Update from Fiona
Fiona with Heather Binning, Venice Allan and Helen Joyce on lobby day
Photo: Belinda Jiao
On Tuesday 10th March the Sex Matters team, together with around 200 women and men, took part in a mass lobby of Parliament to tell MPs that the puberty-blocker trial will harm children and must not go ahead. The action was a joint effort by LGB Alliance, Sex Matters and Women’s Rights Network, co-ordinated at Westminster by Emma Hartley and Venice Allan. The size of this lobby sends a strong message to parliamentarians.
We managed to sit in on some people’s meetings with their MPs. It was heartening to hear them listening and asking questions, and seeing that constituents who care about this are coming from a place of compassion. Even those MPs who didn’t come down to meet their constituents will have registered that someone cared enough to come all the way to Westminster in the hope of meeting them.
Following the lobby day, you can still write to your MP with the message that it is not ethical for clinicians to offer children harmful medical treatments on the promise that they can live their lives in stealth, pretending to be the other sex. This fiction is disastrous for them and harms everyone around them too.
The two asks for MPs are:
Tell the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care that you are not persuaded that the trial is safe or ethical.
Attend the Westminster Hall debate on Monday 23rd March, when the petition to “cancel the clinical trial into puberty blockers & safeguard vulnerable children” will be debated.
We want MPs to speak up. They may feel that they should “leave it to the experts”, but most people know instinctively that children are too young to be pushed onto a medical pathway with lifelong consequences, and too immature to fully comprehend what this pathway entails.
Whether or not you’ve taken part in this lobby day, you can take action now. Please email your MP, using the WRN’s draft email – customise it if you can so it isn’t easily dismissed.
The topic is bleak but the mood in the pub afterwards was optimistic. Several people told me they were encouraged and energised by taking part. It feels as if awareness of this is growing. In our short speeches, Helen said: “This is democracy in action.” I said that speaking up is better than the alternative. MPs who agree with us can say their constituents are concerned. MPs who disagree cannot say this issue doesn’t come up.
Let’s keep the pressure on – email your MP to ask them: Are you really sure that permitting a medical trial blocking the puberty of physically healthy children is a responsible thing to do?
Fiona McAnena
Cambridge University Society of Women
In this week’s episode of our podcast, Sex Matters’ Nicole Jones speaks to Maeve Halligan, Thea Sewell and Serena Worley, co-founders of the Cambridge University Society of Women (CUSW).
CUSW is the only openly and proudly single-sex society for women at the University of Cambridge. When it launched, it quickly surpassed its crowdfunding goal and became a sign of hope for women across the UK, showing that a new generation of feminists is pushing back against the harms done by trans ideology to women’s rights.
Nicole talks to Maeve, Serena and Thea about what led them to their current views on women’s rights, how they met, why they decided to start the society together and the society’s work.
You can see what CUSW is up to by following it on Substack, X/Twitter and Instagram, and by visiting its website.
New poll shows most people prefer single-sex toilets and changing rooms
Our most recent poll shows most people do not agree that trans-identifying people should be allowed to use the facilities of their choice, and even Labour and Green voters and 18–24 year-olds prefer single-sex facilities in workplaces and public spaces.
Blocking puberty is a human-rights abuse – call off this drug trial no
Systematic reviews have found little or no evidence to support the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors who identify as the opposite sex. Yet the NHS has offered life-changing hormone treatments to distressed minors for more than a decade. We report on this medical scandal.
Timeline of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for children
This new page tracks the political and regulatory steps leading to the approval of the puberty-blocker trial, and the expert, legal and campaigning challenges against it.
In the news
The news that NHS England is pausing the prescription of cross-sex hormones to 16- and 17-year olds following a review which found “weak” evidence of their effectiveness was widely covered by the press. Ellie Crabbe for PA Media broke the story, published in The Independent and many other UK newspapers, with further coverage by Alison Holt for the BBC, Andrew Gregory for The Guardian and Lauren Gordon for The Mirror. Helen said that the pause needs to be made permanent.
Sex Matters’ new polling, which found that more than 8 in 10 people prefer single-sex toilets and changing rooms in public places, was broken in the press by Katie Harris for the Daily Express (print only). Fiona said that this polling demonstrates that any excuse from the government relating to the “complexity” of implementing single-sex facilities is a farce.
Sean O’Neil for The Courier also covered the poll, focusing on the finding that 86% of respondents prefer single-sex changing rooms and showers in the workplace. Fiona said that the public felt most strongly about showers and changing rooms at work, perhaps alerted by high-profile cases such as those of Sandie Peggie and the Darlington nurses.
Aaron Newbury for the Daily Express covered the news that Labour has appointed Lisa Pinney to head the Fair Work Agency, which oversees the enforcement of employment rights. Pinney was on the board of Stonewall during the period when it was advising schools to accommodate trans-identifying children as if they had changed sex. Fiona said Pinney’s past comments on trans-identifying people’s rights being “under attack” were concerning, and that she should focus on the law in her new role and stand up for women’s rights at work.
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