Update from Maya
Next week it will be a year since the Supreme Court delivered its landmark judgment that the terms “man” and “woman” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex.
Clarifying the law was an incredible achievement, against all odds, for a grassroots group of women organising around their kitchen tables. It was the outcome of years of patient work, visionary courage and sheer bloody-mindedness by Trina Budge, Marion Calder and Susan Smith of For Women Scotland. With that ruling they achieved more in a single day than most people manage in a lifetime.
But while some organisations have got on with it and changed their policies (this week it was the Darts Regulation Authority), too many are still resisting or delaying.
I’m sure you’re as fed up as I am of hearing well-paid senior leaders of government departments, charities and regulators saying they are “waiting for guidance”. And I’m fed up with the government delaying publishing the guidance.
This week, with several other groups, we wrote to Keir Starmer about this delay. Along with the letter, we sent him a new report from Sex Matters that tells the stories of women who have experienced the consequences of the government’s failure to follow the law. It includes the stories of:
a civil servant pushed out after raising concerns about policy compliance
NHS staff disciplined for asserting sex-based boundaries
women excluded from single-sex spaces, or penalised for objecting when those spaces are compromised
athletes facing unfair competition and sanctioned for speaking out
volunteers and carers deemed “unsuitable” for expressing mainstream opinions and safeguarding concerns.
We are grateful to everyone who told us their stories, and we will be collecting more.
On Saturday 11th April members of the Sex Matters team and friends will be reading out our letter to the Prime Minister in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast and Sunderland as part of the #OneYearLater protests. We will be speaking alongside women telling their own stories about how the government’s failure to act is leading to harm.
If you can make it to one of the protests, we hope to see you there. If you would like to help us hand out Sex Matters flyers, make yourself known on the day!
Maya Forstater
FWS one year later
In this week’s episode, Maya and Helen talk about our latest publication, One year later, which tells the stories of individual women harmed by the failure to implement the Supreme Court ruling. A year after the landmark judgment, we are still hearing distressing stories of ordinary people being treated terribly simply because they want single-sex spaces, because they spoke up about safeguarding risks caused by ignoring the reality of sex or because they were open about their lack of belief in gender identity.
The law is clear: why are women waiting?
A year after the landmark Supreme Court judgment, we look at the harm caused to women and girls by the government’s failure to enforce it.
Read our new booklet now and share it on social media.
Write to your MP: why are we waiting?
Organisations are still prevaricating on single-sex spaces and the government is still stalling. Use our template to email your MP today and send them a copy of our new booklet, One year later.
In the news
This week’s roundup includes coverage in the lead-up to Easter.
Kevin Duguid for The Scottish Sun broke the news that murderer Paris Green, a man who says he identifies as female, is being moved to a male prison – a year after he was found to have caused physical harm to a female prison officer. Helen said that Green should never have been in a women’s prison. The news was also covered by Dean Herbert for the Scottish Daily Mail (print only).
Jacinta Taylor for the Mail on Sunday broke the news that the Office for National Statistics will not include a question on gender identity in the 2027 Census test. Fiona welcomed the news and said that the census should simply ask about sex, male or female, and instruct respondents to answer honestly.
Dan Roan for BBC Sport wrote a feature article on the International Olympic Committee’s decision to protect the female category at the Olympic Games on the basis of sex. Fiona warned that several sports in the UK have two-tier policies that provide fairness only for the top women; policies similar to the IOC’s need to be adopted by every governing body. Hadley Freeman for The Sunday Times referred to our Hampstead ponds legal case in her commentary on the story.
Janet Murray for The Telegraph continued her coverage on the implementation of Girlguiding’s new policy of excluding trans-identifying men and boys from being leaders and guides, reporting that there could be the risk of legal action between now and September. Maya said that the previous policy was obviously dangerous as well as unlawful: the organisation must mitigate these risks with interim policies.
Tim Sigsworth for the The Telegraph reported that ITV will portray Queen Elizabeth I as a trans-identifying man in an upcoming historical drama. Maya said that some in the arts sector seem to think that portraying historical female figures such as Joan of Arc as trans-identifying is edgy, but viewers who are already sick of gender ideology may vote by switching off.
The Times reported on the court ruling upholding the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s interim guidance on single-sex facilities following a legal challenge by the Good Law Project, in which Sex Matters intervened.
Helen wrote for her column in The Critic that women who play along with gender ideology are doing what many women have always done in the face of unreasonable male demands: placate and fawn because that’s safer and more profitable than female solidarity.
Writing for The Courier, Sean O’Neil reported that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has said that Professor Jacob George recused himself from the controversial puberty-blocker trial, rather than being recused by the regulator. Maya said that any reasonable person could have concluded that George had been under pressure to quit and that however the recusal played out, the central point is that the MHRA did not follow proper procedures when George came under fire.
The news that the Darts Regulation Authority (DRA) has barred trans-identifying men from the female competition was covered by BBC Sport, Martyn Ziegler for The Times, Ed Griffiths for GB News, and David Churchill for the Daily Mail. A report commissioned by the DRA and authored by Sex Matters chair Emma Hilton in her capacity as a developmental biologist was quoted in media reports. Fiona said that men’s physical advantages in darts may each be small but they all add up.
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