing fully intact males into the women’s pond is simply unlawful, and that the City is operating as if Hampstead Heath is outside the law. Alastair Lockhart also covered the story for The Standard.

Justin Bowie for The Courier interviewed Sandie Peggie, who said that she was shocked by bogus quotes in her judgment that were first revealed by the same newspaper to have been incorrectly attributed to Maya’s 2021 tribunal judgment.

Helen’s book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality (2021) was included in The Times’ list of the 25 best non-fiction books of the 21st century.

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Without it, we simply wouldn’t exist.

Sex Matters can deliver essential research and analysis, help shape the debate, and empower people with clear, published guidance on their rights – but only with your support. Please contribute what you can to keep us going.

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Some of the speakers with Baroness Sarah Ludford (in red jacket)

On Tuesday 21st April I took a stack of Sex Matters One year later booklets to the Houses of Parliament for a meeting of peers and MPs at which women who have been harmed by the failure to protect women-only spaces told their stories. Among them were several women featured in the booklet, including Darlington nurse Bethany Hutchison, gym user Miranda Newsom and mental-health volunteer “D”.

Their stories highlighted the harms done to women when organisations fail to follow the Equality Act and instead follow gender ideology. These are ordinary women trying to do ordinary things where their dignity, privacy and autonomy should be upheld: use the office toilets; get changed for work or at the gym; run a women’s mental-health peer support group. They reveal NHS bodies, local authorities and charities wilfully ignoring the law and subjecting women to punishment for speaking up for their rights. There were tears on the panel and tears in the audience.

By now all MPs will have received the booklet in their pigeonholes. If you haven’t written to your MP about this, now is a good time. Ask them to urge the Minister for Women and Equalities to lay the EHRC guidance before Parliament in May, as she has promised, and to act decisively to ensure that the law as clarified by the Supreme Court is enforced.

Write to your MP: why are we waiting?

Something that would help ensure that organisations understand and follow the law would be a simple, clear way for people to prove their sex when registering for or accessing services. For many years public bodies have allowed people to change their sex on documents such as passports and driving licences, making these worse than useless for this purpose.

Now the government is planning a new form of digital ID that people will be able to have on their phones. Its proposed “solution” to the problem of unreliable sex data is to leave sex off altogether.

This is a mistake. It will leave individuals and service providers floundering and mired in conflict, instead of being able to simply and clearly verify a fact about people that is often needed.

We know there are a range of different views on digital ID itself, and Sex Matters has no institutional position. But whatever your views you can argue that if it goes ahead sex should be included.

A government consultation about it is open until Tuesday 5th May. It is really important that people use this opportunity to tell the government not to leave sex out of digital ID.

READ:
Our update on why digital ID should include sex
(and our briefing on putting sex on digital ID, if you have time)

LISTEN TO:
Our podcast on the topic
(in which Helen Joyce calls me a nerd, the absolute cheek of her)

TAKE ACTION:
Use our guidance to respond to the consultation
(it won’t take more than 10 minutes)

Maya Forstater

Putting sex on digital ID

In this week’s episode, Maya and Helen discuss the new national digital ID (BritCard), which the government has committed to creating by the end of this parliament. But the government does not plan to include sex on the BritCard, saying that this “is not necessary for the intended purpose of the digital ID”.

Maya and Helen explore why failing to include sex as a voluntary field on the BritCard is a cop-out that will leave individuals and service providers floundering and mired in conflict, instead of being able to simply and clearly verify a fact about people which is often needed.

Sex matters in local elections

Too many local authorities have told us that they are “waiting for guidance” on single-services when in fact the law is clear. If there are elections in your area on Thursday 7th May, we have some questions you can ask candidates to find out if your local authority understands and respects the law.

Read more…

Update: the City of London seeks to delay again

As the deadline approached for the City of London Corporation to file its defence for allowing trans-identifying men into the women’s pond and showers on Hampstead Heath, it made a last-ditch attempt to evade this by asking for another delay.

Read more…

In the news

Janet Murray for The Telegraph reported that a Girlguiding group has closed and reopened as a Scout group over the charity’s move to align with the law on single-sex services, with other leaders suggesting that more may follow or affiliate with local Pride groups. Maya said that Girlguiding is learning the hard way that there is no easy path back from pretending that men and boys can be female, and that Pride youth groups are hardly a natural fit for the Girlguiding movement.

Sian Maher for The Scottish Sun reported that the trans-identifying male doctor Dr Beth Upton has been registered by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency as female and is working in two New South Wales hospitals. Helen said that male doctors should never practise as female and medical organisations should never record doctors as the sex they are not, and that doing so sets the scene for patients’ rights to be breached. The news was also reported by Rachel Baxendale for The Australian.

Helen wrote for The Critic on how the fallout from the puberty-blocker trial shows what happens when politicians outsource policy choices that require a backbone. She said that when institutions such as medical regulators fail to do their job, Parliament is supposed to fix the rules that govern them, but many politicians have lost faith in their moral intuition or lost touch with it entirely.

Maya appeared on GB News with Olivia Utley and Cameron Walker to discuss the one-year anniversary of the For Women Scotland Supreme Court ruling. Maya said that there is no excuse for anyone to be ignoring the law.

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Sex Matters survives on your support.
Without it, we simply wouldn’t exist.

Sex Matters can deliver essential research and analysis, help shape the debate, and empower people with clear, published guidance on their rights – but only with your support. Please contribute what you can to keep us going.

Donate

For Women Scotland, Sex Matters and the lesbian intervenors outside 10 Downing Street – all photos © Belinda Jiao

This is the speech I made to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Women’s Rights on 15th April 2026

One year ago, the Supreme Court gave us clarity. We couldn’t have got a better, clearer judgment.

Every morning for the past year I have thought: “Thank you For Women Scotland… Thank you Lord Hodge, Lady Simler, Lady Rose…” And thank you to the lesbian intervenors. And to Ben Cooper KC, who made the arguments for Sex Matters in the Supreme Court.

Yet one year later it feels like nothing has changed.

Employers, service providers and the government are still pretending that it is difficult to understand that a man who feels sad about being a man, who puts on women’s clothing and make up, who may or may not get a sexual kick of out of this, who may or may not have parts of his body hormonally or surgically altered, is not a woman.

And women and men who articulate these facts in clear plain language are not bigots, or hateful or saying anything that shouldn’t be said.

But the truth is it is still dangerous to say these things. It is still the safer, smarter option to pretend not to know what everyone knows. We are pushing against the weight of institutions that have been corrupted from the inside out by an ideology that makes the truth unsayable.

So the lack of action following the Supreme Court judgment isn’t that surprising.

The law cannot do magic. A piece of paper cannot change people’s sex. And a Supreme Court judgment, however good and carefully reasoned, cannot immediately change institutions that have turned away from their purpose and systematically set women’s rights to zero.

It is a brilliant, clear judgment, and on 16th April last year some people thought the job was done. But we still have to win this the hard way – we have to win back language, institutions, incentives and hearts and minds. It’s not that people don’t agree with us, it’s that there’s still a climate of fear and the real danger from simply saying what the law has confirmed is right remains. And so many people seem to find it so easy to forget that women are full human beings.

For the anniversary of the judgment, Sex Matters has produced two publications. One is an easy-read version of the EHRC’s short update on single-sex facilities. The other is the One year later booklet, which tells the stories of 14 women and girls. It illustrates the harm that has been done and continues to be done by the misunderstanding of the Equality Act and the weaponisation of the law that is meant to protect women’s rights against women.

Some of the stories you will know, some you won’t. You will know the names of Sandie Peggie, Bethany Hutchison and the other Darlington nurses; other women have had to remain anonymous. There are longer stories on our website, and we will keep adding more stories of harm, until we don’t have to.

We sent the booklet to the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer with a letter from 26 women’s groups. We’ve also put it in the pigeonhole of every MP – including Bridget Phillipson, the Minister for Women and Equalities – and every working peer (we had them all enveloped and ready to go, and then when Phillipson made her announcement on the guidance, we had to rip open 1,200 envelopes and put in a new letter!)

The booklet includes the stories of women like Eleanor Frances, who joined the civil service to serve her country. When she raised concerns about policies she believed were unlawful and undermined civil service objectivity, she wasn’t heard – she was pushed out and her career derailed. The DCMS settled with her for six figures and said it would revise its policy. It hasn’t changed a thing.

And Charlotte Hawkins, an NHS paramedic trainer, who was asked to rewrite maternity guidance to remove clear biological language and replace it with vague terms. She spoke up. A few colleagues from the LGBT network started combing through her Facebook feed for gender-critical posts and she was suspended.

Then there are Bethany Hutchison and the other Darlington nurses, and Sandie Peggie. They simply didn’t want to undress in front of a male colleague in the women’s changing room. They asked for privacy – nothing more. They were called bigots and told to move.

One of the worst stories is from a woman we have called D. She is a service user of a mental-health charity; she qualified as a peer mentor to support other people with similar struggles. She has run a women’s group for several years.

After the Supreme Court judgment her local branch said it was going to change the name of the women’s and men’s groups in order to be inclusive. It told her that because they were only peer-support groups they couldn’t be single sex. It told her this is the law.

She asked us to help. So we wrote to the charity and explained the law. We said that it is perfectly lawful to have women-only groups and that it may well be indirect discrimination against women to let “trans women” into the group.

The charity took more than two months to reply to our letter. Then it came back and said that it was going to stop providing men’s and women’s peer support altogether and just have mixed-sex groups for people who want to talk about women’s mental health and men’s mental health.

Then someone reported D for being a bigot and a transphobe. Now she is being investigated and is barred from the offices of the service that has been a lifeline to her.

And all this happened after the Supreme Court judgment. All this happened because the charity responded to the judgment by trying to get around the spirit and letter of the law.

One thing that is really striking about the case studies in the booklet is that these are salt-of-the-earth women. Many work in frontline public services; others are seeking to do good within their communities. There are very few stories of women like Baroness Falkner who are at the top of their institutions and sticking their necks out. I want to pay tribute to Kishwer Falkner for her bravery and thank her for everything she has done.

In our letter to the minister for women and equalities, we said that her statement that “This government has always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex” is a slap in the face to all the women whose stories we have told. It is a slap in the face to the women that stop me in the street and say thank you, and to the women who are in our inbox every day telling us that organisations are failing to follow the law.

We will keep bringing strategic legal cases, and working to shape public understanding. And we call on the government to show leadership – to lay the guidance, to withdraw the civil-service model policy that puts a legally incorrect definition of “discrimination” at the heart of the decision making, and to fix the data. Women have already waited far too long.

Maya Forstater

READ: The letter from 26 organisations and groups to the Prime Minister: why are women still waiting?

CATCH UP: Our response to Bridget Phillipson’s announcement that the EHRC code will be laid before Parliament in May

USE: The easy-read version of the EHRC’s update

READ MORE: The stories of each of the women in the One year later booklet

Podcast

In this week’s episode, filmed in London, Maya, Fiona and Helen discuss the week’s events marking the anniversary of the For Women Scotland judgment at the Supreme Court.

Celebrating in Parliament Square with supporters

In Parliament Square with Stephanie Davies-Arai of Transgender Trend

In front of the Supreme Court with the Darlington nurses, Jennifer Melle (furthest left) and Sandie Peggie (furthest right)

Thank you to everyone who turned up to mark For Women Scotland’s first anniversary!

Maya Forstater

In the news

Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling, the news that the government plans to lay the ERHC code of practice after local elections was covered widely, including by Peter Walker and Libby Brooks for The Guardian, James Melley for BBC News, Martin Beckford for the Daily Mail and Daniel Martin for The Telegraph. Maya said that the government had found another excuse for delaying the guidance and that there appeared to have been negotiations regarding its content between the government and the EHRC. Maya was interviewed on the story by TalkTV by Julia Hartley-Brewer and Ian Collins, and Fiona was interviewed by Carole Walker on Times Radio.

On the eve of the anniversary, Sonia Sodha for The Times mentioned pressure from Sex Matters on the Cabinet Office to withdraw its unlawful model policy regarding trans-identifying employees, which applies across the civil service.

Reports on public bodies flouting the law dominated headlines on the day of the anniversary. David Churchill and Martin Beckford for the Daily Mail reported on widespread defiance within the NHS, police, local authorities and schools. Helen said that the failure of public bodies to adopt policies based on biological sex has caused untold harm to women and girls.

Martin Beckford for the Daily Mail and Daniel Martin for The Telegraph reported on research finding that more than a dozen councils across England have put forward motions criticising the Supreme Court ruling. Fiona asked why these councils are wasting time and resources like this.

Helen was interviewed by Georgina Mumford for Spiked TV to mark the anniversary of the ruling.

At the weekend, Maya was interviewed by Nana Akua on GB News on a blistering interview former EHRC chair Baroness Kishwer Falkner gave to Daniel Martin at The Telegraph on her experience of being at the helm of the equalities watchdog for five years.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s comments on the complications of implementing single-sex wards were covered by Martin Beckford for the Daily Mail. Maya said that Streeting’s focus on trans-identifying women was pure deflection and that accommodating them cannot be an excuse for delaying the exclusion of men from women-only wards. Helen was interviewed about the story on LBC by Nick Ferrari.

Earlier in the week, Fiona wrote for the Daily Express on the fallout from nurse Jennifer Melle’s case against the NHS for “misgendering”, saying that the NHS needs to cure itself of gender madness before more people are harmed.

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Next week it will be a year since the Supreme Court delivered its landmark judgment that the terms “man” and “woman” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex.

Clarifying the law was an incredible achievement, against all odds, for a grassroots group of women organising around their kitchen tables. It was the outcome of years of patient work, visionary courage and sheer bloody-mindedness by Trina Budge, Marion Calder and Susan Smith of For Women Scotland. With that ruling they achieved more in a single day than most people manage in a lifetime.

But while some organisations have got on with it and changed their policies (this week it was the Darts Regulation Authority), too many are still resisting or delaying.

I’m sure you’re as fed up as I am of hearing well-paid senior leaders of government departments, charities and regulators saying they are “waiting for guidance”. And I’m fed up with the government delaying publishing the guidance.

This week, with several other groups, we wrote to Keir Starmer about this delay. Along with the letter, we sent him a new report from Sex Matters that tells the stories of women who have experienced the consequences of the government’s failure to follow the law. It includes the stories of:

• a civil servant pushed out after raising concerns about policy compliance

• NHS staff disciplined for asserting sex-based boundaries

• women excluded from single-sex spaces, or penalised for objecting when those spaces are compromised

• athletes facing unfair competition and sanctioned for speaking out

• volunteers and carers deemed “unsuitable” for expressing mainstream opinions and safeguarding concerns.

We are grateful to everyone who told us their stories, and we will be collecting more.

On Saturday 11th April members of the Sex Matters team and friends will be reading out our letter to the Prime Minister in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast and Sunderland as part of the #OneYearLater protests. We will be speaking alongside women telling their own stories about how the government’s failure to act is leading to harm.

If you can make it to one of the protests, we hope to see you there. If you would like to help us hand out Sex Matters flyers, make yourself known on the day!

Maya Forstater

Download the booklet

Write to your MP

FWS one year later

In this week’s episode, Maya and Helen talk about our latest publication, One year later, which tells the stories of individual women harmed by the failure to implement the Supreme Court ruling. A year after the landmark judgment, we are still hearing distressing stories of ordinary people being treated terribly simply because they want single-sex spaces, because they spoke up about safeguarding risks caused by ignoring the reality of sex or because they were open about their lack of belief in gender identity.

The law is clear: why are women waiting?

A year after the landmark Supreme Court judgment, we look at the harm caused to women and girls by the government’s failure to enforce it.

Read our new booklet now and share it on social media.

Read more

Write to your MP: why are we waiting?

Organisations are still prevaricating on single-sex spaces and the government is still stalling. Use our template to email your MP today and send them a copy of our new booklet, One year later.

Take action now!

In the news

This week’s roundup includes coverage in the lead-up to Easter.

Kevin Duguid for The Scottish Sun broke the news that murderer Paris Green, a man who says he identifies as female, is being moved to a male prison – a year after he was found to have caused physical harm to a female prison officer. Helen said that Green should never have been in a women’s prison. The news was also covered by Dean Herbert for the Scottish Daily Mail (print only).

Jacinta Taylor for the Mail on Sunday broke the news that the Office for National Statistics will not include a question on gender identity in the 2027 Census test. Fiona welcomed the news and said that the census should simply ask about sex, male or female, and instruct respondents to answer honestly.

Dan Roan for BBC Sport wrote a feature article on the International Olympic Committee’s decision to protect the female category at the Olympic Games on the basis of sex. Fiona warned that several sports in the UK have two-tier policies that provide fairness only for the top women; policies similar to the IOC’s need to be adopted by every governing body. Hadley Freeman for The Sunday Times referred to our Hampstead ponds legal case in her commentary on the story.

Janet Murray for The Telegraph continued her coverage on the implementation of Girlguiding’s new policy of excluding trans-identifying men and boys from being leaders and guides, reporting that there could be the risk of legal action between now and September. Maya said that the previous policy was obviously dangerous as well as unlawful: the organisation must mitigate these risks with interim policies.

Tim Sigsworth for the The Telegraph reported that ITV will portray Queen Elizabeth I as a trans-identifying man in an upcoming historical drama. Maya said that some in the arts sector seem to think that portraying historical female figures such as Joan of Arc as trans-identifying is edgy, but viewers who are already sick of gender ideology may vote by switching off.

The Times reported on the court ruling upholding the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s interim guidance on single-sex facilities following a legal challenge by the Good Law Project, in which Sex Matters intervened.

Helen wrote for her column in The Critic that women who play along with gender ideology are doing what many women have always done in the face of unreasonable male demands: placate and fawn because that’s safer and more profitable than female solidarity.

Writing for The Courier, Sean O’Neil reported that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has said that Professor Jacob George recused himself from the controversial puberty-blocker trial, rather than being recused by the regulator. Maya said that any reasonable person could have concluded that George had been under pressure to quit and that however the recusal played out, the central point is that the MHRA did not follow proper procedures when George came under fire.

The news that the Darts Regulation Authority (DRA) has barred trans-identifying men from the female competition was covered by BBC Sport, Martyn Ziegler for The Times, Ed Griffiths for GB News, and David Churchill for the Daily Mail. A report commissioned by the DRA and authored by Sex Matters chair Emma Hilton in her capacity as a developmental biologist was quoted in media reports. Fiona said that men’s physical advantages in darts may each be small but they all add up.

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Sex Matters can deliver essential research and analysis, help shape the debate, and empower people with clear, published guidance on their rights – but only with your support. Please contribute what you can to keep us going.

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I spent 24th March at the Wembley Hilton with hundreds of charity CEOs for the annual conference of the Association of Chief Executive Officers of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO). I didn’t know if I would be welcome. But I am the CEO of a charity, and I have appreciated ACEVO’s practical support, so I put on my best “worthy of respect” face and joined them.

Jane Ide, CEO of ACEVO, told us that charities rank second only to doctors as the most trusted institutions in the UK. As it happens, charities and the healthcare professions are the two sectors that have done the greatest harm by accommodating and promoting the extremist demands of gender ideology.

None of the big-name charity CEOs talked to me, but plenty of others did. Over the course of the day several people came up and said “Thank you”. One asked if I was speaking (“Not this year!”); others listened with obvious surprise when I told them my story and the stories of women like Roz Adams and Sandie Peggie (it’s amazing what you can miss if you read nothing but The Guardian and watch nothing but the BBC). A few looked askance when they spotted me and made a quick getaway.

Many people said: “It’s so nuanced and complicated.” I tried not to lose my patience. It’s actually quite straightforward, I replied. There are two kinds of people: male and female. There are three kinds of spaces: male, female and unisex. Maybe that’s a bit basic for the “it’s nuanced” crowd, but it happens to be true.

In 2023 hundreds of charity CEOs signed the I Stand With Trans declaration. The campaign defined “transphobic behaviour” to include misgendering, deliberate exclusion from physical spaces and propagating the idea of trans as being an ideology.

That campaign, which was a proud declaration to commit unlawful belief discrimination, is now defunct, and the vibe even in the charity sector has shifted. I didn’t hear anyone declare their pronouns from the stage, the toilets hadn’t been performatively made gender-neutral for the event, and none of the speakers (one was Simon Blake, CEO of Stonewall) used their slot to hand-wring about the reset of expectations on trans rights. Instead they talked about international relations, the cost of national insurance, what to do with AI, and large-scale inequalities such as race, class, age and disability.

Most charities seem to have moved on from the briefly fashionable obsession with trans “inclusion”. The latest edition of Charity Times includes an overheated and under-informed article on the Supreme Court judgment, but the layout, all pink and blue ribbons, and the journalist, a signatory to I Stand With Trans, seem behind the times. The latest charity pledge, Third sector against transphobia, has a much less impressive list of signatories. The group promoting it is closed and secretive, as is the one behind Unlock the GATE, the campaign to continue to allow boys into Girlguiding.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission guidance will eventually be put before Parliament, and the Charity Commission might finally produce some guidance of its own. By now it is obvious to anyone with any common sense that a charity, like any other institution, needs to run on reality in order to succeed in its mission.

One of the themes of the day was collective courage. There hasn’t been much from the sector. Adopting trans ideology creates a conflict of interest that is kryptonite for governance. Maybe they will ask me to speak about this next year. I’m not holding my breath.

If you want to hear and be part of something inspiring, I’ve just come across the Unsilenced Project. It’s a collection of oral histories from those affected by the modern trans movement gathered by Suzanne Malyon, a gender-critical campaigner based in Scotland. There are so many stories to be told from this extraordinary time by ordinary people who found the courage to refuse.

Maya Forstater

Boys told to leave Girlguiding

Maya and Helen discuss Girlguiding’s recent decision to reverse its policy of allowing boys who identify as girls to join its groups. They trace the history of the charity’s move towards “inclusive” policies, the failure of the Charity Commission and other regulators to provide the necessary leadership, and the practical safeguarding risks that follow when a supposedly female-only organisation admits boys under the pretence that they are girls.

Protests planned for one year later

On Saturday 11th April, nearly a year after the Supreme Court confirmed that sex means sex in the Equality Act, the grassroots group @acts_grassroots is organising a series of #OneYearLater protests against the government’s inaction at locations across the country. Everyone is welcome – just turn up and make your voice heard.

Read more…

MPs debate the puberty-blocker trial

Fiona McAnena with James Esses, whose petition secured the debate

A Westminster Hall debate on the petition to cancel the puberty-blocker trial was held on Monday 23rd March. We summarise the arguments of the 12 MPs who spoke for the petition and the six who spoke in favour of the trial.

Read more…

In the news

It was a bumper week for news on sex and gender. The International Olympic Committee’s decision to bar male athletes from female events was covered globally. Fiona was quoted in many stories, including those by Lori Ewing and Iain Axon for Reuters, Dan Roan for the BBC Sport and Oliver Brown for The Telegraph. Welcoming the news, she said that women have been cheated of medals and of fairness in sport for years, and that this change must not be solely for elite competition. Sean Ingle for The Guardian quoted Sex Matters’ chair, developmental biologist Dr Emma Hilton, who said that SRY screening is a simple, non-invasive, once-in-a-lifetime check that returns female sport to female athletes.

In broadcast coverage of the story, Helen was interviewed by Peter Cardwell on TalkTV and Fiona by Miriam Cates and Alex Armstrong on GB News, while Sex Matters’ statement was mentioned on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 5.

Girlguiding UK’s announcement that trans-identifying boys will need to leave groups by September was covered by Jessica Murray for The Guardian, Michael Sheils McNamee for BBC News, Sanchez Manning for The Times, Gabriella Swerling for The Telegraph and Eleanor Harding and David Churchill for the Daily Mail. Helen said that Girlguiding had shown no concern for girls’ boundaries and failed to think clearly about what boys confused about their sex really need, which isn’t validation in a falsehood.

Jacob Freedland for The Telegraph broke the news that employment judges have received “awareness” training from transactivist groups. Maya said that training by Scottish Trans raises questions about the influence of gender ideology on the Scottish judiciary.

Will Bolton for The Telegraph and Richard Ashmore for the Daily Express reported that Vivenne Taylor, a trans-identifying man who stalked and threatened the female surgeon who did his gender-reassignment surgery, has been moved to the trans wing at the women’s prison HM Downview. Fiona pointed out that trans-identifying men in Downview have access to women’s facilities and even mix with female prisoners. Helen discussed the story with Julia Hartley-Brewer on TalkTV.

Maya wrote for the Daily Express on the Crown Prosecution Service referring to trans-identifying male murderer Aurin Makepeace as female and omitting the fact that Makepeace had met his victim when both were serving sentences in a men’s prison.

Maya was also quoted by Chris Hastings for the Mail on Sunday on Harriet Harman’s dismissive comments on the late Jenni Murray, saying that Murray’s principled stand was an integral part of her feminism rather than, as Harman insultingly insinuated, detracting from it.

Crowdfund to keep men out of the Ladies’ Pond

Thank you to everyone who donated to get us this far. We’ve increased our target to enable the next stage in this case!

Donate now…

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Sex Matters can deliver essential research and analysis, help shape the debate, and empower people with clear, published guidance on their rights – but only with your support. Please contribute what you can to keep us going.

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On Friday 13th March I spoke on a panel about the Equality Act with Susan Smith of For Women Scotland and Akua Reindorf KC, at the Liberal Democrats’ spring conference in York. I talked in simple language about the purpose of the Equality Act and clarity and comprehensiveness of the For Women Scotland judgment.

I started by reading out paragraph 209 of the judgment:

“In short, the core provisions to which we have referred, which refer to sex, man or woman, are not capable of being read fairly and consistently with [changing sex ‘for all purposes’] without defeating their purpose and meaning. The definition of these terms… is not capable of being interpreted on the basis of certificated sex. Rather, sex has its biological meaning throughout this legislation: ‘woman’ always and only means a biological female of any age.... It follows that a biological male of any age cannot fall within this definition; and ‘woman’ does not mean or sometimes mean or include a male of any age who holds a GRC or exclude a female of any age who holds a GRC. To reach any other conclusion would turn the foundational definition of sex on its head and diminish the protection available to individuals and groups against discrimination on the grounds of sex.”

It couldn’t be clearer.

Nearly a year ago, when we all came out of the Supreme Court, we thought that perhaps we could all shut up shop and go home. Organisations that care about the inclusion of women and girls in public life would recognise that defeating the purpose and meaning of the law that protects women and girls against sex discrimination is bad. It’s bad not only because it harms women and girls directly, but also because it corrodes institutions when they systematically say one thing while doing another.

We thought the people who had allowed this harmful confusion about the law to take hold in their institutions would take this opportunity to put things right. Some might even say sorry. But they didn’t. Many hid behind the dog-eared excuse of “waiting for guidance”, and some started actively looking for loopholes.

Last week I wrote to the general counsel of Marks & Spencer’s (you can read more in our blog post: see below). He had written to me telling me that I was mistaken in thinking M&S allows men into women’s changing rooms. He said it simply doesn’t have women’s changing rooms at all. I wrote back with evidence that M&S advertises on its own website store-by-store that it has “fitting rooms(men)” and “fitting rooms(women)”.

We also heard about the King’s Trust (formerly the Prince’s Trust), a charity founded by King Charles in 1976, advertising a boxing and fitness programme for disadvantaged 16–25 year old girls and young women in Bristol, but allowing boys and young men who identify as female to take part. Shockingly, it decided to scrap the programme rather than risk having to tell young men who get a kick out of hitting women and girls that they aren’t welcome.

We’ve heard how the Women’s Institute group in Kentish Town has been refused a booking by the venue it used to meet in now that the charity is explicitly for women only. The venue that turned it away is another charity set up for women. And we’ve heard from women attending a women’s group run by a mental-health charity that they have been told the group is now not female only but for “anyone who wants to discuss women’s mental health”.

We have met the CEO of the Charity Commission and told him all this, and now we will write and tell him again. It is so dispiriting that organisations whose purpose is to help people would rather remove opportunities for women to be safe, to keep fit or to improve their mental health than stand up to those who regard these objectives as secondary to making sure trans-identifying individuals always get what they want.

In more cheering news, we heard at the end of last week that the Court of Appeal agrees that our case on the Hampstead Ponds is arguable. We are seeking to demonstrate that organisations exposing women to discrimination and harassment cannot use these kinds of wordgames as a defence. Thank you to everyone who has donated to our ponds case crowdfunder so far. Hopefully we will be back in court soon.

On Saturday 11th April the grassroots group behind the #199DaysLater protest is organising a series of events across the country to mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court judgment, and to protest against inaction. There will be events in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Sunderland, Plymouth and Belfast and in four international locations. We will be there. We hope you will join us!

Maya Forstater

Women’s pool goes to High Court

Man appeals against exclusion from women’s tournament

This week Fiona and Helen discuss the case of Harriet Haynes, a trans-identifying male pool player who took the England Blackball Pool Federation to court last year because it restricted entry to women’s events to women. After losing in the county court, he has been granted permission to appeal. If the original verdict is upheld, that will set a strong precedent protecting all women’s sporting competitions against legal challenge from aggrieved trans-identifying men.

Read our case briefing.

M&S warned over mixed-sex changing rooms

Sex Matters has written to warn Marks & Spencer that its policy of advertising male and female changing rooms but then operating them as mixed-sex facilities could amount to indirect discrimination and harassment towards women.

Read more…

Hampstead Ponds: judicial review going ahead

We have won our appeal against the High Court’s refusal in February to allow us challenge the City of London’s gender-identity policy at the bathing ponds on Hampstead Heath.

Read more…

Crowdfund to keep men out of the Ladies’ Pond

We’ve increased our target to enable the next stage in this case! Thank you to everyone who donated to get us this far.

Read more…

In the news

The news that Sex Matters won our appeal to proceed with our legal challenge against the gender self-ID policy at Hampstead ponds was covered by BBC News, Sanchez Manning for The Times (print only), Aidan Radnedge for Mail Online, Jess Glass for Ham & High, and Ben Lynch for My London. Maya said that the government’s failure to publish updated guidance following last year’s Supreme Court judgment has provided an excuse to continue flouting the law on single-sex provision.

Daniel Martin for The Telegraph covered Sex Matters’ letter to Marks & Spencer (M&S) warning that its policy of mixed-sex changing rooms could amount to indirect discrimination and harassment towards women. Maya said that it is astonishing that M&S has decided that pretending no-one needs single-sex changing rooms is better than possibly having to say No to a man pretending to be a woman.

Also for The Telegraph, Ben Rumsby broke the news that trans-identifying male pool player Harriet Haynes has been granted permission to appeal against a judgment that he can lawfully be excluded from women’s competitions. Fiona said that men don’t belong in anything that is specifically for women, but it seems some are determined not to hear that clear, simple message.

Sam Merriman for the Daily Mail broke the news that the King’s Trust (formerly Prince’s Trust) decided to cancel a boxing course for disadvantaged girls and young women instead of preventing trans-identifying boys and young men from participating. Helen said that it’s outrageous that a registered charity would rather remove opportunities for young women than tell men who identify as women that their identity doesn’t give them the right to punch women.

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Without it, we simply wouldn’t exist.

Sex Matters can deliver essential research and analysis, help shape the debate, and empower people with clear, published guidance on their rights – but only with your support. Please contribute what you can to keep us going.

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Fiona with Heather Binning, Venice Allan and Helen Joyce on lobby day
Photo: Belinda Jiao

On Tuesday 10th March the Sex Matters team, together with around 200 women and men, took part in a mass lobby of Parliament to tell MPs that the puberty-blocker trial will harm children and must not go ahead. The action was a joint effort by LGB Alliance, Sex Matters and Women’s Rights Network, co-ordinated at Westminster by Emma Hartley and Venice Allan. The size of this lobby sends a strong message to parliamentarians.

We managed to sit in on some people’s meetings with their MPs. It was heartening to hear them listening and asking questions, and seeing that constituents who care about this are coming from a place of compassion. Even those MPs who didn’t come down to meet their constituents will have registered that someone cared enough to come all the way to Westminster in the hope of meeting them.

Following the lobby day, you can still write to your MP with the message that it is not ethical for clinicians to offer children harmful medical treatments on the promise that they can live their lives in stealth, pretending to be the other sex. This fiction is disastrous for them and harms everyone around them too.

The two asks for MPs are:

• Tell the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care that you are not persuaded that the trial is safe or ethical.

• Attend the Westminster Hall debate on Monday 23rd March, when the petition to “cancel the clinical trial into puberty blockers & safeguard vulnerable children” will be debated.

We want MPs to speak up. They may feel that they should “leave it to the experts”, but most people know instinctively that children are too young to be pushed onto a medical pathway with lifelong consequences, and too immature to fully comprehend what this pathway entails.

Whether or not you’ve taken part in this lobby day, you can take action now. Please email your MP, using the WRN’s draft email – customise it if you can so it isn’t easily dismissed.

The topic is bleak but the mood in the pub afterwards was optimistic. Several people told me they were encouraged and energised by taking part. It feels as if awareness of this is growing. In our short speeches, Helen said: “This is democracy in action.” I said that speaking up is better than the alternative. MPs who agree with us can say their constituents are concerned. MPs who disagree cannot say this issue doesn’t come up.

Let’s keep the pressure on – email your MP to ask them: Are you really sure that permitting a medical trial blocking the puberty of physically healthy children is a responsible thing to do?

Fiona McAnena

Cambridge University Society of Women

In this week’s episode of our podcast, Sex Matters’ Nicole Jones speaks to Maeve Halligan, Thea Sewell and Serena Worley, co-founders of the Cambridge University Society of Women (CUSW).

CUSW is the only openly and proudly single-sex society for women at the University of Cambridge. When it launched, it quickly surpassed its crowdfunding goal and became a sign of hope for women across the UK, showing that a new generation of feminists is pushing back against the harms done by trans ideology to women’s rights.

Nicole talks to Maeve, Serena and Thea about what led them to their current views on women’s rights, how they met, why they decided to start the society together and the society’s work.

You can see what CUSW is up to by following it on Substack, X/Twitter and Instagram, and by visiting its website.

New poll shows most people prefer single-sex toilets and changing rooms

Our most recent poll shows most people do not agree that trans-identifying people should be allowed to use the facilities of their choice, and even Labour and Green voters and 18–24 year-olds prefer single-sex facilities in workplaces and public spaces.

Read more…

Blocking puberty is a human-rights abuse – call off this drug trial no

Systematic reviews have found little or no evidence to support the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors who identify as the opposite sex. Yet the NHS has offered life-changing hormone treatments to distressed minors for more than a decade. We report on this medical scandal.

Read more…

Timeline of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for children

This new page tracks the political and regulatory steps leading to the approval of the puberty-blocker trial, and the expert, legal and campaigning challenges against it.

Read more…

In the news

The news that NHS England is pausing the prescription of cross-sex hormones to 16- and 17-year olds following a review which found “weak” evidence of their effectiveness was widely covered by the press. Ellie Crabbe for PA Media broke the story, published in The Independent and many other UK newspapers, with further coverage by Alison Holt for the BBC, Andrew Gregory for The Guardian and Lauren Gordon for The Mirror. Helen said that the pause needs to be made permanent.

Sex Matters’ new polling, which found that more than 8 in 10 people prefer single-sex toilets and changing rooms in public places, was broken in the press by Katie Harris for the Daily Express (print only). Fiona said that this polling demonstrates that any excuse from the government relating to the “complexity” of implementing single-sex facilities is a farce.

Sean O’Neil for The Courier also covered the poll, focusing on the finding that 86% of respondents prefer single-sex changing rooms and showers in the workplace. Fiona said that the public felt most strongly about showers and changing rooms at work, perhaps alerted by high-profile cases such as those of Sandie Peggie and the Darlington nurses.

Aaron Newbury for the Daily Express covered the news that Labour has appointed Lisa Pinney to head the Fair Work Agency, which oversees the enforcement of employment rights. Pinney was on the board of Stonewall during the period when it was advising schools to accommodate trans-identifying children as if they had changed sex. Fiona said Pinney’s past comments on trans-identifying people’s rights being “under attack” were concerning, and that she should focus on the law in her new role and stand up for women’s rights at work.

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Sex Matters survives on your support.
Without it, we simply wouldn’t exist.

Sex Matters can deliver essential research and analysis, help shape the debate, and empower people with clear, published guidance on their rights – but only with your support. Please contribute what you can to keep us going.

Donate now

Sex Matters is five years old and this is our 229th weekly memo!

Thank you to everyone who has supported us since we started. It is your donations that make it possible for Sex Matters to do the work it does, and your acts of integrity and defiance that make it worthwhile.

Sex Matters is a small team trying to shift a big system. Working with others, we aim to help you speak up, use the law and take action in your own life, workplace and organisations.

This week in the podcast, Helen and I talk about the genesis of Sex Matters. It was dreamt up on a trip I made to Edinburgh in 2020 with lawyers Anya Palmer and Rebecca Bull, who went on to become two of our trustees. There we met Nicole Jones, who now works as our head of creative and social media (the picture above is from that trip).

We also discuss Sex Matters’ strategy, which I boil down to three areas where we fight back against the capture of institutions by gender ideology – single-sex services, protecting children and fixing the data – and three ways of working – Plan A, Plan B and Plan C.

Plan A is where we started: from my case and what it represented. It shouldn’t take courage to say that sex is real and sex matters. If we can make it safer and easier for people to speak up at work, they will be able to do their jobs with integrity and take back their organisations.

Plan B is to influence laws and policies. Gender ideology has been imposed from the top down, and we need to address its causes at the top by lobbying government and powerful institutions and by bringing legal cases to make the law clear at the highest level.

Plan C is “We’ll see you in court!” This means showing that organisations will be held accountable. We can’t fight every battle in court, but we can pick strategic cases that demonstrate that the law is clear, that everyone has human rights and that organisations should follow the law and risk real costs if they don’t.

The three approaches are interlinked. But we don’t know which one will work in any situation. Last week we heard that the puberty-blockers trial had been halted. We thought this was Plan B and Plan C working: legal pressure and perhaps politicians stepping up.

It turns out it was Plan A: one brave man stood up and did his job. Professor Jacob George, the chief medical officer at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), refused to “live within the lie”. He raised issues about the safety of the trial and asked to reopen discussions with the research team. Retribution was swift. He has been recused from playing any part in overseeing the trial and had his good name besmirched across the media.

I wrote a letter to the MHRA pointing out that this scandal undermines trust in medical regulation in the UK. It is also unlawful, contrary to the MHRA’s legal duty not to discriminate against or harass employees on the basis of belief.

How did Professor George find his courage? I think it is in no small part because, as a professor at the medical school in Dundee, he will have followed the case of Sandie Peggie closely. He is clearly appalled by what it demonstrated: medical professionals willing to claim publicly that they do not understand the basic facts of life and to bully and harass those who do.

Because one brave nurse stood up on Christmas Eve 2023 and said No to a man undressing in the women’s changing room, a brave doctor stood up at the heart of the medical establishment in 2026 and said No to sterilising yet another cohort of gay, confused and troubled young people.

Because I stood up in 2019, both Professor George and Sandie Peggie knew they had protection against belief discrimination.

And because For Women Scotland fought a battle through the courts to establish that sex in the Equality Act really means sex, we all know that the edifice of institutional gender ideology was built on legally faulty foundations.

Because of your support and your acts of integrity and determination we are able to keep going. It may take another five years, or another ten, to get back to organisations routinely recognising and respecting sex-based rights. But no matter how long it takes, I am sure that working together we will get there.

Maya Forstater

A small charity with outsize influence

Sex Matters turns five!

In this week’s podcast Maya and Helen look back at Sex Matters’ origins. They reflect on how much easier it has become to speak out about sex-based rights at work – although shocking cases continue, such as that of Professor Jacob George, who was recused from oversight of the puberty-blocker trial for lawful, factual views on sex and gender identity.

Case briefing updated

Following the judgment in the case of Bethany Hutchison and others v County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust, we have updated our case briefing. Updates to other case briefings and briefings on cases we have not yet covered will follow.

Read more…

In the news

With news space squeezed by world affairs, the top story on our patch this week was the recusal of Professor Jacob George from the puberty-blocker trial after a handful of his posts on X dating from before he joined the MHRA, one of the regulators involved in oversight of medical research, were dredged up to suggest that his “gender-critical” views made him unsuitable to be involved.

A Sunday Times piece on the story by Ben Spencer and Shaun Lintern that made much of Professor George’s posts and which quoted clinicians associated with an unquestioning approach to “gender affirmation” included a short quote from Helen, pointing out that Professor George’s views are mainstream and that there is no reason for him to be recused from assessing the puberty-blocker trial.

Hayley Dixon for The Telegraph broke the news that Maya wrote to the MHRA on behalf of Sex Matters calling on the regulator to reinstate Professor George to his role in the trial.

Sean O’Neil for The Courier covered Sex Matters’ intervention along with the local angle: Professor George had been based at Dundee University.

Maya’s letter was also quoted by Joan Smith in UnHerd, in an article arguing that the real scandal is the witch hunt and overreaction by organisations to the expression of perfectly normal beliefs.

It’s not too late to come to our lobby day

​Registration has now closed. While you won’t receive information and briefings if you didn’t sign up before registration closed, you can still attend Parliament on 10th March and lobby your MP. We will be there all afternoon, outside the public entrance to the Houses of Parliament and inside, in Westminster Hall. Anyone can go through security and, once inside, can send a message to their MP asking to meet. There will be volunteers in Westminster Hall to help you do this.

The Westminster Hall debate on the puberty-blockers trial has been moved to 23rd March, so we want people to ask their MPs to attend. Even if you can’t come to Westminster on the 10th, you can email your MP about the debate on the 23rd.

If you’d like this memo in your inbox every Friday at teatime, join our mailing list now.

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Sex Matters survives on your support.
Without it, we simply wouldn’t exist.

Sex Matters can deliver essential research and analysis, help shape the debate, and empower people with clear, published guidance on their rights – but only with your support. Please contribute what you can to keep us going.

Donate

This week’s big news is that the puberty-blockers trial has been paused. To everyone who helped make this happen: thank you! This is a major step that would not have happened without people speaking up and persevering every time they were fobbed off.

The news came to us on the evening of Friday 20th February, while Helen, Nicole and I were sitting down for dinner at the start of a weekend of thinking, planning, training and support with a group of brave and energetic young people.

They are from the generation who have been told from their earliest school years that ordinary differences in self-expression and anxieties about growing up could mean they were “born in the wrong body”, and who have been drafted into participating in the experimental treatment via “social transitioning” of their vulnerable peers.

Some had previously identified as trans or non-binary; many had been naive advocates of affirmation. All have experienced backlash from letting it be known that they no longer believe.

The puberty-blockers trial was seeking to medicalise yet another cohort, and to lock another generation into becoming non-consenting supporting players in the medical experiment of social transition.

We cannot say for sure what led to the trial being paused. Experts like the clinicians of CAN-SG wrote hundreds of letters to every group and individual they thought could have been involved in overseeing the ethics of the trial. Sex Matters and many others supported the MOU on protecting puberty. Nearly 150,000 people signed the parliamentary petition. There have been public protests and rallies. MPs and peers spoke up, as did parents and detransitioners.

Sex Matters and other groups wrote to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting, and some met him last year. Transgender Trend commissioned opinion polling. And journalists like Hannah Barnes wrote in detail about the ethical concerns.

The decision to pause the trial came not long after Bayswater Support Group of parents, together with detransitioner Keira Bell and therapist and campaigner James Esses, filed a legal application to challenge the lawfulness of the decision to approve the trial. Their legal submissions reveal regulators bumbling through a shambolic process rather than having the courage and integrity to ask basic questions.

On Thursday 26th February the health secretary, Wes Streeting, laid a new order before Parliament to enable the “data linkage” study to go ahead. It is a scandal that some NHS clinics refused to cooperate with this study, which will produce medical evidence without putting more children at risk. Streeting said: “It is my clear expectation that all relevant organisations will now provide the data required to complete this study.”

On Monday 9th March there will be a Westminster Hall debate on the trial, and a lobby day that we are organising along with the Women’s Rights Network and LGB Alliance on Tuesday 10th. This is your chance to educate MPs about why the trial has been paused and why it should not now go ahead at all. Children are still being put at risk by social transition in schools, cross-sex hormones are being provided online and widespread legal misrepresentations are leading young adults to alter their bodies in the mistaken belief that it is their right to insist society at large plays along with the fiction of “sex change”.

Maya Forstater

Why the puberty-blocker trial was paused

Dr Louise Irvine on the flawed research protocol.

If you’d like to watch our podcast earlier on a Friday, or get our updates in your inbox, subscribe to our Substack. You can opt in or out for podcasts, memos and news (website updates).

A simple statement of the law on single-sex services

The judgment of the High Court in the case brought by the Good Law Project against the EHRC is a powerful endorsement of the EHRC’s “interim update” as an accurate statement of the law.

The relevant section of the update fits on one page and is clear, simple and straightforward guidance on what employers and service providers should do in relation to everyday facilities like toilets, changing rooms and showers.

We have a take-away version that you can use. Share this simple, workable statement of the law with your colleagues, employers and service providers.

View the interim update

No more employer excuses!

We keep hearing from people at work that their employers are making excuses for not obeying the Supreme Court judgment.

The minister for women and equalities said on the BBC on Sunday 22nd February: “My message to employers, for the avoidance of any doubt, is that they should understand the Supreme Court ruling and take action. They don’t need to wait for the code of practice.”

We have updated our guidance on dealing with your employer’s excuses to reflect the recent High Court judgment confirming the lawfulness of the EHRC’s interim update on single-sex facilities.

Read more…

Sex Matters has written to the MHRA

Following the decision to pause the “Pathways” clinical trial of puberty blockers because of safety and ethical concerns, Sex Matters has written to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Our concerns are complementary to those raised by CAN-SG and by the legal challenge led by Bayswater Support Group. We emphasise that it has not been explained to children undergoing the trial that they cannot expect to live as the opposite sex in the way they might hope, because other people have rights.

Read more…

In the news

The pausing of the puberty-blockers trial following an intervention by the MHRA was covered by Shaun Wooller for the Daily Mail, Laura Donnelly for The Telegraph and Brian Dillon for the Daily Express. Maya said that the change of course is testament to the clinicians and parents who have worked so hard to get the truth out about the harms of medicalising gender distress. Helen was interviewed on the story by Julia Hartley-Brewer on Talk TV.

The subsequent announcement that Wes Streeting will change the law to enable a data-linkage study was welcomed by parents, clinicians and campaigners. In coverage by Eleanor Hayward for The Times, Fiona said that it made no sense to put hundreds more children through the brutality of puberty suppression when no-one had followed up the thousands already treated.

The news that Sex Matters is seeking to appeal the High Court decision in our legal battle against the City of London over the Ladies’ Pond on Hampstead Heath was covered by BBC News, Niva Yadav for The Standard, Ben Lynch for MyLondon and Bridget Galton for Ham & High.

Geraldine Scott for The Times reported women and equalities minister Bridget Phillipson’s comments that employers do not need to wait for EHRC guidance before obeying the Supreme Court ruling. HM Courts and Tribunals Service’s comments to Sex Matters that it was “awaiting the outcome” of the guidance process was cited among examples of public bodies delaying implementation of the judgment.

On Talk TV, Maya was interviewed by Julia Hartley-Brewer and Fiona by Kevin O’Sullivan on Phillipson’s comments about children experimenting with school uniforms in relation to the government’s new schools guidance, which says that “social transition” should be supported.

Sophie Church for the Daily Mail covered the news that motions expected to be passed at the Green Party conference include a call to overturn bans on trans-identifying men competing in women’s sport on the basis of it being a form of misogyny. Fiona said that opposing single-sex sport is shameless anti-woman sexism.

Lobby day is approaching

The lobby day that we are organising with the Women’s Rights Network and LGB Alliance is on Tuesday 10th March (sign up at the WRN website).

The trial has been paused but it’s vital we keep the pressure on: the concerns cited by the regulator were already well known, and we think they are insuperable. Now is the time to write to your MP to educate them about the issues and explain why children deserve better.

WRN is managing registration for the day and will send you everything you need, starting with an email to your MP asking to meet on the 10th.

Sign up with WRN now

If you’d like this memo in your inbox every Friday at teatime, join our mailing list now.

Sign up

Sex Matters survives on your support.
Without it, we simply wouldn’t exist.

Sex Matters can deliver essential research and analysis, help shape the debate, and empower people with clear, published guidance on their rights – but only with your support. Please contribute what you can to keep us going.

Support Sex Matters

We have some exciting news to share: Sex Matters is appealing against the decision on the Hampstead Ponds. We were refused permission to take a judicial review by the High Court in January, which meant we didn’t get as far as being able to make the substantive arguments about how the City of London’s “trans inclusive” policy discriminates against women.

But this is an important strategic case, and we don’t give up that easily! We have now filed a 25-page “skeleton argument” for permission to appeal the procedural grounds on which we were turned down.

The court said we did not have standing to take the case because we are a charity, not an individual, and that an individual woman facing discrimination and harassment at the Ponds should instead take a case to county court.

We say this is wrong in law – there have been plenty of similar cases where charities have been found to have standing. The correct legal test is not whether the claimant is the “most appropriate person” to take a case, but whether they have “sufficient interest”.

The Good Law Project got turned down on standing in its recent attempt to take a judicial review against the EHRC for not having “sufficient interest”. But the High Court turned us down without even applying this test.

We think it is particularly important that cases like ours against the City of London Corporation can be tried as judicial reviews, rather than leaving the entire burden of fighting unlawful policies to individual women who must take on the cost and risk bringing discrimination claims. We are arguing that it is unlawful direct discrimination (unless the separate-sex service exceptions are used) to exclude men from the women’s pond and women from the men’s.

The High Court also said that our case against the Corporation of London was out of time and also premature. You can see Edward Lord chuckling about that news here. He was the original architect of the City of London Corporation’s gender-identity policy.

We say this conclusion is wrong, because the corporation did in fact make a new decision in July 2025 following the Supreme Court judgment in the case of For Women Scotland. It scrapped a policy that included “non-binary and gender fluid” individuals and put up new signs at the Ladies’ Pond saying that it welcomes “biological women and trans women with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment under the Equality Act 2010”.

The Ladies’ Pond is an iconic battleground for campaigners for women’s sex-based rights. This is a strategic case to demonstrate that service providers must follow the law.

Thank you to everyone who has supported the case to get this far. We will keep you updated!

Maya Forstater

EHRC vindicated in High Court

Why Good Law Project’s legal challenge failed

In this week’s episode of the Sex Matters podcast, Maya Forstater and Fiona McAnena discuss the failed legal challenge of the Good Law Project (GLP) against the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), and the misinformation spread by GLP, other trans lobby groups and even some politicians.

On 13th February the High Court dismissed a legal challenge from the GLP and three anonymous claimants against the EHRC’s interim guidance on single-sex services published shortly after the For Women Scotland judgment last year. Sex Matters intervened in support of the EHRC. Mr Justice Swift ruled that the EHRC’s interim update was an accurate statement of the law on single-sex spaces, and ruled that “transsexual persons” under the Equality Act have no right to use opposite-sex toilets or changing rooms.

Read our analysis of GLP v EHRC.

If you’d like to watch our podcast earlier on a Friday, or get our updates in your inbox, subscribe to our Substack. You can opt in or out for podcasts and news (website updates).

Lobby MPs to stop the puberty-blockers trial

If you are concerned about the planned puberty-blocker trial, join us in Westminster on Tuesday 10th March to tell your MP that children deserve better.

Together with the Women’s Rights Network (WRN) and LGB Alliance we are planning a lobby day at Parliament to support people to talk to their MPs, and to encourage them to understand the concerns about the trial.

WRN is managing registration for the day and will send you everything you need, starting with an email to your MP asking to meet on the 10th.

Sign up with WRN now

Why are employers waiting for the wrong guidance?

Bridget Phillipson, the minister for women and equalities, has said that the government has been clear that employers should not wait for the EHRC code of practice for service providers to be finalised. We say that neither service providers nor employers should wait: the law is the law.

Read more…

Send the puberty-blocker trial back to the research ethics committee, Wes!

We have written again to Wes Streeting, the health secretary, following the latest legal developments and asked him to send the puberty-blocker trial back to the research ethics committee to reconsider the legal context for children and schools.

Read more…

In the news

Alison Holt and James Melley for BBC News quoted Maya in coverage of the GLP v EHRC High Court decision as urging the government to issue the final EHRC guidance without delay. Fiona discussed the case with Josh Howie on GB News’ Free Speech Nation.

The Telegraph reported Dr Hilary Cass’s comments that social media influences children to identify as transgender following publication of the government’s schools guidance last week. The article referred to Sex Matters’ criticisms of the guidance for not ruling out social transition in school.

Fiona had two interviews on BBC Ulster radio with Stephen Nolan and William Crawley to discuss the news that Northern Ireland’s health secretary has suspended participation in the UK-wide puberty-blocker trial, pending an ongoing judicial review.

Daniel Sanderson for The Times revealed that NHS Fife said that smear tests are for “anyone with a cervix” in a recent public-health information update, while at the same time being clear that prostate cancer checks are only for men. Fiona said that this messaging demonstrated the deep-rooted sexism underlying gender ideology.

Gabriella Swerling for The Telegraph reported Maya’s congratulations on X to Christian social worker Felix Ngole, who won his appeal over comments about marriage and sexuality. Maya said that it was not reasonable to remove religious people from employment because some people find their views upsetting.

Mary Wright for the Scottish Sun (print only) reported that the Scottish Government’s “trans inclusivity drive” is promoting pronoun use among civil servants. Helen pointed out the contradiction with the requirement for civil servants to be impartial.

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Left to right: Maya Forstater, Helen Joyce, Baroness Kishwer Falkner, Naomi Cunningham, Fiona McAnena and Monica Kurnatowska. Photo: Belinda Jiao

On 13th February Mr Justice Swift delivered a judgment that comprehensively vindicated the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s clear, practical interpretation of the law, which it published just a few weeks after the For Women Scotland Supreme Court judgment in April last year.

The EHRC had said (in short) that women’s toilets are for women, men’s toilets are for men and where facilities are available to both men and women, trans people should not be put in a position where there are no facilities for them to use. “Where possible, mixed-sex toilet, washing or changing facilities in addition to sufficient single-sex facilities should be provided.”

Transactivist campaign group the Good Law Project (GLP) claimed that this was not accurate, or that if it was then the Equality Act breached the European Convention on Human Rights. It sought permission to take a judicial review of the EHRC guidance. It said the workplace regulations which require employers to provide facilities for men and women merely require rooms with signs on the door, not staff to follow the rules. Mr Justice Swift said this “places form over substance” and disregards the “obvious purpose” of the workplace regulations, which was “the provision of private space for each sex for reasons of conventional decency”.

The judgment is 59 pages long, and very tightly and clearly reasoned. It doesn’t swerve GLP’s (and the Secretary of State’s) arguments that sought to contradict the Supreme Court judgment: it takes them apart one by one.

It tells the three anonymous claimants who expressed deep personal upset at being expected to follow the rules at work that their human rights had not been breached by being told not to use facilities provided for the opposite sex: “Up to a point, being the subject of comment by others is burden that anyone can expect to bear from time to time, and ought not to be a foundation for legal redress.”

Sex Matters had intervened to make sure that there was evidence from women about why everyday privacy, dignity, safety and propriety matter. Mr Justice Swift accepted all of that as conventional common sense.

The practical guidance the High Court endorses can now be boiled down to eight words: “Have clear rules and policies that everyone understands.”

This is how institutions keep people safe and respect their rights.

The day before the GLP judgment was released, the Secretary of State for Education, who is also the Minister for Women and Equalities, published the draft of new statutory safeguarding guidance for schools in England. It is not so clear.

It is a big step forward that the guidance on “gender questioning” children has been integrated into statutory safeguarding guidance, after having been handed around between departments and repeatedly restarted and abandoned during the past eight years. But the overarching motivation of the draft seems to be to avoid judicial review. It therefore skirts around some difficult questions.

The guidance says that children must not be allowed to use toilets, changing facilities or sleeping accommodation for the other sex (when the word “must” is used in statutory guidance, the people or organisations covered have no choice but to do what it says). So far so good. But it also says that schools should consider requests for other aspects of “social transition” on a case-by-case basis. And it doesn’t fully spell out what those aspects are – apart from saying that sport may be one, provided that safety is not at issue. And it leaves the phrase “social transition” undefined, for headteachers to stumble over and negotiate with anxious or ideologically committed parents, distressed children and activist teachers.

The guidance is now open for a 10-week consultation. Unless it is improved (and probably even if it is, one way or another) it is going to end up in court.

Ultimately it cannot only be judges who play the role of strict-but-fair headteacher. But for now it seems they are the only ones willing to do so.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to support our work, which has allowed us to make the legal arguments and gather and present the evidence.

Maya Forstater

For Women Scotland returns to court

Judicial review of Scottish Prison Service policy

In this week’s episode of the Sex Matters podcast, Helen Joyce is joined by For Women Scotland’s co-director, Susan Smith, to discuss its most recent case against the Scottish Government concerning prison guidance.

For Women Scotland has brought forward a judicial review of the Scottish Prison Service Policy for the Management of Transgender People in Custody, which permits prisoners with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment to be housed in a prison of the opposite sex. The hearing was held in the Court of Session Outer House from 3rd to 5th February 2026.

For Women Scotland’s account of the hearing.

Tell MPs you oppose the puberty-blocker trial

Tell your MP that children deserve better – join us at Westminster on Tuesday 10th March.

If you are concerned about the planned puberty-blockers trial, sign up for our lobby day.

Together with LGB Alliance and the Women’s Rights Network, we are planning a lobby day at Parliament to support people to talk to their MPs, and encourage them to understand the concerns about the trial.

A lobby day is when people go to Parliament together to speak to their MPs. You write to your MP in advance to tell them you are coming and ask for a meeting. We go into Westminster together to meet MPs and “green card” those who have not responded to a meeting request to see if they are available.

Organisers from Sex Matters, LGB Alliance and the Women’s Rights Network will be there to support you with advice for your meeting, briefings about where to go and what to do, and materials to give your MP. You’ll need to make your way to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster for the afternoon of Tuesday 10th March.

We will send you everything you need, starting with an email to your MP asking to meet on the 10th.

Sign up now

Help us make the law work!

If you donated to our December campaign, you should have had your campaign pack in the post in the last couple of weeks.

Not had a pack? Look for an email with the subject Your Sex Matters receipt to check that your donation got to us. If it did, but you haven’t had your pack, contact Emma at info@sex-matters.org.

When workplaces don’t comply with the law

We have updated our advice after recent court cases. Use our responses to these excuses if you need to complain to your employer about single-sex workplace facilities.

Read more…

How the City of London allowed the consultation on the ponds to be hijacked

Can it be true that 20,821 people have swum in the Hampstead Ponds in the last three months? And that swimmers are 4.5 times more likely to be lesbian, gay or bisexual than the rest of the population? We crunched the numbers from the City of London Corporation’s consultation and found them unconvincing.

Read more…

Guidance released on “gender-questioning” children

On 12th February, the government finally published its guidance on guidance for schools on “gender questioning” children. We were pleased to see this incorporated into the statutory safeguarding guidance for schools and colleges, but it still has major flaws.

Read more…

High Court rules: EHRC guidance lawful

The High Court has dismissed a legal challenge from the Good Law Project and three anonymous claimants against the EHRC’s interim guidance on single-sex services published last year.

Read more…

In the news

The government’s new draft schools guidance on “gender-questioning” children protects single-sex sports, spaces and data, but retains references to “social transition” without defining what this means. Its release was widely covered, including by Branwen Jeffreys and Nathan Standley for BBC News, Camilla Turner and Daniel Martin for The Telegraph, Geraldine Scott for The Times and Aine Fox for PA Media, as published by The Independent among others. Maya welcomed its integration into the statutory safeguarding framework, but warned that “social transition” has no basis in law or reality, and undermines safeguarding.

Maya’s comments featured on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, BBC Radio Four’s Today and Times Radio, and she was interviewed on GB News. Helen was interviewed on TalkTV and Times Radio, and Fiona was interviewed on GB News and TalkTV.

During a meeting with nurse Jennifer Melle, the minister for Women and Equalities, Bridget Phillipson, clarified that the much-anticipated EHRC guidance is intended for service providers rather than employers as part of her defence against concerns about its delay. As quoted by Sean O’Neil for The Courier and Martin Beckford for the Daily Mail, Helen pointed out that many employers have used the upcoming guidance as an excuse to delay action and that as long as Phillipson fails to lay it before Parliament, anyone who wants to ignore the law has a convenient excuse at hand.

The news that Good Law Project lost its legal challenge against the EHRC over its draft code of practice for service providers was covered widely. Sex Matters intervened in the case in support of the EHRC, and Maya was quoted in articles by Daniel Martin for The Telegraph, Libby Brooks for The Guardian and Millie Cooke for The Independent as saying that the judgment vindicates the EHRC’s swift action in publishing interim guidance weeks after the Supreme Court judgment.

David Thompson from The Newsletter covered the news that Northern Ireland is undertaking a review with Baroness Hilary Cass in a step towards aligning “gender services” with England in order to participate in the widely criticised puberty-blocker trial. Fiona said that studies should be carried out on the estimated 2,000 children who have already been given puberty blockers and urged NI health minister Mike Nesbitt to rethink.

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On 6th February the news broke that Keira Bell, James Esses and Bayswater Support Group have launched a legal challenge against the planned puberty-blocker trial. And earlier in the week the government responded to a public petition calling for the trial to be halted, which was signed by more than 140,000 people.

In its response to signatories, the government defended this unethical medical experiment on vulnerable children, saying that some young people “are going to great lengths” to source the banned drugs. It also shucked off responsibility onto the ethics committee that greenlighted the trial, saying the UK has an “extremely high” bar for clinical trials to be approved.

I wrote about the inadequacies of the ethical review in The Critic. The minutes from the meetings are shocking. A small group of volunteers met by Zoom for a few hours. They barely discussed the underlying motive for stopping children’s physical, sexual and mental development so they can more easily transition cosmetically. Instead they told the researchers to take “transition” out of the title of the study “so as not to imply that this study relates to transitioning”.

The government is doing the same disappearing trick. It says “gender incongruence is an internationally recognised disorder” but fails to mention that the diagnostic criteria include demonstrating a “strong desire to ‘transition’ and live as the experienced gender, through hormonal treatment, surgery or other health care services”.

The trial protocol presents puberty blockers as a stand-alone treatment to improve children’s short-term mental wellbeing, rather than as the first step towards hormones and sterilising surgery. No one has asked whether these children and their parents can give informed consent to starting out on this medical pathway when the researchers do not acknowledge that is what they are doing, and nobody is questioning whether they have unrealistic expectations about the outcome. There needs to be legal, political and public scrutiny.

Lobby Day in 2024 for the campaign to make the Equality Act clear

Tell your MP that children deserve better – join us at Westminster on Tuesday 10th March.

If you are concerned about the planned puberty-blockers trial, here is what you can do.

Together with LGB Alliance and the Women’s Rights Network, we are planning a lobby day at Parliament to support people to talk to their MPs, and encourage them to understand the concerns about the trial.

A lobby day is when people go to Parliament together to speak to their MPs. You write to your MP in advance to tell them you are coming and to ask for a meeting. We go into Parliament together to meet MPs and “green card” those that have not responded to a request to meet in advance.

Organisers from Sex Matters, LGB Alliance and the Women’s Rights Network will be there to support you with advice for your meeting, briefings about where to go and what to do, and materials to give your MP. You’ll need to make your way to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster by 1pm on Tuesday 10th March.

We’ll share exact timings and meeting points closer to the date. But please mark it in your diary now if you think you might be able to come, and keep an eye out for emails with more details.

Maya Forstater

Sport, sex and equality with Mara Yamauchi

Olympics, Parkrun – and fairness for women and girls

In this week’s episode of the Sex Matters podcast, Fiona and Maya are joined by Mara Yamauchi to discuss the latest developments in sport. Mara is a double Olympian, a member of the Sex Matters advisory group, a tireless campaigner – and a thorn in the side of Parkrun.

We covered criticisms of a newly published academic study that claims men who identify as women have no sporting advantage over women; how UK law protects women’s and girls’ sport (it’s not just section 195 of the Equality Act); the problems caused by gender ideology in competitive and recreational sport; and of course parkrun.

Find out more about our sports campaign

In the news

A widely criticised study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine claiming that trans-identifying men’s fitness was comparable to that of women was reported by PA Media (as published by STV News and others), Michael Searles for The Telegraph, Xantha Leatham for the Daily Mail and Poppy Koronka for The Times (print only). Fiona said that statistical tricks cannot prove that men should be allowed to compete in women’s sport based on a claimed female identity.

Helen was interviewed by Julia Hartley-Brewer on TalkTV on For Women Scotland’s latest court challenge against the Scottish Government on trans-identifying men in women’s prisons.Maya also appeared on GB News’s Free Speech Nation with Josh Howie for a wide-ranging interview on Kenwood Ladies’ Pond, a $2 million gender-medicine malpractice case in the US, and what the Council of Europe resolution on “conversion therapy” means.

Zoe Strimpel for The Telegraph wrote about Kenwood Ladies’ Pond following the High Court’s decision to deny Sex Matters permission to proceed with legal action against the City of London. She said that without the certainty that there will be no men present, a lot of women who swim at the pond now feel constantly on guard.

Also for The Telegraph, Daniel Martin covered UN expert Reem Alsalem’s warning that the UK government’s delay in issuing updated guidance following the Supreme Court decision harms women and girls. Fiona said the UK government should be deeply embarrassed by Alsalem’s intervention. The story was also covered by Sanchez Manning for The Times (print only).

In the same article, Daniel reported that the government has missed the last possible date for the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s code of practice for service providers to come into force before the first anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling. Maya said that the government’s dithering on both the code and its own HR policies is inexcusable.

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Sex Matters survives on your support.
Without it, we simply wouldn’t exist.

Sex Matters can deliver essential research and analysis, help shape the debate, and empower people with clear, published guidance on their rights – but only with your support. Please contribute what you can to keep us going.

Support Sex Matters

Sex Matters filed our legal case against the City of London Corporation over the Hampstead Ponds in August 2025. We had a one-day “permissions hearing” in December and have been waiting since then to hear whether the case could go ahead.

On Thursday morning, 29th January, that waiting was over. We heard the bad news that the High Court had turned down our application for permission for a judicial review of the City of London Corporation’s decision to allow men into the women’s bathing pond, and women into the men’s.

This was a decision based on procedural arguments (if you didn’t read the update we sent out to people who donated to support the case on the day, you can catch up here). The City of London said that it hadn’t yet made a decision about the rules at the Hampstead Ponds following the Supreme Court judgment last April, even though it decided in July to put new signs up that expressed a policy different from that written down. So the City said there is nothing to judicially review yet, and the court accepted that.

The judge said that the City should be allowed to conduct a consultation with all options on the table, and that if it ends up adopting an option that is alleged to be unlawful, “then that will be the time to challenge”.

On the same day as the High Court’s decision, the City of London released its consultation findings, which unsurprisingly found strong views on both sides. It says the current arrangements “will remain in place until Members have considered the findings and made final decisions” (members means the elected councillors). There was no indication of when that might be.

On the day of the decision, I went to Kenwood Ladies’ Pond in the evening to commiserate with some of the women who had provided witness statements for the case, and to record a soundbite for ITV.

There has been lots of press coverage of the case, with the useful result that some people are hearing about it for the first time.

The City’s delay in making a decision mirrors the inaction by the Minister for Women and Equalities, Bridget Phillipson, in failing to lay the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s guidance on single-sex facilities before Parliament.

Meanwhile, staff at the Hampstead Ponds – and at all other services where women are undressing – don’t have months in which to make decisions. They have to decide on the spot whether to let someone into a service marked “women only” or whether to exclude them because they are clearly male. Without clear rules and the ability to say no, they put women and girls at risk.

The most concerning thing about the judgment is that it suggests that when it comes to upholding the Equality Act, claims must be brought by individuals in the County Court, and not as judicial reviews by groups acting in the public interest. The judge took the viewpoint that courts will need to take a close look at particular facts involving individuals, whereas we think that in situations like the Hampstead Ponds, it’s a basic question of whether it is lawful to operate a “women only” service which excludes some men but allows in others.

We are still talking with our lawyers about what to do next, and you can hear some of our thinking in the latest edition of our podcast.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the case. The fight to protect women’s rights, and ensure the Supreme Court judgment is obeyed, continues. We’re not giving up, and we’ll keep you posted!

Maya Forstater

Hampstead Ponds court challenge

In this week’s episode of the Sex Matters podcast, Helen and Maya discuss the decision in the High Court to refuse Sex Matters permission for judicial review of the “trans inclusive” policy at the Hampstead Ponds.

The ruling was made on procedural grounds, and didn’t even get to the point of considering whether that policy was lawful – a disappointing and frustrating outcome, but certainly not the end of the fight to protect single-sex spaces for both men and women, and to ensure that the Supreme Court judgment in the case of For Women Scotland translates to facts on the ground (and in the water).

Protecting children from trans ideology

We combined forces with Athena Forum to ask you to email UK delegates to the Council of Europe about a transactivist policy that criminalises professionals who do not affirm a child’s self-declared trans identity. Thank you to all those who did this (and apologies for the technical blips).

The resolution was framed as banning “conversion practices” but in fact pushed a transactivist framing of gender identity as a self-identified characteristic that cannot be questioned. As expected, the resolution passed. But Athena Forum, Sex Matters and other groups were able to raise the alarm across Europe, briefing MPs, writing articles and sharing analysis on social media.

As Athena Forum says, this vote is not the end of the story. It marks the beginning of our efforts to push back in Europe after transactivist organisations have had a head start. “That era is over. The spotlight is on. We are just getting started.”

Read more…

In the news

Missing from last week’s roundup, Daniel Martin and Dominic Penna for The Telegraph broke the news that the Cabinet Office is hiring a senior civil servant to “lead on trans equality”, while refusing to withdraw a 2019 self-ID policy on toilets. Maya was quoted as saying that Sex Matters will be considering its legal options. Maya wrote a separate article saying that this reveals the civil service’s flawed approach of creating insider-advocates for interest groups.

This week, Jacinta Taylor for the Mail on Sunday broke the news that some NHS midwives are still being asked to record the “gender identity” and sexual orientation of newborn babies. This comes two years after NHS bosses called the issue an “error” in the £450 million Epic patient data software that would be corrected. Fiona and Maya were interviewed by TalkTV on the story.

Sanchez Manning for The Times revealed that Thea Sewell, one of the founders of the Cambridge University Society of Women, is threatening legal action against the Prince of Wales pub in Clapham for refusing to serve her because of her views on sex and gender. Helen said that the case should ring alarm bells for pub owners, shopkeepers and others that it is not lawful to behave in this bigoted manner towards people who hold ordinary, factual beliefs.

Fiona wrote for the Daily Express, saying that following the judgments in the cases of Jennifer Melle, the Darlington Nurses and Sandie Peggie, ideological capture in the NHS must be fixed from the top down, and that it’s past time for Health Secretary Wes Streeting to end the madness.

Samuel Montgomery for The Telegraph and Jon King for the Daily Express reported that Norfolk Constabulary are allowing detainees to be recorded according to gender identity rather than sex. Helen said that men commit far more crimes than women, especially violent and sexual crimes, meaning that even a small number of men recorded as female seriously skews crime statistics.

The news that the High Court has not permitted Sex Matters to pursue a judicial review against the City of London over its policy to allow trans-identifying men to use Kenwood Ladies’ Pond was covered widely by the national media. Print and online coverage included BBC News, Sanchez Manning for The Times, Gabriella Swerling and Tom McArdle for The Telegraph and PA Media as published by The Guardian, as well as local outlets such as Holly Brencher’s article for Ham & High. It was also covered widely by broadcast media including ITV’s Good Morning Britain and BBC London.

Maya was interviewed by ITV News and Talk TV, and Fiona was interviewed by LBC, Talk TV and GB News. In The Telegraph, Jill Foster wrote about women’s frustration about this continuing failure to protect single-sex spaces, quoting Fiona as saying that after For Women Scotland the law is clear and “we shouldn’t be having to debate this and relitigate this over and over.”

ITV’s Good Morning Britain referenced Sex Matters’ opposition to a resolution in the Council of Europe to call on member states, including the UK, to outlaw so-called conversion practices.

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Sex Matters can deliver essential research and analysis, help shape the debate, and empower people with clear, published guidance on their rights – but only with your support. Please contribute what you can to keep us going.

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On Monday 19th January I was with Sandie Peggie, Bethany Hutchinson and Lisa Lockey (two of the Darlington nurses) outside Parliament, celebrating their tribunal wins (in Sandie’s case a partial win – she is taking her case to appeal). Also present was nurse Jennifer Melle, who was put through a disciplinary process by Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust, where she works, and who faced further discipline after speaking to the press about it (since I saw her, she has been cleared of further action).

Jennifer’s case is a particularly shocking example of how far institutions will go to avoid using words like “man” for men who identify as trans. She was given a final written warning for referring to a convicted paedophile who needed catheterisation to his penis as “he”. It is hard to believe this kind of thing is really happening in the NHS, but it is.

Left to right: Maya, Sandie Peggie, Bethany Hutchinson, Jennifer Melle, Claire Coutinho MP, Lisa Lockey, Mims Davies MP, Rebecca Paul MP, Rosie Duffield MP

In this picture we are standing behind the offices of the Center for Global Development, where I worked before losing my job for speaking up about transgender ideology six years ago! My case was cited in a letter sent by a cross-party group of MPs to the chair and chief executive of Jennifer’s trust in the run-up to her disciplinary hearing, saying that she had been entirely justified in speaking out to protect her career, income and reputation.

The nurses’ cases have been on the front pages, and Bethany and Lisa have been on Good Morning Britain talking about their tribunal win and the climate of fear in the NHS. More and more people are becoming aware that public bodies are imposing gender-identity rules on frontline workers and service users, and want this nonsense to stop.

On 19th January, Baroness Sarah Ludford said in Parliament that the government has “run out of road” in continuing to delay laying the EHRC code of practice, and that it is failing women and defying the rule of law.

Maya Forstater

NHS nurses on the frontline

In this week’s episode of the Sex Matters podcast, Fiona and Maya discuss the cases of Maria Kelly, Sandie Peggie, the Darlington nurses and Jennifer Melle. They talk about how regulators, trade unions and the government are all failing to follow the law, and what it will take to get the herd to change direction.

They also discuss a letter from David Holdsworth, the chief executive of the Charity Commission, responding to an open letter from “Third Sector Against Transphobia”. In it, he suggests that the commission is waiting for EHRC guidance to be laid before Parliament before considering whether so-called trans-inclusive policies are lawful for single-sex charities – even though regulating charities is the commission’s job, and by law charities must act solely in pursuit of their charitable objects.

Take action: protect children from trans ideology

Next week the Council of Europe, an intergovernmental body that includes the UK, is voting on a resolution calling for criminal sanctions for professionals and parents who do not affirm a child’s self-declared trans identity. If countries take this approach, it will make it even harder for families, therapists and teachers who support an ethical, evidence-based approach rather than “gender affirmation”, which risks locking in a child’s gender confusion and putting them on a path to lifelong medicalisation.

If you haven’t already, please write to the British parliamentarians who represent us there to ask them to vote against the resolution and protect children. It takes just two minutes.

Athena Forum, a new organisation we collaborate with that fights gender ideology in European institutions, has created a template to help you.

Take action

In the news

The news that no further action would be taken against nurse Jennifer Melle, who was accused of “misgendering” a trans-identifying paedophile patient, was covered by Giles Shedrick for the Daily Express. Maya said Jennifer had been hung out to dry by her employer and her union, and that the health secretary Wes Streeting needs to stop the transgender obsession that is corrupting the NHS. Maya also wrote an article for the Daily Express on how transgender ideology has taken over the NHS, meaning that instead of focusing on healthcare priorities, many managers there have become obsessed with affirming false identities.

Alison Holt for the BBC wrote a feature on how the NHS became the battleground in the trans debate facing workplaces, with Sex Matters quoted as saying that we were relieved and delighted by the tribunal’s findings in the case of the Darlington Nurses. Fiona did two interviews following the nurses’ win, with Peter Cardwell on TalkTV and Rachel Johnson on LBC.

Writing for The Courier, Sean O’Neil broke the news that employment tribunals Scotland president Judge Susan Walker claimed that AI was not used in the drafting of Sandie Peggie’s judgment, and that Judge Alexander Kemp blamed “erroneous” quotes from Maya’s judgment on an unnamed “judiciary colleague”. Maya said that a proper review should be undertaken. The news was also reported by Simon Johnson for The Telegraph, and Sean followed up his piece with an opinion article arguing that the judiciary risks losing public trust.

Mark McLaughlin for The Scottish Sun covered the news that SNP ministers likened trans-identifying male prisoners in female jails to mothers taking their young sons to the toilet as part of their legal argument in For Women Scotland’s challenge on women’s prisons. Fiona said that it was said it was unforgivable and insulting to compare little boys with trans-identifying male criminals.

The Telegraph revealed that National Resources Wales has told employees that they can use the toilets of the gender with which they identify, and encourages staff to apologise if they use the “wrong” pronouns for a colleague. Helen said that this policy exemplifies the way many UK public bodies are sticking with policies that are clearly unlawful after last year’s Supreme Court judgment.

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Sex Matters can deliver essential research and analysis, help shape the debate, and empower people with clear, published guidance on their rights – but only with your support. Please contribute what you can to keep us going.

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Today we got good news! The Darlington nurses have won their employment-tribunal claim against County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust.

These were eight brave nurses who complained when faced with a trans-identifying man in their changing room, and then brought a legal claim with the help of Christian Concern when their complaints got nowhere.

In contrast to the judgments in the cases ofSandie Peggie v NHS Fife and Maria Kelly v Leonardo (which are both being appealed), this ruling, produced by a panel led by Employment Judge Seamus Sweeney, is a model of common sense and straightforward legal reasoning. Finding that the hospital had engaged in unlawful indirect discrimination and harassment, it concludes that Darlington Memorial Hospital’s Transition in the Workplace policy, which allows transgender staff to use the changing room of their choice, is unlawful.

“Having considered the Equality Act we can see nothing there that would render ‘lawful’ a policy that gave biological males the choice to use a female changing room, effectively overriding the objection of female colleagues.”

The hospital trust withdrew the policy after the Supreme Court judgment in the case of For Women Scotland (and a visit from a senior manager from NHS England). But similar policies are in place in workplaces across the country. They have been promoted by the government and by the civil service, which to date has refused to withdraw its own version of the policy.

The judgment is in line with the Supreme Court, and makes clear that although the Equality Act 2010 protects those with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment from discrimination, harassment and victimisation, “that does not translate into a positive ‘right’ on the part of a trans woman to use the female changing room (or for that matter of a trans man to use the male changing room).”

The tribunal accepted the expert evidence of Professor Jo Phoenix (who is a member of Sex Matters’ advisory group) that women are more likely to experience fear, distress or humiliation by having to change in front of a member of the opposite sex than men are.

As the tribunal said, this should come as no surprise to anyone. It agreed that women’s fearful, defensive, and precautionary reaction to the risks posed by men are not irrational. This opened the door to a successful claim for indirect discrimination and harassment because of the policy.

The tribunal also concluded that the hospital was in breach of the 1992 Workplace Regulations, which require employers to provide adequate and suitable facilities for men and women. It said these should be interpreted consistently with the Equality Act (as clarified by the Supreme Court). It noted that, shockingly, the staff responsible for drawing up the policy were unaware of the content of the 1992 Regulations. They had, however, consulted the LGBT+ Staff Network and looked at guidance from the NHS Confederation.

We have written a rapid analysis of the judgment with more to come next week!

Read our analysis

Have a good weekend.

Maya Forstater

“What is a woman?” from across the pond

This week, two American states were in the US Supreme Court defending laws that bar trans-identifying boys and men from female athletics against a challenge from two male athletes who are supported by the American Civil Liberties Union. As in the For Women Scotland case, the highest court in the land must decide what “sex” means in a law intended to uphold women’s rights.

“Title IX”, dating from 1972, prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programmes and activities that receive funding from the federal government, and has driven the provision of facilities, funding and scholarships for girls. Specific provisions within it require funding recipients to fund sports for girls and women, and set aside general prohibitions on sex discrimination both for those sports and for facilities such as changing rooms and sleeping accommodation.

Sex Matters wrote an “amicus brief” – roughly equivalent to an intervention in a UK legal case, except that permission is not required from the court. These briefs are intended to help the court to come to a reasoned conclusion by providing specific viewpoints or expertise. Our chair, Dr Emma Hilton, was co-author on a separate brief, explaining that sex testing is feasible and neither unduly intrusive nor a breach of athletes’ human rights. Professor Jon Pike, a member of our advisory group, co-authored a third brief with other philosophers, which argued that sporting categories based on sex (as in biology) are intellectually and philosophically coherent while those based on other purported concepts of “sex”, such as gender self-identification, are not. All three amicus briefs are available on our website.

Read more…

Government hold-up puts women and girls in danger

The prime minister claims to be leading a major campaign to tackle violence against women and girls. But the civil servants who will implement it have an office policy that allows employees to access opposite-sex workplace facilities and tells them it’s “transphobia” to question this. This unlawful policy embeds gender ideology at the heart of government.

We have written several letters calling for urgent action to withdraw it, and have now received an extraordinary answer.

Read more…

Treasurer wanted

Could you be our next treasurer, or do you know someone who might fit the job? We’re looking for someone who shares Sex Matters’ vision and has strong accounting and financial experience, preferably in charity finance. The closing date is just a week away – 23rd January.

Find out more

In the news

Katie Harris for The Express covered the news that a petition calling on health secretary Wes Streeting to halt the puberty-blocker trial hit 100,000 signatures at the weekend. Helen was quoted as saying that the government needs to take note as people loathe the idea of this trial and won’t forgive anyone who is involved.

Ben Chapman for GB News broke the news that the Cabinet Office confirmed in a letter to Sex Matters that it will not withdraw the 2019 model policy which allows civil-service employees to access opposite-sex workplace facilities and tells colleagues that questioning this is “transphobia”. Maya also appeared on GB News for an interview on the story.

The Telegraph revealed that Wandsworth Council is encouraging staff to announce pronouns at the start of meetings and to add pronouns to their email signatures and social-media profiles. Fiona called it ludicrous to encourage staff to support the fantasy that people can be the opposite sex or no sex at all, and said the example pronoun zi/zir/zem is so silly it feels like satire. The news was also covered by Amelia Stout at The Times (print only) and Marcus Donaldson for GB News.

Two broadcast appearances over the Christmas period missed in last week’s round-up were Fiona’s interview with TalkTV’s Tom Dave on Girlguiding’s decision to restore female-only membership, and Maya’s interview with Miriam Cates and Charlie Peters on GB News about Sex Matters’ letter to the prime minister urging him to withdraw the unlawful civil-service model policy mentioned above.

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Sex Matters survives on your support.
Without it, we simply wouldn’t exist.

Sex Matters can deliver essential research and analysis, help shape the debate, and empower people with clear, published guidance on their rights – but only with your support. Please contribute what you can to keep us going.

Support Sex Matters

Happy new year! And huge thanks to everyone who donated to our start-the-year fundraising appeal. Your generosity means we have just hit our stretch target. Now we’re getting ready to send out postcard packs to everyone who asked for one. We hope they will help our supporters to have fruitful, informed and positive conversations with people who want to understand the issues and the law.

2025 was a triumphant, relentless and at times frustrating year. The law is clear. The silence about sex-based rights has been broken, and a growing majority understands and agrees with us. But too many institutions remain captured. Government and the civil service are recalcitrant. Justice is slow and expensive.

Against that backdrop, our movement’s achievements have been extraordinary. “Terf Island” has been winning the debate on sex-based rights with increasing confidence and strength, and Sex Matters and our supporters have been at the forefront.

Much of our frustration is with the government. It has dragged its feet on laying statutory guidance on the Equality Act before Parliament, and undermined the Supreme Court judgment in court. It is allowing the puberty-blockers trial to proceed, despite failing to publish guidance for schools on gender-questioning children. It continues to promise a “ban on conversion therapy” based on the idea of gender identity, and has failed to engage seriously with the risks and problems of digital-identity data. So there is struggle behind us, and struggle ahead.

In our podcast this week Fiona and I talk about what we think 2026 will bring for the gender wars in the UK. We’ve set out the three big themes that will shape battles over law, policy and language, and how Sex Matters will be campaigning throughout the year. You can read more in our blog post.

Thank you again for your support.

Maya Forstater

What will 2026 bring for sex-based rights?

This will be a year of holding institutions to account but also of positive action. Our campaigning will focus on three big themes: making the Equality Act work, preventing harm in medicine and education, and being clear about sex when policies and organisations are aimed at women.

Read more…

In the news

News coverage continued over the Christmas period, with Luke Alsford for the Mail on Sunday revealing that transactivist group Bash Back is planning a series of attacks on offices, including those of the prime minister and health secretary. Maya said that after years in which police forces rolled out the red carpet for trans lobby groups and harassed women’s rights campaigners, it’s no wonder the group seems to believe it can cause criminal damage with impunity.

Genevieve Holl-Allen for The Telegraph reported that Sex Matters has written to Sir Keir Starmer to demand that he retract 2019 civil-service guidance for trans-identifying staff that falls foul of the 2025 Supreme Court judgment.

Also for The Telegraph, Michael Searles wrote that the NHS is defying the Supreme Court by allowing transgender patients and staff to access opposite-sex spaces in English hospitals. Helen said that NHS trusts, like other public bodies, should not be waiting for guidance that is mainly intended to support smaller operators.

Writing for The Times, Sanchez Manning reported that the government faces renewed pressure to publish the EHRC code of practice following comments from new chair Mary-Ann Stephenson that the guidance is “legally sound”. Maya said that the government has only two choices: follow the law or change the law. If it continues to prevaricate, it will end up in court.

Mark McLaughlin for the Scottish Sun revealed that the Scottish Qualifications Authority has banned school questionnaires that only offer male or female tick boxes. Fiona said that it’s astonishing that transgender identities are still being promoted to Scottish schoolchildren.

Into the new year, Katie Harris for the Daily Express wrote that Labour MP Jonathan Hinder and Conservative MP Rebecca Paul have urged Wes Streeting to halt the puberty-blocker trial. Helen said that it is deeply immoral to experiment on hundreds more children when we haven’t yet analysed data on how children who have already been given puberty blockers are doing in adulthood.

Daniel Martin for The Telegraph reported on correspondence between HM Courts and Tribunal Services and Sex Matters which confirmed that English courts are still allowing men to use women’s toilets in defiance of the Supreme Court ruling. Maya was interviewed by TalkTV and GB News on the story.

Martin Beckford for the Daily Mail broke the news that Stonewall’s income and reserve funds have plummeted. Maya said that this reflects the haemorrhaging of confidence in Stonewall’s advice.

Justin Bowie for The Courier wrote that suspected use of AI in the Sandie Peggie judgment has been raised in Holyrood, with the SNP’s victims minister saying it was a matter for the courts, and the justice secretary avoiding questions about its possible use. A bogus quote attributed to Maya’s tribunal judgment was among the errors, and she was quoted as saying that there needs to be a full investigation.

Treasurer wanted

Could you be our next treasurer, or do you know someone who might fit the job? We’re looking for someone who shares Sex Matters’ vision and has strong accounting and financial experience, preferably in charity finance. The closing date is Friday 23rd January.

Find out more

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Without it, we simply wouldn’t exist.

Sex Matters can deliver essential research and analysis, help shape the debate, and empower people with clear, published guidance on their rights – but only with your support. Please contribute what you can to keep us going.

Support Sex Matters

After the judgment: Fiona, Helen, Marion Calder of FWS and Maya

This is the last Sex Matters Memo of 2025. And coincidentally, it falls on “Terfmas” – the anniversary of JK Rowling’s tweet supporting me the day after I lost my initial employment tribunal on 18th December 2019. On that day six years ago I tweeted: “Bad news (for now) Stonewall law won this round.”

It’s amazing how far we have come together since that awful judgment that gender-critical beliefs are “not worthy of respect in a democratic society”. I brought an appeal and won, co-founding Sex Matters along the way, and with your help we took our argument to the highest court in the land, in support of For Women Scotland. And reality won.

So thank you to all of those who have supported us along this journey! We couldn’t have got here without you. I hope you will continue to support us in 2026: to donate to Sex Matters, to share our materials and to spread the word.

Today we are launching a special appeal for our work in 2026. Donate to this appeal and we will send you our new “The law is clear” campaign pack in the new year. It includes our new Sex and the law booklet, a set of our brand-new postcards and a covetable Sex Matters “X” pin. (Already have a pin? This one will make a perfect gift for someone else!)

Donate now to get your campaign pack!

You can start 2026 by sharing our cards and materials with people you talk to, and we will also be sending Sex and the law directly to politicians, officials and employers.

Our booklet explains the implications of the Supreme Court ruling that sex means sex in ordinary language. But employers, politicians, officials, activists and even some judges are trying to reject or work around the law.

This month Sandie Peggie, the nurse whose battle for justice against NHS Fife has shone so much light on the harassment and bullying experienced by ordinary women who speak up against the erosion of single-sex spaces, received the judgment on her case. Although the tribunal ruled that NHS Fife had harassed her after she complained about a male doctor in the women’s changing rooms, it also ruled that the hospital had not acted unlawfully by allowing him in in the first place. Even more shockingly, it said that Peggie’s actions in expressing her discomfort were harassment.

When courts get it wrong, individuals like Peggie – and Maria Kelly and the Darlington nurses – sometimes find the tenacity, persistence and bravery to appeal. But that is not the only way we can win. Sex Matters’ work complements what happens in individual legal cases:

• We take our own legal actions, such as judicial-review cases challenging public bodies like the City of London, British Transport Police, National Police Chiefs’ Council and Crown Prosecution Service.

• We publish guidance and model policies and engage with employers, sports governing bodies, charities, regulators and public bodies to encourage them to do the right thing.

• We are pressing the government and regulators to publish short, clear, workable guidance that is in line with the law.

• We are working on challenging the use of puberty-blockers and paediatric transition.

And we are engaging more than ever with the media. Sex and gender made front-page news well over 100 times this year!

Thank you for standing with us in 2025, and we hope we can count on your continued support in 2026. Our work would not be possible without you.

Maya Forstater

Our podcast on Substack features Sex Matters in conversation about the biggest topics of the week.

High Court hearing on Kenwood Ladies’ Pond

We shared our statements and arguments alongside the many statements from swimmers who use Kenwood Ladies’ Pond, in advance of the “permissions hearing” to see if we could take our case further on 19th December. We should hear in January if our application for a full hearing was successful. Is the City of London’s policy of allowing trans-identifying men to swim in Kenwood Ladies’ Pond (and use the communal changing rooms and showers) lawful?

Read more…

Girlguiding: not for boys

Girlguiding was always an organisation for girls, as its charity charter states. When the board decided to let boys and men join as if they were girls or women, it did this without consultation or an application to the Charity Commission. Now that the law is clear, it has grudgingly recanted. But why did it flout the law in the first place?

Read more…

The Levy Review of adult gender services

NHS England has published a review of adult gender dysphoria clinics in England. But although Levy lists the many ways the clinics have failed to give effective treatment to their patients, the review’s only recommendations are to standardise the process by which they are moved through the system.

Read more…

Sex and the City of London

At the one-day hearing, the City of London said that men are excluded from the women’s pond on the basis of their gender identity not their sex, and the same for women excluded from the men’s pond – which it then claimed did not constitute sex discrimination. We explain the contradictions, and how the corporation has misunderstood the law.

Read more…

In the news

Sanchez Manning for The Times broke the news that Sex Matters was appearing in the High Court this week for permission to take legal action against the City of London Corporation over its policy allowing men to access the Kenwood Ladies’ Pond on Hampstead Heath. The hearing was also covered by Amelia Gentleman for The Guardian, Gabriella Swerling for The Telegraph, Holly Brencher and Robert Collins for Ham & High, Danny Halpin and Ben Lynch for MyLondon, Tristan Kirk for The Standard and Court News UK. Fiona was interviewed by Julia Hartley-Brewer for Talk TV on the story.

Calls for Health Secretary Wes Streeting to halt the planned NHS trial of puberty blockers were covered widely by the media last week. Jason Groves and Martin Beckford for the Daily Mail reported Streeting’s admission that he is “deeply uncomfortable” with the trial, with Helen quoted as saying that Streeting was rattled by the degree of resistance. Helen and Fiona were interviewed by Spiked at a rally in London protesting against the trial.

The publication of the Levy Review of adult gender clinics was widely reported as a story about unacceptably long waiting times. Maya’s comments that the review was a wasted opportunity to rethink a failed treatment model were reported by Alison Holt and James Melley for BBC News, Aine Fox for PA Media – in a story that was published widely by media including The Standard – and Michael Searles for The Telegraph.

The Telegraph’s front-page report that Women and Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson has blocked the EHRC draft code of practice was picked up widely by the media. Helen appeared on GB News to discuss the story.

Finally, the Sunday Telegraph reported that men who identify as women have been banned from women’s fencing in Britain. Fiona said that this is another victory for fairness for women and girls in sport, and that there are serious safety issues in fencing to consider, too.

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I am writing this on my way home from Scotland after spending Thursday afternoon with Sandie Peggie and her family, and then the evening at an event in Dundee for her supporters and press organised by Women Won’t Wheesht.

You’ll probably already have heard a lot about the judgment in Sandie’s employment-tribunal case, which came out on Monday. As we wrote when we first read it, we are pleased that her claim of harassment against NHS Fife was successful, and that the hospital trust was criticised for its terrible handling of the complaint that a trans-identifying male doctor, Beth Upton, made against her. But we think the tribunal got the law wrong on single-sex facilities at work. It is ridiculous and unworkable to suggest that a woman finding herself unexpectedly or unwantedly in a “female” changing room with a man must consider questions of human rights or the protected characteristics in the 2010 Equality Act. The way employers should protect everyone’s rights, in particular those of women and of trans-identifying men, is to set and enforce clear rules about whether spaces are single sex or mixed sex.

On Thursday morning I joined Helen Joyce and Fiona McAnena from my hotel room to record our weekly podcast, which is mostly about the judgment. You can listen to us as we unpick some of its many problematic aspects.

At the event that evening, Sandie and her solicitor Margaret Gribbon announced that she is appealing her judgment and that Ben Cooper KC has joined her legal team. As I said to her, she is in the best of hands. Ben represented Sex Matters in our intervention in the For Women Scotland hearing in the Supreme Court last November, and also represented me in my employment appeal tribunal appeal hearing in 2021.

Sandie’s legal battle is about to reach the two-year mark. It all started at midnight on New Year’s Eve in 2023, when she found herself in a small changing room with Upton, a doctor in the same hospital where she worked as a nurse. She expressed her discomfort at a trans-identifying man being present, he complained and she was suspended and put through hell.

I know personally how hard it is to see through a long-running case like this, and I passed on the best wishes of everyone involved in Sex Matters: our staff, board members and volunteers, and all our supporters too. When Sandie stood up for herself and asserted her boundaries, she was doing so for women and girls all over the country.

Over the past few days, as people have read the 312-page judgment carefully, they have found that not only is it wrong in law and expressed in ideological language, but also that it includes several made-up and garbled quotations from other judgments. One of the first to be spotted was attributed to the judgment in my own appeal. I tweeted about it, and Judge Kemp issued a hasty (and insufficient) correction. The press picked that up and found more. There is a good round-up of these and other errors in the judgment in RollOnFriday, a website and news service for legal professionals.

These errors and misquotations are really serious. When you bring a claim to the employment tribunal, it’s as if your life is on hold. You have to find funding, and you and your family are under immense strain. It costs a lot of money to hire a legal team, and they work so hard to organise and present accurate and telling legal arguments. You naturally expect that the courts will hear and judge your case with integrity and impartiality. When what is delivered after all that work and heartache is instead flawed factually and legally, with errors as gross as invented quotations, it’s an insult.

Maya Forstater

The Peggie judgment disregards women’s privacy and dignity

The judgment in Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife and Dr Upton was published on Monday. Peggie won her claim of harassment, but the judgment was a muddle: paying lip service to the Supreme Court judgment but misquoting and then ignoring it. This is our initial analysis; on Thursday, Peggie announced that she will appeal.

Read more…

In the news

Josh Pizzuto-Pomaco for The Herald, among many others, reported Maya’s first comments in response to the judgment. She said that Sex Matters was pleased that Peggie had won her claim of harassment against NHS Fife, and that the hospital trust was criticised for its terrible handling of the complaint against her, but that overall, we were disappointed with the tribunal’s attempt to reach a spurious balance between a woman’s right to undress with privacy and dignity, and the right of an employee with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment not to be discriminated against. Maya was interviewed on GB News and Helen on LBC following the judgment.

Later in the week, Justin Bowie for The Courier broke the news that the judgment had been amended to remove a bogus quote from the Forstater appeal judgment. Maya said that such gross errors reinforced the growing impression that the Peggie judgment was unsound. This was reported on BBC Radio 4’s Six O’Clock News, among other broadcast reports, and Maya was interviewed live at Peggie’s press conference by Tony McGuire for GB News.

Maya told Jacob Freedland and Simon Johnson for The Telegraph that a second bogus quote attributed to the Lee v Ashers Baking ruling might be an AI summary of general legal principles.

In other news, Sex Matters did several TV interviews on the planned puberty-blocker trial and the launch of legal action in an attempt to halt it. Helen and Maya were interviewed on TalkTV, and Fiona was interviewed on GB News.

Geraldine Scott for The Times reported that the number of people applying for gender-recognition certificates has reached a record high in the past 12 months. Fiona said that the first generation of young people who were taught about gender identity in school and university are adults now, and that the huge rise in applications from people aged 18 to 35 suggests that promoting gender identity makes more people question whether they might be trans.

Fiona was quoted on the news broken by Tim Sigsworth for the Sunday Telegraph that men have been banned from female competitions by Table Tennis England. She was also quoted by Daniel Martin for The Telegraph on the news that Sharron Davies has been made a Tory peer, describing her as a wonderful role model and a powerful voice advocating for women and girls in sport.

Helen was interviewed by Mark Dolan for TalkTV on new research by the Women’s Rights Network on the harms done by mixed-sex changing areas to women’s safety, privacy and dignity,

Health and safety publication IOSH Magazine covered the news that Sex Matters is calling for the HSE to publish a statement that access to single-sex facilities at work must be based on sex, not gender self-ID.

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