Update from Maya
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.
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.
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