Update from Maya
Stephanie Davies-Arai, Maya Forstater, Helen Joyce, Fiona McAnena and Nicola Williams (Kellie-Jay Keen unfortunately couldn’t make it) – photo by Bryndís Blackadder
On Wednesday we held a celebration of Fiona McAnena’s brilliant book Terf Island and everyone in it. This is an abridged version of my speech.
When Fiona first talked to Helen and me about her idea for a book telling the story of how the UK resisted trans ideology, it was going to be structured around four campaigning slogans: “No child is born in the wrong body” (Transgender Trend); “Hands off my rights” (Fair Play For Women); “Woman: adult human female” (Standing for Women); and “Sex matters” (Sex Matters!). But somewhere along the line Fiona’s editor wisely told her that people want to read about people, so the book’s four main chapters are named for Stephanie Davies-Arai, Nic Williams, Kellie-Jay Keen and me.
It is a cracking read and Fiona has done a brilliant job of weaving the stories together, not just those of the four headline characters but many others too. The book captures the chain reactions: how one person speaking up leads to others feeling braver.
I knew about most of the characters in the book before I met them, because I followed them on Twitter, read what they wrote and watched their YouTube videos. I remember being in awe of each of them. One of the key people who was part of the chain reaction for me to speak up (as for so many others) was Kellie-Jay. As Fiona says, when I first met her outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court in 2018, I thought: “She is so small and so brave!”
So the book is about the power of chain reactions, but it also illustrates the power of two or three people who work together on one dedicated thing. In Stephanie’s story it is Denise from 4thWaveNow in the US, and then Shelley Charlesworth providing evidence-based advice and briefings on why so many children were suddenly saying they were trans. In Nic’s story it is Fiona herself who becomes Nic’s partner in the campaign against gender self-ID. In Kellie-Jay’s it is Venice Allan and Julia Long working together on Standing for Women. In my story it was the barrister Anya Palmer who dreamed up the idea of a belief-discrimination case before I existed, and took me through four years of tribunals to win my case and create the precedent that believing that sex matters is “worthy of respect in a democratic society”.
As the book shows, you can get a lot done with networks and collaborations of two or three people. But the battle against gender ideology is the battle to win back organisations. And for that I think you need the power of an organisation. So in 2021 Anya and I, together with Rebecca Bull, set up Sex Matters to be the organisation that is single-minded about winning back clarity on sex in law, policy and language in the UK.
We had almost no money, and not a single member of staff. We are now a proper charity with a board of trustees, led by our fabulous chair Naomi Cunningham, with a small, dedicated and hard-working staff team, an impressive and knowledgeable advisory group, and thousands of supporters. We got started by asking people to donate £5, £10 or £30 a month, and these regular donations are still the bedrock of support that keeps the organisation going. Thank you!
Naomi Cunningham, Helen Joyce, Maya Forstater, and Fiona McAnena (Emma Moore photobombing) – photo by Beck Laxton
In early 2022 Helen Joyce left The Economist, where she was Britain Editor, to come and work for Sex Matters, first on sabbatical – and then she stayed. That is how serious an organisation we had become!
By February 2024 Helen and I were a tight director team of two, but we were at our wits’ end, juggling too many balls between us. So we sat down and made a “fantasy football team” wishlist of all the people we might want to come and work with us, if we didn’t have to worry about causing a breakdown in relations with another group by poaching. Fiona was top of the list.
And literally the next day Fiona called and asked me to meet her for a coffee. She said that Nic was taking a step back from full-time activism and she was looking for a new home. Fiona had worked on the prisons and census cases and had built up a fantastic expertise and networks from campaigning on fairness in women’s sport.
Fair Play For Women reunion: Susu Wong, Fiona McAnena and Nic Williams – photo by Helen Joyce
I basically bit her arm off and said yes. And we haven’t looked back. Fiona is a strategic thinker, a brilliant communicator, and tenacious at building relationships with officials and sports governing bodies. She is also very funny and very determined – as you would have to be to finish a book while also being one-third of the directors’ team at Sex Matters, in the midst of the gender wars!
You can buy signed copies of the book from Primrose Hill books:
The government must fix the flaw in its digital identity plan
The government has announced plans for a UK-wide digital ID scheme . Whatever you think about this, for the system to work, the government will have to face up to the problem with sex.
We’ve been sounding the alarm about a flaw in the government’s plans for digital identity since 2022: it is simply not possible to have a robust system that enables people to prove who they are over time, and to allow allow people to disappear from their old life in one sex and reappear with a new life and a new identity in the opposite sex.
Maya Forstater and Laura Pascal (Sex Matters’ head of public affairs) are going to be at the Labour Party Conference, starting on Sunday, talking to MPs, delegates, and representatives of organisations about this, and about why the government must make sure the For Women Scotland judgment is implemented to protect women’s rights.
What’s happening in sport?
There’s good news and bad news. Yesterday the world governing body for snowsport, FIS, announced that it will introduce sex screening to protect the female category. We expect British Snowsport to follow. But the Dutch rugby federation announced a “case by case” approach to permitting men who identify as women into women’s rugby, defying its world body, which reverted to sex-based teams for all international rugby in 2020. England’s Rugby Football Union tried case-by-case assessment but found it unworkable, and followed its world body after a narrow vote in 2022.
The situation in the UK is equally messy. One reason, perhaps the key one, is that the Sports Councils claim that their guidance permitting men with reduced testosterone into women’s categories remains a lawful option, despite the For Women Scotland judgment. We’ve written a full round-up here.
In the news
Hayley Dixon for The Telegraph broke the news that Bristol City Council is insisting that women should be called “people with ovaries”. The story was also covered by Sanchez Manning for The Times. Maya Forstater said that erasing sex-based language for women in pregnancy, maternity and breastfeeding protections and services is not only scientifically absurd, but deeply offensive to women.
The Telegraph also revealed that Cambridge University’s oldest women-only college, Newnham, risks breaching equality laws by failing to provide women with single-sex lavatories. Helen Joyce said that the college is sending mixed messages by protecting research scholarships for women based on biological sex, but at the same time forcing female students and staff to share toilets, showers and changing facilities with men in so-called ‘unisex’ facilities.The story was also covered by Ruth Stainer in the Daily Mail.
Helen wrote for The Critic about having been secretly logged as a criminal by police, after complaints by the same trans-identifying ex-police officer (sacked for gross misconduct two years ago) who has been targeting Graham Linehan. She was also interviewed on the story by Josh Howie on GB News.
Martin Beckford for the Daily Mail and Daniel Martin for The Telegraph broke the news that five trans-identifying male criminals are still being held in a women’s prison despite the Supreme Court ruling that sexes must be segregated, and despite calls for new Justice Secretary, David Lammy, to move them to the male estate. In the Mail, Helen said that Lammy seems to prioritise the trans lobby’s demands over women’s rights. In the Telegraph, Fiona McAnena pointed out that many female prisoners have also been victims of violent and sexual crimes at the hands of men but emails from Mr Lammy’s office simply “parrot trans activist talking points”. Writing for UnHerd, advisory group member Joan Smith described this as Lammy’s “first big test”.
Work with Sex Matters
Sex Matters is looking for someone to work on our busy social and communications pipeline. This is a role for a proactive and organised person who can monitor, post and schedule social-media content and work on media monitoring to support our busy comms team.
This is a part-time role, working remotely. We are open to considering applicants to join the staff team or freelance contractors that offer social media support. The deadline for applications is Monday 6th October.
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