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Alice explains why sex has always been an essential statistical variable, and how conflating it with “gender identity” conceals differences in health, crime and life outcomes. They discuss preference falsification: how the vilification of the commonplace understanding of sex as real and biological has led many people to conceal their true views. They look at how public and private organisations, from the Office for National Statistics to sports governing bodies, came to adopt fringe ideas that few people share, and why so many institutions have treated people who raise concerns as the problem.

Finally, Alice discusses the need for stronger free-speech protections and an end to the culture of impunity if sex-based data and evidence-based policy-making are to be restored.

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They look at recent NSPCC guidance on changing rooms, which could allow male teachers to supervise female pupils while they get changed, counter to essential safeguarding principles.

They discuss the charity sector’s opposition to Keeping children safe in education, statutory guidance for schools that was recently updated to emphasise the importance of clear sex-based rules.

They argue that schools should reject advice from charities that are unwilling to state and act on risk factors related to sex. Secrecy, lies and evasion about sex put children at risk of abuse, exploitation and harm.

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Good therapy requires open, trusting conversations, Stella points out. But the planned law risks making discussions about trans identification taboo, and driving therapists away from working with gender-distressed young people, who will be left without support. Stella also explains how conversion-practices bans elsewhere have silenced parents and prevented them from giving their children honest, loving guidance.

Watch Stella’s conversation with Canadian writer Peter Gajdics about surviving abusive conversion therapy and why he now believes conversion-therapy bans are a Trojan horse.

Catch up on our conversation with non-practising barrister Dennis Kavanagh on the flaws of the draft Conversion Practices Bill.

Read our briefing on the bill.

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They discuss how the event was successfully relocated, drawing greater public attention, and what the controversy reveals about the challenges facing gender-critical women.

They also examine media coverage of sex and gender issues, including recent updates to BBC reporting guidance and the frustrating way that even when gender-critical women are invited on broadcast shows, the discussion often stalls at disputes over “preferred pronouns” rather than progressing to substantive issues of women’s rights.

Watch the full panel discussion or read about it on our website.

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Send our model policy to a school you have a connection with to help it make updates in line with the new guidance, which comes into force across England at the start of the autumn term.

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If you are enjoying the Sex Matters podcast, consider supporting our work with a donation.

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Read the letters to Amnesty.
Read our letter to the Charity Commission.

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Dennis examines the low threshold for criminality in Clause 1 of the bill, which states that “any conduct” can be a conversion practice and risks putting parenting on trial and breaching human rights.

Helen and Dennis speak about the potential for transactivists to use the bill to suppress discussion of trans ideology and the harms of gender-affirming care.

Read our analysis of the bill.

Read our response to Galop’s report.

Helen reflects on her recent talk to students at Durham Union – you can read her account of the event on her Substack.

Read our recent report, Getting back on track, which explains how the legislative framework can enable and protect sport at a university level.

Under PACE – the main law governing police conduct – strip-searches must be carried out by an officer of the same sex. But the NPCC says that doesn’t apply to trans detainees. We say that PACE is the only lawful basis for police searching, and that clear rules protect both officers and detainees.

Cathy speaks from experience about how female police officers will come under pressure to search male detainees, including rapists, cross-dressing fetishists and men who simply enjoy threatening and humiliating women.

Read about our case and support our crowdfund.

Read State sanctioned sexual assault, Cathy’s report for the Women’s Rights Network.

CAN-SG has offered Sex Matters’ supporters an exclusive discount: use the code SM25 for 25 percent off all ticket prices. Further discounts are available for people on low incomes, and students can attend the full two days for just £20.

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We show how UK law provides for separate sport for women and girls in several different ways, for fairness, safety and opportunity, from grassroots participation to elite competition, and why not having a female category may result in legal challenges for indirect discrimination and harassment.

Examples of such discrimination include being refused service in a pub, barred from a gym or forced to leave an event because you are known or suspected to hold gender-critical beliefs (or to be associated with someone who does).

Sex Matters has published a guide on this process, which you can read on our website.

Read the code of practice.

Read our first analysis of the code.

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

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

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

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