For the last few years International Women’s Day has been a glum affair for me: it’s the anniversary of losing my job, and each year the corporate pinkwashing festival seems more pointed in celebrating the silencing of non-compliant women.
This year, though, we have reason to celebrate. A well-timed tweet from JK Rowling pushed our petition on the Equality Act up to 100,000 signatures!
This means we should get a debate in Parliament on the important question of how the Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act interact.
How we got to 1000,000 signatures: graph with steep curve, flat, jump at Scotland GRR bill, long climb, the IWD JKR tweet and steep climb
It wasn’t all JKR magic. As the graph above shows, there have been three boosts and a long climb to get here.
It has been a collective effort involving the whole Sex Matters team, our network of supporters, Advisory Group members, Women’s Rights Network groups, other gender-critical organisations, Mumsnetters and individuals such as Sharron Davies and Daley Thompson promoting the petition.Thank you to everyone, and cheers all round!
I hope the process of getting to 100,000 has been useful in itself in encouraging more conversations at the school gate, online, and with friends. The petition will continue to run till 20th April, and more signatures are worth having, so do keep this going. Also please write to your MP (over 800 people have already!).
I am getting ready now for the very final leg of my legal journey: the remedy hearing on 21st and 22nd April. Onwards and upwards!
Email your MP Sex Matters responds to MoJ No male prisoners should be housed in women's prisons Sex Matters has written a comprehensive response to the Ministry of Justice’s announcement that men who identify as women will no longer be housed in women’s prisons if they have male genitalia or have committed sexual or violent crimes.
Our view is that no male prisoners should be housed in women’s prisons at all, regardless of whether they have convictions for violent or sexual offences, whether they have had surgery on their genitals, or whether they have a gender-recognition certificate.
In order to provide a humane and safe environment, in particular for female prisoners, respecting their privacy and dignity, and complying with international standards, it is necessary to house male and female prisoners separately.
The latest change by the Ministry of Justice finally brings the rights and interests of female prisoners into some focus. However, it is notable that the prison service’s policy on searching in prisons has gone in a different direction: a new policy issued in October 2022 shifted the criteria about who searches who from being based on anatomy to being based on “legal sex” (that is, having a gender-recognition certificate).
Hope Not Hate report Protesters Campaign group Hope Not Hate has published a report which characterises gender-critical campaigns as synonymous with right-wing extremism.
The 132-page State of Hate 2023 document names Standing for Women founder Kellie-Jay Keen as a “leading anti-trans activist”. No explanation of gender-critical views or concerns about transgender ideology are offered.
This is not the first time Hope Not Hate has presented gender-critical campaigns as inevitably linked to the far right. Last year the organisation claimed that “the extreme right is actively exploiting anti-trans focus in the mainstream press”, naming activists including Fair Cop founder Harry Miller, journalist Andy Ngo and LGB Alliance.
Men celebrated on IWD Alba Rueda surrounded by politicians This year International Women’s Day fell on Wednesday, and a number of organisations and news outlets chose to use the day to honour men. A few notable examples follow.
In the US, a male Argentinian trans-rights activist Alba Rueda was honoured with a Woman of Courage award during a ceremony at the Whitehouse.
The Independent newspaper featured an article purporting to define what a woman is written by Jordan Gray, a comedian who identifies as transgender and performed a song on Channel 4 which included the lyric “I’m a perfect woman — my tits will never shrink” before exposing his penis.
In Ireland, transgender activist Keeva Lilith Feereyra Carroll (previously known as Kevin Carroll) was among a number of speakers at an Oireachtas event to mark International Women’s Day. In June 2020, Carroll tweeted: “Cis women need to deal with TERFs, not just us. And by deal with I mean make them terrified and their lives a misery! Hand holding does not work, trust us. They make their choice. They need to be smashed out of existence!!! Be anti terf!!!”
Sex education review Stonewall website page: LGBTQ-inclusive education: everything Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has responded to pressure from MPs by asking the Department for Education to bring forward statutory guidance on relationships, sex and health education (RSHE).
Miriam Cates MP, who has campaigned to raise awareness of graphic and misleading RSHE in schools, warned Sunak that pupils are being given “inaccurate” information, including that there are “72 genders”.
A recent letter to the prime minister, coordinated by Cates and signed by 50 MPs, explained that in addition to inappropriate sex education, “even primary school children are being indoctrinated with radical and unevidenced ideologies about sex and gender”.
Sunak responded: “Our priority should always be the safety and wellbeing of children, and schools should also make curriculum content and materials available to parents. As a result of all of this, we are bringing forward a review of RSHE statutory guidance and we will start our consultation as soon as possible.” Genspect takes on WPATH
Genspect Live poster From 27th to 29th April, Genspect will be holding a conference in Killarney, Ireland and online.
The Bigger Picture will bring together thought leaders and experienced clinicians, including Sex Matters’ director of advocacy, Helen Joyce. The event will aim to “challenge the evidence base for gender medicine and describe the widespread damage that gender identity ideology has wrought”.
Genspect intends this to be the first of a series of counter-conferences to EPATH/WPATH, whose own fifth European conference Strengthening the standards: communities and research is running from 26th to 28th April, also in Killarney. Buy your tickets on the Genspect website.
What to read and watch A Swags speaking out Watch comedian A Swags as she discusses freedom of speech, laughter and how she desisted from a trans-identity.
Two women kissing Read about the Lesbian Project, a new initiative launched by academic Professor Kathleen Stock and journalist Julie Bindel.
What went wrong at the Tavistock Clinic Listen to Hannah Barnes, author of Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children, on what followed the Newsnight investigation into the NHS-run clinic.
Convicted pimp Read this jaw-dropping article in Reduxx about how a convicted pimp in Norway came to run a government-funded website offering advice on the transition of children.
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