Update from Fiona
Maya speaking in the River Room at the House of Lords
On 4th June we launched our new sport report, Getting back on track: Using the Equality Act to enable and protect sport for women and girls, in the River Room at the House of Lords. We co-hosted the event with the Women’s Sports Union, and guests came from across the sports world, including chairs and chief executives of national governing bodies, sportswomen, journalists, policy-makers and lawyers.
The event was introduced by Baroness Davies of Devonport, aka Sharron Davies MBE.
The report describes the battle for fair sport for women and girls: how the law has been misunderstood and misrepresented by activists demanding access for trans-identifying men to women’s sport, and by a succession of civil servants and sport policy-makers who wrongly presented this as “inclusion”. It explains how protections for women and girls in sport are threaded through the Equality Act, and why female-only sport and recreation aren’t just desirable, they’re necessary.
I have spent years working on sports policy, first at Fair Play For Women and now at Sex Matters. In that time I have had hundreds of conversations with politicians, officials, athletes and funders, and have heard every excuse imaginable for failing to protect the female category for girls and women.
The big message I hope everyone takes from this report is that sports leaders need to stop looking for compromises and get-out clauses to validate a few trans-identifying men and get back to protecting, celebrating and promoting women and girls in sport – not just because that’s what the law says, but because it is the right thing to do.
Fiona
Fiona, Maya and Helen celebrating the launch of Getting back on track with Louie French MP, the shadow minister for culture, media and sport.
Getting back on track: a new report
In this week’s episode, Maya Forstater and Fiona McAnena talk about our new report, Getting back on track: Using the Equality Act to enable and protect sport for women and girls – why we wrote it and what is in it.
They discuss how the law enables separate sport for women and girls in several different ways, how this matters for fairness, safety and opportunity all the way from grassroots participation up to elite competition, and why failing to have a female category may result in legal challenge for indirect sex discrimination and harassment.
Sex matters in sport: how the Equality Act 2010 provides the legal framework for protecting and providing for women and girls in sport.
Enabling and protecting sport for women and girls: Maya’s speech to the House of Lords as we launched our report.
Housing men in women’s prisons is unlawful
The government has been allowing trans-identifying men to be housed in women’s prisons on a case-by-case basis. Now a legal opinion published by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, by Ben Cooper KC and Myles Grandison, concludes that in light of the 2025 For Women Scotland ruling, this cannot continue.
Exclusive offer for memo readers
Get 25 percent off tickets for the Rethinking Youth Gender Medicine conference, Sunday 5th and Monday 6th July in central London.
Taking as their theme the foundational principle of medicine to “first, do no harm”, the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender and the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine are bringing together leading international figures fighting for ethical, evidence-based gender medicine. The programme will cover all aspects of the social and clinical care of children and young people experiencing gender-related distress.
Maya, Fiona and Helen will all be attending for at least part of the conference. We think the medical transition of children and young adults is one of the biggest scandals of our age, and this conference is an important moment in the fightback. With the Cass Review prioritising psychosocial care for gender-distressed youth, legal challenges to the proposed trial of puberty blockers and the possibility that NHS England will halt new cross-sex hormone prescriptions for under-18s, the UK is leading the way in ending the harms.
Yet there is no room for complacency. Serious concerns remain about the social transition of minors, irreversible interventions such as mastectomies for under-25s, inadequate support for detransitioners and plans for a “conversion practices” ban that would criminalise ethical, evidence-based exploratory therapy.
The stellar speaker lineup includes:
Stephanie Davies-Arai of Transgender Trend on social transition
Dr Anna Hutchinson on psychotherapy for gender-distressed young people
Sex Matters trustee Professor Michael Biggs on the history of puberty blockers
Neuropsychologist Professor Sallie Baxendale on the effect of puberty blockers on the adolescent brain
Michael Kerr of Detransition Pathways and Dr Stella O’Malley of Genspect on detransition.
Also joining the programme is Maeve Halligan, founding president of the Cambridge University Society of Women, who will speak about the courage required of professionals working with medically transitioning children and young people, and why those responsible for children’s safety must not be cowed into remaining silent about their concerns.
View the conference programme and buy tickets: Use the code SM25 for 25 percent off in-person and livestream tickets. Further discounts available for retired people and those on low incomes. And especially for student readers of the Sex Matters Memo: attend the entire conference for just £20.
In the news
Louis Goss for The Telegraph broke the news that Lloyds Bank has updated its policy on single-sex facilities and told staff to use bathrooms that correspond with their biological sex. The article referred to our recent report, Sex-based rights in the City, which found that leading banks including HSBC and NatWest were continuing to let staff use toilets based on gender identity rather than sex.
Susanna Rustin for The Guardian wrote that the EHRC code of practice protects a range of vital single-sex spaces, not just toilets, and mentioned our criticism of the section of the guidance that says sex should be treated as special-category data.
Greg Heffer wrote for the Daily Mail on the new health secretary James Murray’s admission that he has changed his mind since stating in 2022 that “trans women are women”, and that he now vows to protect single-sex spaces in the NHS on the basis of sex. Maya said he needs to update NHS policies and language, and to rip up Annex B, which says single-sex wards must operate on the basis of “gender identity”.
Daniel Martin for The Telegraph reported that the House of Commons has signposted staff upset by the EHRC code of practice to transactivist organisations for support. Helen said it wasn’t acceptable for House of Commons management to appear to mourn the enforcement of sex-based rights at the same time as MPs are considering the guidance under parliamentary procedure.
The news that City of London councillors have voted in favour of a policy that would enable trans-identifying men to swim at the Ladies’ Pond at Hampstead Heath was covered widely by the media, including Daniel Lavelle for The Guardian, Daniel Martin for The Telegraph, Ellie Doughty for The Times and BBC London. Fiona said that many councillors seem to think UK equality law doesn’t apply to the ponds, and that the councillors had voted to unlawfully discriminate against and harass women.
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