Sex Matters

We have been at the UKSupremeCourt today for #FWS3. This is the third round in an ongoing legal fight by the campaign group For Women Scotland to establish that sex in the #EqualityAct means sex. This afternoon, Ben Cooper KC presented our submission to the court. Tomorrow the court will hear from the The Scottish Government and Equality and Human Rights Commission. Support our intervention ➡️ https://lnkd.in/g9Z4Q7xs

Catherine Nixey writes in The Economist on the For Women Scotland case in the Supreme Court this week. "To have a certificate that transforms a man into a woman is, says Naomi Cunningham, the chair of Sex Matters, a human-rights charity, “as stupid as…[giving someone] a certificate to say that they are dead when they are alive or that they are alive when they are dead”. Unshackle the meaning of words such as “man” and “woman” from biology, said Aidan O’Neill KC, acting for FWS, and it results in “absurd” and “nonsensical outcomes”." "There was a bit of this absurdity in the Supreme Court. Is there, asked one judge, a “third gender”? The court tittered. The barrister speaking demurred: there is not a third gender. And, as FWS argues, there are also just two sexes: male and female. The lords and ladies of the Supreme Court will give their ruling in a few months’ time. And it will matter" For more on the this monumental case and our intervention and to support our work, and get updates, see our website: https://lnkd.in/g9Z4Q7xs archive; Https://archive.ph/i8Ft4 https://lnkd.in/e9mHqM4c

Thanks to our UK friends for helping to hold Australian leaders to account for their erasure of women’s sex-based rights 👏👏👏 In this somewhat uncomfortable exchange, Sally Parkin from Sex Matters asks former Australian Prime Minister The Hon. Julia Gillard AC about the further embedding of gender ideology in law under her watch, and whether she agreed that ‘no policy made in the shadows can survive in the sunlight’? 🚨 Gillard’s Labor Government passed the 2013 amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act which have eroded women’s sex-based rights by introducing conflicting protections for ‘gender identity’ and removing the biological definition of ‘woman’, resulting in Sall Grover being sued in #TicklevGiggle. Alastair opted not to respond to the question because he’s apparently afraid of JK Rowling 🙃 🎥 ‘Alastair Campbell and Julia Gillard: in conversation’, 27 November 2024, King's Global Institute for Women's Leadership, London. 📖 Read James Kirkup’s 2019 article in The Spectator on Dentons trans activist playbook: https://lnkd.in/gQHPz9sT ✍️ Sign the petition to restore women’s sex-based rights in Australia: https://lnkd.in/g2qn9K86 #AusPol #SexNotGender #SexMatters #XX

We are at the Supreme Court making the case that the Equality Act, like the Sex discrimination Act before it protects women against sex discrimination, based on their actual sex. https://lnkd.in/eGGHxrfR

The case being heard today (and tomorrow) by UKSupremeCourt will test the legal uncertainty about how Gender Recognition Certificates interact with the #EqualityAct. There is no ambiguity, however, about the lawfulness of women’s #sport. Whatever the outcome of the case it is clear that female-only competition is lawful. Find out more about the legal status of women-only sport ➡️ https://lnkd.in/gcBzzP8j #law #discrimination #equality #humanrights

"Instead of simply providing support to mothers — which has always been free, by the way — leaders are now expected to indulge the fantasies of adult males. This is not natural or normal. Nor are our leaders, who are all nursing mothers themselves, prepared to handle it." Marian Tompson, founder of La Leche League, interviewed by Helen Joyce for The Times. Share token ➡️ https://lnkd.in/gHCAZFWH

An important case will be heard in the UKSupremeCourt tomorrow (on Tuesday 26th and Wednesday 27th November) about the meaning of woman (and man) in the #EqualityAct. ⚖️ This is the third round in an ongoing legal fight by @ForWomenScot to establish that sex in the Equality Act means sex. Sex Matters is also intervening. #WeKnowWhatAWomanIs ❓ The case began in 2018 when the The Scottish Government passed a law with the stated aim of increasing female representation on public boards in Scotland. It took as its definition of “woman” anyone who identifies as a woman. FWS challenged this in court and won. ❗ But then the Scottish government replaced this with guidance that suggested the definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 is not just a person born female but is also changed “for all purposes” by the Gender Recognition Act (GRA). This would mean that “woman” includes men who have obtained a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), and excludes women who identify as men and have got a GRC. 🏛️ For Women Scotland went to court again to challenge that definition. The appeal court in Scotland ruled against them and for the Scottish government. So now it is the turn of the UK Supreme Court to hear the appeal. 🚨 The stakes are high. The decision is pivotal for women’s rights, freedom of expression and sound government in the UK. 🚺 🚹 If the Supreme Court agrees with For Women Scotland that sex retains its ordinary meaning, this will give a hugely powerful legal signal that policy makers and organisations need to recognise that sex is real: women and men are two clearly separate groups with interests and needs that are not always the same. ⚠️ Or it might rule that the law is such a mess that Parliament should sort it out. 📃 Or it might agree with the Scottish government that “sex” in the Equality Act really is just a piece of paper. Whatever the outcome, we are not just stopping there. Read more about our intervention ➡️ https://lnkd.in/g9Z4Q7xs

BREAKING: The Police face legal action over guidance allowing trans officers to strip-search women. We have sent a pre-action letter to the British Transport Police. GRC searching police is abuse against women. We think it's unlawful. archive: https://archive.ph/3fbbX https://lnkd.in/es8V7TZu

The British Transport Police say a £5 certificate gives a male police officer "statutory power" to strip search women. We have written to the BTP Chief Constable Maya Forstater, our CEO of human rights charity Sex Matters, told said The Telegraph that this is a “shocking breach of human rights”.She said: “Allowing male British Transport Police officers with gender recognition certificates stating their ‘acquired gender’ as female to strip-search women is a shocking breach of human rights. States have an absolute duty to protect citizens from degrading and inhuman treatment.\ “Forcing a woman to strip naked and bend over in front of someone she can see perfectly well is a man is certainly degrading.” Catherine Larkman, retired police superintendent and national policing lead for the Women’s Rights Network, labelled the new guidance “state-sanctioned sexual assault”. She said: “British Transport Police think that the possession of a GRC conveys some sort of right for a male officer to strip-search a woman, or for a female officer to be pressurised into searching a male detainee. “Their eagerness to bring this in despite the clear warnings made indicates that they have forgotten about women’s rights, or at best that these can be dispensed with. But women have human rights too. “It is appalling that police chiefs are so intent on disregarding the law and shocking that it is left to women to hold them to account and to remind them that not so long ago, they promised to rebuild women’s trust. Those were hollow words. “This is state-sanctioned sexual assault and police chiefs have lost their mind bringing this in. They have failed women, it is absolutely unforgivable. It cannot go on.” archive: https://archive.ph/iwvtW https://lnkd.in/eSRd3afn

"Sex is an issue on which it is necessary to have some degree of factual clarity in those circumstances where it matters." The issue of sex and the #DataBill has now been raised in the UK House of Lords. Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, parliamentary hero of the #PostOfficeScandal, mentioned our report, Sex and the data bill: Beware of building digital identities on sand, after talking about how people’s lives were ruined because of unreliable data generated by the Post Office’s Horizon computer system. The government needs to recognise the need for accurate sex data – a new scandal is on the horizon 👇 https://lnkd.in/gQ9vWDNf