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!

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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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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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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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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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

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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This week the judgment in Maria Kelly’s case was published. Seeing how awful it was took me back to December 2019 when I lost my employment tribunal at first instance. I am sure Maria has read and re-read it, wondering how the judge could get it so wrong.

I have written about some of the big problems with the judgment, and Fiona and I discussed it (together with the more positive news from Girlguiding and the Women’s Institute) on the second edition of Sex Matters’ new podcast.

What makes it even more infuriating is that Maria’s case was heard straight after the For Women Scotland judgment, and while the judge in her employment tribunal refers to the Supreme Court’s conclusions about sex, she discards them in favour of “gender identity” (a phrase that appears 36 times in her judgment).

Maria’s is a case about workplace toilets and whether her employer’s policy of allowing trans-identifying men into the women’s toilets amounted to unlawful harassment or discrimination against Maria and other women. The judge did not accept this.

I have met Maria several times when visiting Edinburgh, and when she came to the Battle of Ideas in London. She is one of many claimants I have talked to since I lost, and then won, my own employment-tribunal case. She is brave, smart and resilient.

Maria told me she intends to appeal, and is asking for the case to be expedited. If the first-instance ruling is overturned, it could be as significant as the Forstater ruling in the employment appeal tribunal. Hopefully her name will become a byword for clear rules for single-sex spaces, just as mine has become a byword for protection for freedom of belief.

Maya Forstater

Updated case briefing for Kelly v Leonardo UK

We have updated our case briefing to include this week’s judgment.

Check out other recent cases.

Naomi Cunningham stands down as chair of Sex Matters

If you’re signed up for campaign and action emails as well as this memo, you’ll have heard from us on Monday with the news that Naomi Cunningham has stepped down as chair of Sex Matters due to the demands of her job as a barrister. Dr Emma Hilton will step in as interim chair.

Read more…

We are now on Substack too!

We’re publishing our news content here, as well as our new podcast. Sign up to get updates emailed to you. You can also sign up to get this weekly memo via Substack, but you’ll get it on Monday instead of Friday.

In the news

Media coverage this week was dominated by the news that Girlguiding UK and the Women’s Institute (WI) both revised their policies in line with the law by excluding boys and men who identify as female from their services. Maya Forstater’s comment that Girlguiding did the right and only thing for it to do was covered by James Melley for BBC News online. Helen Joyce was interviewed by Jeremy Vine on BBC Radio 2, in an interview that was clipped and ran in the hourly news bulletins across most BBC radio stations into the afternoon and evening.

On the WI, Helen’s comment that a group set up for women must be able to keep out all men was covered by Ben Hatton for BBC News, Sanchez Manning for The Times, Gabriella Swerling for The Telegraph and Martin Beckford for the Daily Mail (print only).

Naomi Cunningham’s departure as chair of Sex Matters was mentioned in coverage of the news that Sandie Peggie has lodged further claims against NHS Fife’s chief executive and other staff, as reported by Sarah Ward for PA Media, which ran in dozens of newspapers including the Scottish Sun, as well as Dan Sanderson for The Times and Jacob Freedland in The Telegraph (print only).

The news that engineer Maria Kelly lost her employment tribunal against defence giant Leonardo UK in relation to the company’s workplace toilet policy, and that she plans to appeal, was reported across the media. Articles by Sarah Ward for PA Media were published by The Standard among many media outlets, and others included Jacob Freedland for The Telegraph (print only), Andrew Learmonth for The Herald, Catriona Stewart for The Scotsman and Eleanor Pugsley for the Scottish Sun. Maya said that the judgment interprets the law as transactivists would wish it to be, and is incompatible with the Supreme Court ruling in For Women Scotland in several places.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that “cash-stapped” Bristol City Council has spent £1,500 decorating street-sweeping vehicles and bin carts with the so-called Progress Pride flag. Fiona McAnena said that the designs belong in the bin rather than being displayed on the outside of them, as the flag represents a movement that causes significant harm to women, children and gay people.

Maya did two broadcast interviews on the case of Ryan Haley, a trans-identifying male perpetrator of child sexual abuse who was referred to in court with female pronouns, with appearances on LBC with Nick Ferrari and Patrick Christy’s show on GB News.

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Last week saw the news that the “Pathways” puberty-blocker trial has received ethical approval. We have written about the trial.

Baroness Cass, who played such a big role in closing the Tavistock GIDS clinic, defended the trial, saying: “Given that there are clinicians, children and families who believe passionately in the beneficial effects, a trial was the only way forward.” But of course a trial is not the only way forward, and an ineffective trial is no way forward at all.

The trial is designed to give blockers to every participant (only the timing differs). It takes for granted that pubertal suppression is the correct treatment and will only test the difference between getting them “now” or “later”. As Dr Emma Hilton has said: “If this trial had been submitted to the Cass Review as one more observational study, it would have been graded low quality and filed under ‘inconclusive’.”

The ghoulish history of blocking children’s puberty is littered with such poorly designed and badly analysed trials. Rather than stopping the practice, their effect was to license it.

The 2011 Tavistock GIDS study of 44 children opened the floodgates to thousands of children getting blockers. The finding that puberty blockers did not improve the wellbeing of the children acting as test subjects was not made public until 2020. And the NHS has failed to track and assess the wellbeing of the much larger number of children put on that supposedly still experimental treatment.

Since the Cass Review was published, the results of another study have emerged. In a US trial designed by gender clinician Johanna Olson-Kennedy, 94 adolescents recruited between 2016 and 2019 were given puberty blockers for two years. Olson-Kennedy told the New York Times in 2024 that publication was delayed because the results were not favourable. They were finally posted in May 2025: “Depression symptoms, emotional health and child behaviour checklist constructs did not change significantly over 24 months.”

The Pathways protocol does not cite this study in the references, and the authors seem unaware of it.

This is a pantomime of medical research. Like the US trial, Pathways considers whether blocking puberty improves children’s short-term wellbeing and mental health. Children will be asked questions such as “Have you felt full of energy?” and “Have you had fun with your friends?”.

But as transactivist Erin in the Morning wrote about the US study, improving short-term mental wellbeing is not what puberty blockers are for: “Ultimately, the purpose of puberty blockers is not to ‘improve’ a trans youth’s mental health…. Puberty blockers pause physical changes, ensuring that when a transgender youth is ready to begin hormone therapy, as determined by their medical team, they won’t have undergone unwanted pubertal changes.”

SEENinJournalism’s Substack

No Fear, No Favour: Social Transition, Schools and the Puberty Blocker Trial

Children, and their parents and siblings, are at the heart of the story about the NHS-backed Pathways puberty-blocker experiment and the media round of Helen Webberley interviews which shocked so many people…

Listen now

4 months ago · 24 likes · 14 comments · SEENinJournalism

The Cass Review was published in April 2024, almost exactly a year before the Supreme Court pronounced that sex in law remains biologically determined. The question of what can lawfully, ethically and in good faith be promised to these children in terms of social transition has never been answered.

The practice of giving children puberty blockers is based on doctors’, parents’ and children’s wishful thinking about the degree to which other people, and institutions, can be forced to accept a person “as the opposite sex”.

We called on Baroness Cass to consider this question when carrying out her review, but were told it was outside her mandate. Following the For Women Scotland Supreme Court judgment the answer is even clearer.

On 28th April, together with Transgender Trend, LGB Alliance and Genspect, we wrote to Sir James Mackey, the CEO of NHS England, and Wes Streeting MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. In that letter we explained the implications of the Supreme Court judgment and asked for the trial to be cancelled.

Recruiting children to a study that is based on a mis-selling of rights, and which forecloses their chances for adult sexual function and fertility, is unconscionable. It is a breach of the good clinical practice necessary for a lawful trial. This week we wrote to Streeting again urging him to stop the trial.

Maya Forstater

Institutional bias at the BBC

Our briefing to the Culture, Media and Sport committee looks at the BBC’s bias on transgender issues, from “preferred pronouns” that report on male murderers as if they were women, to the promotion of transgender ideology to children.

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Why won’t the minister withdraw the outdated code of practice?

After For Women Scotland, the EHRC has admitted that its 2011 code of practice for service providers, which is still in force, is wrong in law. It has asked the Minister for Women and Equalities to revoke it before it does any more damage – so why hasn’t she?

Read more

In the news

The release of details on the upcoming NHS England trials of puberty-blocking drugs for children dominated the news this week. As quoted by David Churchill in the Daily Mail, Eleanor Hayward in The Times, Carole Malone in the Daily Express and Elizabeth Ivens in the Mail on Sunday, Maya Forstater said that the trial was unethical, and that the only reason to research puberty blockers is to be able to offer long-term medical support to those who have already been exposed. Tim Sigsworth for The Telegraph reported that the trial will ask children if they are “two-spirit”, which Maya said demonstrates the lack of seriousness in its scientific basis. Helen Joyce and Maya were both interviewed by GB News on the story.

Naomi Cunningham’s interview on BBC’s Scotcast was covered widely by the media. BBC News, Alistair Grant for The Scotsman, Rebecca McCurdy for The Herald, Douglas Dickie for the Scottish Daily Express and Marc Horne and John Boothman for The Times all covered Naomi’s comments that the Scottish Government is in denial regarding sex-based rights following the For Women Scotland judgment.

Daniel Martin for The Telegraph revealed that the Minister for Women and Equalities, Bridget Phillipson, confirmed to Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), that she will not withdraw outdated EHRC guidance. Falkner had communicated this in a letter to Sex Matters, in which she said that she shared concerns about the 2011 code of practice being out of date.

Martin Beckford for the Daily Mail reported that the Cabinet Office paid £3,244 to organisers of Pride events across the UK so that groups of government employees could attend. Fiona McAnena said that the move raises questions about civil-service impartiality.

Writing for The Times, Mary Wright broke the news that Scouts Scotland is ignoring the Supreme Court ruling and allowing children and adults to use the toilets and sleeping quarters of the opposite sex. Helen said that the policy is a legal case waiting to happen and a huge failure of safeguarding.

Fiona went head-to-head with transactivist Paul Levene on Patrick Christy’s show on GB News to debate the trans-identifying male athlete who competed in the World’s Strongest Woman contest (he was later disqualified).

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At the end of May I received a surprising email from a PR agent. It said:

“We represent Dr Helen Webberley. Dr Helen is the founder of GenderGP. We were wondering if Helen Joyce would like to debate with Helen Webberley on a platform? Initially, If your Helen was interested, I would approach a couple of well known television and radio channels, to try and organise this.”

In case you don’t know her, Webberley is a former GP who founded an online prescribing service for puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones with her husband, a retired consultant. After regulatory complaints from more cautious gender clinicians the pair faced fitness-to-practise hearings. He was struck off the medical register for “wide ranging failings” in treating young transgender patients and in prescribing testosterone for men. She kept her licence to practise after appealing against her suspension, but has since let it lapse.

Now the firm they founded, GenderGP, is registered in Singapore (although the Singaporean government has barred it from prescribing to locals because of concerns about its standards). It offers online consultations and prescriptions for so-called “gender-affirming” care – that is, hormone blockers and cross-sex hormones – issued by doctors who still have prescribing rights and then supplied privately by friendly pharmacists.

Webberley isn’t just someone whose beliefs and actions I oppose as vigorously as I am able; she has been personally insulting to me and to others who campaign against the harms of gender medicine. Some years ago she refused to be in a film simply because Stephanie Davies-Arai of Transgender Trend was also going to be interviewed. And here she is on TikTok calling me “batshit crazy”.

@helenwebberleyWhen misinformation turns dangerous. 🤯 Helen Joyce thinks doctors should be jailed for providing life-saving care to trans people. The data, the research, the patients, and their families all say otherwise. #TransRights #ProtectTransHealthcare #GenderAffirmingCare #transgender

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I thought it was a setup. I thought that she and her team expected that I would refuse and that she could then crow about that publicly, saying that I was a hypocrite who claimed to believe in the importance of free speech and open debate but turned tail when given the opportunity to go head to head with someone whose position opposes mine.

At the same time, I was worried about doing anything that gave Webberley the oxygen of publicity. No matter how ridiculous and contradictory she is, and no matter how well an interviewer or debater may do in pressing her on the harms of gender-affirming care, I feared that desperate children who have become fixated on puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones as the solution to all their problems would hear nothing but a single message: “This woman will give me what I want.”

In the end, I decided to agree in principle, and see if anything came of it. Webberley is already widely platformed, for example featuring in a long and in my opinion far too uncritical interview in The Times last year. I wish that by ignoring her I could make her go away, but I can’t. At this point the only way out is through.

Much to my surprise, the suggestion of an interview proved to be genuine. After some back and forth about format, venue and date, Times Radio agreed to host an hour-long conversation, moderated by journalist Jo Coburn. It was broadcast live at 9pm on Thursday evening, and is available to watch back on the Times Radio YouTube channel:

I knew it would be difficult, because Webberley seems never to open her mouth without making multiple outlandishly false statements. Her speaking style reminds me of the expression “firehose of falsehood” coined to describe disinformation propagated by the Russian regime, which involves spraying out unrelated falsehoods, half-truths, misrepresentations and irrelevancies at high speed. The point is not to convince the audience but to baffle and confuse.

This technique is extremely difficult to counter because a single statement can contain a half-dozen unrelated pieces of complex nonsense, each of which would take several minutes to rebut – by which point the audience will have forgotten what you were talking about. The undirected spray also gets in the way of you making your own points, and gives listeners the impression that the whole situation is too complicated to work out what is true and what is false.

With that in mind, I’ll just pick out three things from the infuriating mess to comment on here.

The first was that Webberley wildly misrepresented the law, saying that the protected characteristic of gender reassignment gives people the legal right to live in their “reassigned” gender, meaning they can use single-sex spaces for the opposite sex (not that she put it that way; she thinks trans-identifying people are the sex they identify as – see what I mean about infuriating?). Incredibly, she suggested that the Supreme Court got the law wrong. That is a contradiction in terms: it is the highest legal authority in the land, and unless and until the government of the day rewrites the law, what it says stands. She also said that calling male people who identify as female “male” is hate speech that risks prosecution (again, I’m translating her ideological mush into reality-based language). This too is entirely false.

The second is what this reveals about what happens in the consulting room of the gender-affirming clinician. We have to presume that Webberley – and other “gender-affirming” clinicians – has told patients that they have the right to use spaces and services for their “affirmed gender”, and that anyone who doesn’t use their “preferred pronouns” risks prosecution. Knowing this makes it easier to understand why it’s proving so difficult to get the For Women Scotland judgment to stick. That patients are likely to have been given these false assurances also raises questions about whether their consent to hormones and surgeries, which they presumably regard as part of their journey to “changing gender”, is truly informed.

The third is that she revealed possibly more than she intended about how the hard core of gender-affirming clinicians are responding to the ban on puberty blockers (gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists; drugs that interrupt the hormonal signals that trigger puberty). She said other drug protocols were replacing puberty blockers for use in young teenagers. Although she didn’t name them, an informed guess is that these clinicians are prescribing testosterone to girls around the onset of puberty, and a combination of spironolactone (a testosterone suppressor) and oestrogen to boys.

In other words, it seems that some clinicians are skipping the puberty-blocking pause with patients and proceeding straight to cross-sex hormones, which have irreversible effects, with patients who are likely to be no more than 12 or 13. This isn’t just shocking; it may be of interest to medical regulators.

Helen Joyce

The government is “trying to rewrite For Women Scotland”

That was the judge’s comment on the convoluted arguments put forward in court by the legal counsel acting for the Minister for Women and Equalities in the case of Good Law Project and others v Equality and Human Rights Commission. The Supreme Court judgment made it clear that this kind of reasoning is wrong, and undermines the basic duty of employers and service providers to provide single-sex facilities for women. So why is the government making these arguments?

Read more

Happy World Toilet Day!

We celebrated with a detailed analysis of the British Standards for sanitary installations, as requested by Mr Justice Swift when Sex Matters CEO Maya Forstater was giving evidence in Good Law Project v Equality and Human Rights Commission.

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Withdraw this unlawful civil-service policy

Government departments are still using a model policy that allows employees to access opposite-sex workplace toilets, even after a court case about this resulted in a six-figure payout and several departments promised to introduce a new policy by the end of 2024. We’ve asked the head of the civil service to either state that the actions authorised by the current policy are lawful (our letter explains why they are not) or withdraw the policy immediately.

Read more

Toilets matter

Sex Matters intervened in Good Law Project v Equality and Human Rights Commission and brought in three witnesses to give evidence about why toilets matter. Michelle Shipworth shared her painful personal experience of a traumatic assault in a women’s toilet. Physiotherapist Elaine Miller focused on women’s biology with evidence based on her expertise in pelvic floor dysfunction. And Maya Forstater explained why clear, lawful guidance is urgently needed after years of confusion, misinterpretation and pressure have undermined women’s rights to privacy and dignity.

Read more

In the news

The leak of the EHRC’s draft code of practice to Geraldine Scott for The Times dominated news headlines this week. In response, Samuel Montgomery, Gabriella Swerling and Ruby Cline for The Telegraph quoted Maya Forstater as saying that it seems to be common-sense guidance which brings the code back into line with the law, and will help businesses stand up to activist demands. Fiona McAnena and Maya were interviewed by Times Radio on the story, and Maya and Helen Joyce were also interviewed on Talk TV.

Sex Matters’ letter to civil service head Sir Chris Wormald, warning that he must either defend or withdraw the Cabinet Office’s problematic 2019 gender-identity model policy, was covered by Martin Beckford for the Daily Mail and Geraldine Scott for The Times. Maya said that the policy gets the law wrong and has harmful impacts on the working life of half a million civil servants, and that Sex Matters will consider next steps in terms of legal action if it is not withdrawn. Geraldine also quoted Maya in her story revealing that the Cabinet Office referred to the 199 Days Later march as an “anti-transgender rights” protest.

Samuel Montgomery for The Telegraph revealed new plans by Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust to fly the transgender and so-called “Progress” Pride flags from the roof of its building on the banks of the Thames, opposite the Houses of Parliament. Fiona said that these flags represent a campaign that has relentlessly advocated for harmful surgeries, puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, not to mention injury-causing breast-binders, and this kind of activity has no place in the NHS.

News that NHS Fife chief Carol Potter is resigning after presiding over the board during Sandie Peggie’s disciplinary proceedings and employment tribunal was covered by journalists including Andrew Learmonth for The Herald, Claire Warrender for The Courier, Dan Barker for the Daily Mail, and Marc Horne for The Times. All quoted Maya as saying that responsibility for ensuring that all policies are lawful and do not result in harassment or discrimination rests ultimately with the chief executive, and in NHS Fife the chief executive failed in this essential task.

Helen’s high-profile debate with Helen Webberley, hosted by Jo Coburn on Times Radio, was covered by Sanchez Manning for The Times, who reported that Webberley said she would give puberty-blocking drugs to children aged nine and younger.

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This week I was in court with our legal team for the two-day hearing in the case of Good Law Project and others v Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Following the Supreme Court judgment in April, the EHRC issued an admirably clear interim update on single-sex facilities. It said that women’s toilets are for women, men’s toilets are for men, and anyone who doesn’t wish to use the correct toilet for their sex should use the unisex option. It reassured employers and service providers that if they offer all three options and have clear rules, they can be sure they are meeting everyone’s needs and not breaching the law.

This advice was challenged by the Good Law Project (GLP), which said it was “transphobic”, wrong in law and breached trans people’s human rights. Together with three anonymous individuals who say they felt upset when this policy was explained to them, GLP brought a claim for judicial review.

In court this week the Health and Safety Executive, which regulates workplace standards, was missing in action. The Minister for Women and Equalities, Bridget Phillipson MP, disappointingly declined to back the EHRC. Instead she entered a “neutral” plea on the question of whether the regulator’s advice was correct in law.

Legal submissions on behalf of the minister appeared to be a desperate search for a loophole that would allow service providers and employers to continue to authorise trans-identifying men to use women’s spaces. Counsel for the minister, Zoë Leventhal KC, put forward an argument that there could be a reading of the Equality Act where “you would be entitled to provide your trans-inclusive provision in the way that the claimants have suggested”. Depressingly, and in defiance of the Supreme Court ruling, the government seems to be trying to bring back the gender self-ID “case-by-case” approach, whereby service providers are expected to separately consider each individual request by a trans-identifying person of one sex to access provision for the opposite sex rather than simply say No to all such requests.

GLP’s own arguments bounced around: perhaps toilets and other facilities should be organised based on gender-recognition certificates and birth certificates, or “acquired gender”, “lived gender”, surgery and hormones or “living as a woman”? The trans-identifying man among the three individual claimants said he was continuing to use women’s toilets.

We were in court to provide evidence and arguments about why toilets are spaces where sex matters (especially for women) and why access must be governed by clear, simple rules. My witness statement drew on evidence from many women who have told us why single-sex services matter to them. Elaine Miller’s provided lessons on the practicalities of female biology and Michelle Shipworth’s was a harrowing description of her experience of male violence in a women’s toilet.

Our legal arguments (from the excellent Rupert Paines of 11KBW) included tracing legal requirements concerning workplace toilets to 1938 and pointing out that employers and employees have responsibilities in relation to health, safety and welfare compliance. Under those responsibilities employers do not (indeed cannot) guarantee that no man ever enters women’s facilities (or that no woman ever enters men’s facilities), but may not authorise men to enter them, including men with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment (and vice versa for trans-identifying women and men’s facilities).

The judge, Mr Justice Swift, seemed to have a good grasp of the Supreme Court ruling and asked lots of sensible questions. Towards the end of the hearing he asked: “Under the workplace regulations, how do you provide separate rooms containing conveniences for men and women unless you say that one’s for the men; that one’s for the women?”

It was exhausting and dispiriting to see a government minister and her legal representatives, all paid from the public purse, adding layers of complication to this simple point, and to continue to treat facilities provided for women’s privacy, dignity and safety as an adventure safari for men and their gender identities.

Thank you for all your support for this important case and all our work. It really matters!

Maya Forstater

Tell organisations that programmes and prizes for women and girls must be based on sex

In male-dominated areas such as science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), you’ll sometimes see opportunities for women and girls that aim to close the gap. But if these are advertised as being for anyone who “identifies” as female, they are not lawful as positive action. This has been common for years, and it is now clearly unlawful after the For Women Scotland Supreme Court judgment. We have a template email that you can use to raise concerns and explain the law if you see an example.

Find out more

When will the BBC face up to the truth?

On the same day as The Telegraph reported on a leaked dossier revealing the BBC’s one-sided reporting on sex and gender, as well as biased coverage of Donald Trump and the war in Gaza, Sex Matters wrote to the BBC’s board. We asked for a commitment to:

• root out the oppressive influence of transgender ideology in the organisation

• replace activist language with normal language

• stop normalising transgender ideology in BBC output

• ensure that all BBC journalists can tell the unvarnished truth without fear

• retrain staff on core facts.

Three days later Tim Davie, director-general, and Deborah Turness, chief executive of BBC News, resigned.

Read more

In the news

The resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness, amid chaos at the BBC over biased reporting including sex and gender, dominated news coverage this week. Sam Merriman for the Daily Mail quoted Maya Forstater in an article on a BBC producer’s attempt to block JK Rowling from appearing on Newsnight, while Sanchez Manning for The Times quoted Cath Leng as saying that Sex Matters was among organisations that seemed to be blacklisted. Fiona McAnena was interviewed by Josh Howie on GB News’ Free Speech Nation shortly after news of the resignations broke:

Sex Matters’ letter to the BBC board this week was covered exclusively by Daniel Martin at The Telegraph. Maya was quoted as warning the board that the BBC’s normalisation of transgender ideology has caused real-world harms, including children feeling pathological anxiety about normal puberty and increased demand for harmful puberty-blocking drugs. Later in the week Daniel revealed that news boss Richard Burgess had admitted to staff that the BBC has not got its coverage of trans issues right over the past decade, and quoted Helen Joyce as saying that this was a significant admission after several days during which the BBC sought to downplay the demonstrable bias in its coverage of sex and gender.

In other news, Jamie Gardner for PA Sport, as published in the Irish Independent and other outlets, covered the news that the International Olympic Committee is moving towards banning trans-identifying males from all female events. Fiona said that every international sports body must now fall into line. Suzanne Moore for The Telegraph highlighted the work of Sex Matters trustee Dr Emma Hilton in bringing this about.

The Sunday Telegraph quoted Maya in a report that Blackpool council spent £35,000 on a rainbow road crossing, while Jill Foster for The Telegraph quoted Fiona in an investigative feature on trans lobby group Gendered Intelligence. Kristina Wemyss for the Daily Mail quoted Helen on the news that more than 500 trans-identifying male patients diagnosed with an enlarged prostate and other men’s issues have been recorded as women by the NHS.

Sex Matters’ intervention in GLP’s high-court challenge against the Equality and Human Rights Commission was quoted by Alison Holt and James Melley for BBC News. Fiona was quoted by Ben Rumsby for The Telegraph on GLP’s legal action against the England and Wales Cricket Board on its trans-inclusion policy, and Gabriella Swerling for The Telegraph quoted Maya on the news that Girlguiding faces legal action from a parent over its trans inclusion policy.

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Last Saturday already feels like a long time ago! Fiona McAnena, Emma Moore and I went to the 199 Days Later rally in London. It was a national day of action with demos at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh and the Senedd in Cardiff as well as Westminster.

Organised by a grassroots group of women (the picture above is theirs), it was a great set of events, bringing women (and some men) together around the country to tell the government to get a move on with implementing the Supreme Court judgment. Despite our frustration at government inaction, it was a joyful day. It was great to meet so many people and the speeches were inspiring. Venice Allan gave a barnstorming speech about the Hampstead Ladies Pond including our legal action.

Each event also attracted a rival counter-protest. Observer Police Oracle in London wrote that the activists there were intending to march too, but the Met Police ruled that “the pro-trans group had to stay within the grassed area”. They hurled abuse as usual, but the march continued and “rather resembled that of a good-natured women’s institute outing”.

And Emma Moore met Róisín Murphy!

The marches were a clear sign that women are not giving up or going away in the face of the government’s foot-dragging and inaction. Government departments and public bodies are saying they cannot take action because they are waiting for EHRC guidance, and now the Minister for Women and Equalities is saying she won’t lay the guidance before Parliament until an impact assessment has been done.

Meanwhile the law is the law.

Next week we will be in court to make this point. We are intervening in the Good Law Project v EHRC case, which is a challenge to the EHRC’s clear interim update about toilets. We have provided evidence all about toilets and why they matter, including evidence from physiotherapist Elaine Miller and Professor Michelle Shipworth as well as a selection from the many women who took part in our single-sex services survey in 2022.

Maya Forstater

Email your MP!

As well as making noise on the street and in the media it is important that MPs hear that we want clear guidance and urgent government action to implement the Supreme Court’s judgment

It only takes a minute or two to send an email – more than 2,000 people already have.

Read about our three asks:

Find out more

What is the real cost to business of ignoring equality law?

Backbench MPs arguing that the government cannot possibly follow the Supreme Court judgment by just saying No to transactivist demands wrote to Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Business and Trade, claiming widespread business concern about the draft guidance. We took a closer look at the “650 businesses” that signed the Stonewall-style letter and found it had gone from Disney to Mickey Mouse. Almost no big businesses had signed the letter. Instead it was a long list of freelance consultants, tattoo artists, LGBTQ+ trainers and Etsy store owners.

Read it now

How to respond to your employer’s excuses

Don’t take no for an answer! Employers are still coming up with feeble excuses for ignoring the Supreme Court judgment. We demolish the most common ones, and have some robust text you can copy when you write to complain.

Find out more

In the news

Geraldine Scott for The Times reported concerns from Sex Matters that by delaying the implementation of updated EHRC guidance, ministers have fallen for transactivist pressure. Trans Solidarity Alliance’s recent letter signed by 650 “businesses”, mostly tiny operations, was compared with a Stonewall letter in 2020 that was backed by dozens of international companies. Maya Forstater said that rather than falling for this smoke and mirrors trick or yielding to pressure from activist civil servants, the government should notice that business support for the radical transgender agenda has fallen off a cliff in a few short years.

The news that a complaint against BBC newsreader Martine Croxall was upheld coincided with The Telegraph’s major exposé of editorial bias at the BBC this week, with coverage of sex and gender stories a major feature of the leak. Fiona McAnena was quoted by Grant Tucker for the Daily Mail and Alex Farber for The Times as saying that the activist term “pregnant people” should never have been in the news bulletin to begin with, so the BBC’s punishment of Croxall looks like more chilling proof of its willingness to put ideology before independent reporting. Maya was interviewed by GB News and Talk TV on the story, and Fiona appeared on LBC.

In an exclusive for the Mail on Sunday, Luke Alsford revealed that Newnham College, Cambridge University’s oldest women-only college, is continuing to admit men who identify as women. Maya said that following the Supreme Court ruling, the college should have been urgently reconsidering its policy to bring it back into line with the law, but has instead been looking around for loopholes, which is fruitless and foolish.

Tim Sigsworth for the Sunday Telegraph reported that England Rugby is promoting the use of gender-neutral terminology and preferred pronouns in a 2023 language guide which is still in use. Fiona said that there are only two sexes, as reflected in the rules of rugby, and that trying to force players to pretend otherwise is a fool’s errand.

GB News was on the ground to cover the 199 Days rally for sex-based rights in London last weekend, and reported on parallel rallies in Scotland and Wales. Reporter Sam Francis interviewed Maya and Fiona on the significance of the rallies, as reported by Susanna Siddell for the GB News website. Fiona said that the law is the law, and Maya said that everyone needs to get on with it.

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We have been hearing rumblings for a while of the government getting cold feet over laying the new Equality and Human Rights Commission code of practice for service providers before Parliament, despite the Prime Minister saying back in June: “All guidance of whatever kind needs to be consistent with the ruling and we need to get to that position as soon as possible.”

The law is the law, and the guidance won’t change that. But many organisations have been hiding behind the lack of updated guidance as a reason for not being clear about single-sex services.

On Wednesday we launched a new action to write to your MP and tell them it is time to act. MPs have been hearing a lot from the transactivist minority, and it is crucial that they hear from the common-sense majority. Nearly 1,000 people have already used our email tool in the first 24 hours, and today we have updated the letter to take recent news into account.

If you haven’t emailed yet, PLEASE DO IT THIS WEEKEND.

Write to my MP

On Thursday we got confirmation that the Minister for Women and Equalities was insisting that the EHRC undertake a “regulatory impact assessment” on the new guidance.

This is a complete red herring. Such assessments are undertaken for new laws and policies, not to decide whether it would be a good idea for guidance about the law to be accurate or not.

There was a regulatory impact assessment undertaken before the Equality Act was introduced. It considered the costs of all the changes being made to underlying laws concerning discrimination in relation to sex, gender reassignment and other protected characteristics.

What happened then was that after the act became law, bad guidance and misleading training by organisations such as Stonewall corrupted understanding.

The Supreme Court has already spelled out clearly that man and woman in the Equality Act are words that relate to the ordinary meaning that everyone understands, and that single-sex services are lawful.

Sex Matters has produced guidance which shows how simple and straightforward the law is to understand if you don’t get confused about basic concepts.

There are no major costs in complying with the law, but politicians, officials and senior managers have to be brave and say No to aggressive transactivists.

What the government is doing now is shirking its duty, placing risk on the shoulders of the lowest-paid workers and most vulnerable women, and undermining the law by allowing people to continue to point to the outdated and legally wrong code of practice as an excuse for their cowardice.

The government has no excuse for not revoking the old code of practice for service providers, and ending this shameful period in which women’s rights have been denied.

Maya Forstater

The law is clear – providing single-sex services with confidence

Service providers and public bodies can’t pretend not to know that the Equality Act is the law, whatever happens to the Equality and Human Rights Commission guidance. The principles are so simple that we can explain them in a few pictures. Read our guidance, then share our graphics and edit our signs to use in your own organisation.

Find out more

Graphics to share and use

A series of five downloadable graphics explains how to provide single-sex services with confidence.

Editable health and safety signs for women’s, men’s, and mixed-sex facilities.

Write to your MP: the government must stand up for women’s rights

Our campaign kicked off on Wednesday evening, and nearly a thousand people have already emailed their MPs. After news yesterday that the government is delaying publication of the EHRC guidance by asking for an impact assessment, we have updated the letter we want you to send – please email your MP today!

Do it now

In the news

Geraldine Scott for The Times broke the news that the government is planning to undertake a regulatory impact assessment (RIA) on the burden to businesses of the EHRC’s proposed statutory guidance on single-sex spaces, which could delay its introduction by more than a year. Maya said that RIAs are undertaken where there is a choice of options, and that it is a complete red herring for the government to suggest that there is any choice about complying with the Equality Act 2010 right now.

Other news coverage this week began with Aaron Newbury’s story for the Daily Express that London City Hall prioritised the inclusion of trans-identifying staff in an announcement about its menopause programme. Fiona McAnena said it was a complete let-down for female employees that just as City Hall is finally recognising and addressing an important women’s health matter, its women’s network is prioritising scoring “ally” points with the transactivist movement.

Justin Bowie for The Courier broke the news that the manager of Hobbycraft Dundee asked designer Rebekah Chapman to leave after she challenged a staff member’s “no terfs, no Tories” badge. Maya Forstater was quoted as saying that even if they aren’t aware of the law, staff and managers should have the common sense to understand that such a badge would discriminate against customers with those beliefs or political views. The story was also covered by David Leask for The Times, Sam Lawley for the Daily Mail and Simon Johnson for The Telegraph.

Maya Forstater responded to the news that For Women Scotland’s Susan Smith faces charges for “breaking” transactivist Tom Harlow’s umbrella in the course of his disruption of the group’s rally outside Holyrood. As quoted by Dan Barker for the Daily Mail, David Walker for the Scottish Daily Express and Simon Johnson for The Telegraph, Maya said that Sex Matters stands with Susan, and that the police should do their job of protecting freedom of expression and public order, without fear or favour.

Also in Scotland, Mary Wright and Jennifer Hyland for the Daily Record reported that Police Scotland are under fire for failing to disclose how many non-crime hate incidents they have logged. Fiona said that NCHIs have long been weaponised by activists against people who hold mainstream views about biological sex, and that this does nothing to rebuild trust in the police.

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