Update from Maya
Left to right: Janet Farrell, Sarah Vine KC, Maya and Chris Knight KC at the High Court in July
This week has been full-on with legal work. We filed our submissions and evidence for the next stage of the Hampstead Ponds case. The Good Law Project and TransLucent have also applied to intervene.
And today we received the judgment in our case against the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) over guidance from the Crown Prosecution Service on deception as to sex.
Although the judgment stopped short of ruling that the CPS guidance was unlawful, it delivered stinging criticism of the guidance’s sympathetic presentation of transgender rape suspects, commenting that the CPS describes them “as if they were vulnerable persons rather than suspects facing criminal allegations”. It said that the CPS should remember that this document is not intended to be an equalities policy.
The CPS guidance is one of many pieces of government guidance that has been influenced by years of transactivist lobbying, and as a result is a confusing mess. It uses phrases such as “sex and/or gender identity” 23 times, even though the law treats these two concepts differently.
The CPS has already agreed to update the guidance, and we have written to ask how it intends to respond to the court’s criticism.
The judgment recognised that Sex Matters had standing as an expert charity and thanked our legal team, Sarah Vine KC and Chris Knight KC, for the “very high quality of the submissions”. To that I would add thanks to our solicitor, Janet Farrell at Bhatt Murphy, and to Dennis Kavanagh of the Gay Men’s Network, who provided a witness statement in relation to gay men as victims of “stealthing” by trans-identifying women.
Most of all, thank you for supporting us. Sex Matters has been working on challenging the CPS guidance since 2022. Challenging confusion and institutional capture is difficult. We bring hard cases and we know we won’t always win. But we will keep going.
Find out more
Judgment in our case about guidance on sexual consent
Judgment in R (Sex Matters) v Director of Public Prosecutions
Sex, lies and statistics
Why does it matter whether we collect data on sex? In this episode, Helen Joyce talks to sociologist Professor Alice Sullivan of University College London about her forthcoming book Sex, lies and statistics, due out in November.
Alice explains why sex has always been an essential statistical variable, and how conflating it with “gender identity” conceals differences in health, crime and life outcomes. They discuss preference falsification: how the vilification of the commonplace understanding of sex as real and biological has led many people to conceal their true views. They look at how public and private organisations, from the Office for National Statistics to sports governing bodies, came to adopt fringe ideas that few people share, and why so many institutions have treated people who raise concerns as the problem.
Finally, Alice discusses the need for stronger free-speech protections and an end to the culture of impunity if sex-based data and evidence-based policy-making are to be restored.
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In other news
Cambridge college labels lavatories as ‘cubicles’ and ‘cubicles/urinals’
“It looks like King’s College is trying to wriggle around simple separate-sex facilities by making the toilets worse for everyone.” - Helen Joyce
Tom Jeffreys • The Telegraph
Lib Dems vote against single-sex spaces | Maya Forstater on LBC London
Nick Ferrari • LBC Radio
Left-wing parties are accused of plotting to ‘undermine’ hard-won women’s rights
“Next week Green Party members may go even further in the wrong direction by voting for a motion that would grant privileges to trans-identifying people, while at the same time taking protections away from women.” - Helen Joyce
Sam Merriman, David Wilcock • Daily Mail
Lib Dem cowardice on women’s rights
Writing on a Lib Dem conference motion that undermines sex-based rights, The Telegraph cites Sex Matters polling which found that the vast majority of people prefer straightforward single-sex facilities in workplaces and public spaces, including Lib Dem voters.
Telegraph View • The Telegraph
Sandie Peggie: ‘My nursing union is blinded by trans activists’
Nick Wallis for The Times interviews Sandie Peggie ahead of the hearing in Dundee this week in her case against the Royal College of Nursing. Sandie is taking legal action alleging discrimination after the RCN failed to advise her following... - Maya Forstater
Nick Wallis • The Times
Conference discounts for our supporters
Helen Joyce is speaking on two panels on Sunday 18th October at the Battle of Ideas Festival: one on conversion practices and one titled “Assisted death to sexual freedom: autonomy and its discontents”. Find out more and book using the code SEXMATTERS26 to get an extra 20% off.
Human Gay Male’s interactive one-day Gay Men’s Conference will bring gay men together to explore the issues that matter to them and help shape advocacy based on biological sex and sexual orientation. Book using the code SM20 to get 20 percent off standard passes.
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