Update from Maya
On 6th February the news broke that Keira Bell, James Esses and Bayswater Support Group have launched a legal challenge against the planned puberty-blocker trial. And earlier in the week the government responded to a public petition calling for the trial to be halted, which was signed by more than 140,000 people.
In its response to signatories, the government defended this unethical medical experiment on vulnerable children, saying that some young people “are going to great lengths” to source the banned drugs. It also shucked off responsibility onto the ethics committee that greenlighted the trial, saying the UK has an “extremely high” bar for clinical trials to be approved.
I wrote about the inadequacies of the ethical review in The Critic. The minutes from the meetings are shocking. A small group of volunteers met by Zoom for a few hours. They barely discussed the underlying motive for stopping children’s physical, sexual and mental development so they can more easily transition cosmetically. Instead they told the researchers to take “transition” out of the title of the study “so as not to imply that this study relates to transitioning”.
The government is doing the same disappearing trick. It says “gender incongruence is an internationally recognised disorder” but fails to mention that the diagnostic criteria include demonstrating a “strong desire to ‘transition’ and live as the experienced gender, through hormonal treatment, surgery or other health care services”.
The trial protocol presents puberty blockers as a stand-alone treatment to improve children’s short-term mental wellbeing, rather than as the first step towards hormones and sterilising surgery. No one has asked whether these children and their parents can give informed consent to starting out on this medical pathway when the researchers do not acknowledge that is what they are doing, and nobody is questioning whether they have unrealistic expectations about the outcome. There needs to be legal, political and public scrutiny.
Lobby Day in 2024 for the campaign to make the Equality Act clear
Tell your MP that children deserve better – join us at Westminster on Tuesday 10th March.
If you are concerned about the planned puberty-blockers trial, here is what you can do.
Together with LGB Alliance and the Women’s Rights Network, we are planning a lobby day at Parliament to support people to talk to their MPs, and encourage them to understand the concerns about the trial.
A lobby day is when people go to Parliament together to speak to their MPs. You write to your MP in advance to tell them you are coming and to ask for a meeting. We go into Parliament together to meet MPs and “green card” those that have not responded to a request to meet in advance.
Organisers from Sex Matters, LGB Alliance and the Women’s Rights Network will be there to support you with advice for your meeting, briefings about where to go and what to do, and materials to give your MP. You’ll need to make your way to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster by 1pm on Tuesday 10th March.
We’ll share exact timings and meeting points closer to the date. But please mark it in your diary now if you think you might be able to come, and keep an eye out for emails with more details.
Maya Forstater
Sport, sex and equality with Mara Yamauchi
Olympics, Parkrun – and fairness for women and girls
In this week’s episode of the Sex Matters podcast, Fiona and Maya are joined by Mara Yamauchi to discuss the latest developments in sport. Mara is a double Olympian, a member of the Sex Matters advisory group, a tireless campaigner – and a thorn in the side of Parkrun.
We covered criticisms of a newly published academic study that claims men who identify as women have no sporting advantage over women; how UK law protects women’s and girls’ sport (it’s not just section 195 of the Equality Act); the problems caused by gender ideology in competitive and recreational sport; and of course parkrun.
Find out more about our sports campaign
In the news
A widely criticised study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine claiming that trans-identifying men’s fitness was comparable to that of women was reported by PA Media (as published by STV News and others), Michael Searles for The Telegraph, Xantha Leatham for the Daily Mail and Poppy Koronka for The Times (print only). Fiona said that statistical tricks cannot prove that men should be allowed to compete in women’s sport based on a claimed female identity.
Helen was interviewed by Julia Hartley-Brewer on TalkTV on For Women Scotland’s latest court challenge against the Scottish Government on trans-identifying men in women’s prisons.Maya also appeared on GB News’s Free Speech Nation with Josh Howie for a wide-ranging interview on Kenwood Ladies’ Pond, a $2 million gender-medicine malpractice case in the US, and what the Council of Europe resolution on “conversion therapy” means.
Zoe Strimpel for The Telegraph wrote about Kenwood Ladies’ Pond following the High Court’s decision to deny Sex Matters permission to proceed with legal action against the City of London. She said that without the certainty that there will be no men present, a lot of women who swim at the pond now feel constantly on guard.
Also for The Telegraph, Daniel Martin covered UN expert Reem Alsalem’s warning that the UK government’s delay in issuing updated guidance following the Supreme Court decision harms women and girls. Fiona said the UK government should be deeply embarrassed by Alsalem’s intervention. The story was also covered by Sanchez Manning for The Times (print only).
In the same article, Daniel reported that the government has missed the last possible date for the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s code of practice for service providers to come into force before the first anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling. Maya said that the government’s dithering on both the code and its own HR policies is inexcusable.
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Every woman and every MALE should be like this right now: “Ok, so women are not attracted to our body parts as we were attracted to their body parts so its HORRIBLY UNFAIR to sexualize women any further! Lets Sexualize MALES!!!!