Latest news
Scroll down for the latest news of our campaign, and to find links to articles we’ve published, and references to us in the media.
Also, do find us on Twitter, where you can drop us a message, check out our feed, and join us in open discussion. We’re currently spending lots of time reading, thinking, and meeting with people from across the political spectrum — in order to learn as much as possible about, and contribute to, the debate we’ve become a part of. Please contact us if you think you could help with this in any manner.
Owing to popular demand, we’re also planning to set up a mailing list. And we’ve agreed to write a fortnightly column for ConservativeHome (see the links to our columns below), to help us with our goal of informing and engaging the centre-right.
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10 September 2021: The focus of our latest Radical column is the need for single-sex spaces. In this article, our co-founder argues that the fear of male violence is not the only good reason to believe that sex-segrated spaces are necessary and valuable, emphasising that ‘women should not be forced to assert their worst fears and experiences just to be allowed to enjoy female only spaces in peace’:
This is why we hear so many lurid tales of flashers and voyeurs, and why examples concerning safety and sexual assault are used so often in the debate surrounding sex and gender. The definition of a ‘gender reassignment’ is so broad that it does not offer meaningful ways for women to exclude biological men, other than invoking the exceptions by raising highly emotive and serious risks. This is not to downplay the seriousness of such offences in any way, and they are indeed extremely compelling reasons why sex-segregated changing rooms, dormitories and toilets are essential. Fear of male violence is a good reason for trying to keep (all) men out of spaces where women may be vulnerable for whatever reason, and it’s always been a strong reason to this end, to date. But it is not the only reason. Sometimes, women (and men) simply prefer being away from the opposite sex for a time. Some women may be happy to include transwomen in their conception of a women’s association, but others may not. And this does not make them bigots who need to have their prejudices challenged and overruled by force of law.
Click here to read the whole article, on ConHome.
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13 August 2021: In our latest Radical column, one of our co-founders summarises recent developments in the sex-’gender’ arena. She focuses particularly on evidence that the legal commitment to single-sex hospital wards is being undermined by effective self-ID, and also new research from the Taxpayers’ Alliance revealing the vast amounts of money Stonewall receives from public sector organisations:
The applicable NHS guidance on meeting the commitment is indeed unequivocal on single sex sleeping, bathing and toilet facilities. Until it comes to the Annex on trans patients and gender-variant children. Which undermines the entire policy by mandating that ‘Trans people should be accommodated according to their presentation: the way they dress, and the name and pronouns they currently use’ – even if they have not legally changed their name or gender and even if their transition is only temporary. […] A number of organisations have subsequently distanced themselves from the charity. Now research by the Taxpayers’ Alliance has revealed that over just a three year period, Stonewall received at least £3,105,877 from 327 public sector organisations for its Diversity Champions scheme, conferences, events and training programmes. This included almost half a million pounds from the NHS. The TPA has rightly noted that Stonewall’s privileged (and well-funded) position has allowed it to lobby and campaign at the taxpayers’ expense."
Click here to read the whole article, on ConHome.
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16 July 2021: Our latest Radical column focuses on the recent judicial review of the Prison Service policy that allows for co-habitation, which was brought by an anonymous woman who was held in a women’s prison alongside male prisoners. We discuss how, whilst the judicial review was unsuccessful, it brought to light many worrying and important facts about the policy, and reflected ongoing concerns about institutional capture in that the judges involved used classic gender-identity terminology:
First, it is striking that from the opening paragraph of the judgment, the judges use the contested and politicised terminology of gender-identity activists. Lord Justice Holroyde described the case as relating to “persons who identify as the opposite gender from that which was assigned to them at birth”. The outcome of the case will have come as no surprise, therefore, to any reader familiar with the capture of institutions by gender ideology. […] Beyond moral outrage over inevitable outcomes, there are concerning inconsistencies in the current policy. If risk assessment and management is thought to be enough to protect women from male violence, surely the same could be applied to the protection of transgender prisoners on the male estate? The sad truth is that the first “headline requirement” of the policy — “All individuals in our care must be supported to express the gender with which they identify” — leads to a burden of risk being placed on some of the most vulnerable women in our society.
Click here to read the whole article, on ConHome.
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14 June 2021: We are delighted that our latest Radical article on ConHome has been written by Maya Forstater. Her landmark legal win is important for all of us, regardless of our particular beliefs — but for those of us who recognise how crucial it is to be able to speak the truth, she is an inspiration. In the article, Maya discusses her astonishing experiences, and the important work of her new organisation, Sex Matters:
My belief that sex is real should be utterly unremarkable. This is what the law says, after all. But it has taken me over two years and £120,000 in crowd-funded legal fees to get this far. I still need to return to the Employment Tribunal for it to decide whether I was discriminated against in practice. Despite telling my employer that I would use any preferred pronouns that people wanted and would always act with usual professional politeness, I have been put through a two-year nightmare, had my career destroyed and been painted as an extremist “transphobe” too dangerous to associate with.
Click here to read the whole article, on ConHome.
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9 June 2021: Continuing the theme of our last Radical column, in this fortnight’s we provide an update on the growing Stonewall scandal, and highlight the process by which politicians, journalists, and wider society have become aware of the charity’s moral downfall:
This is not by way of MPs holding ministers to account, or by journalistic investigation, but rather is thanks to the determined action of individuals, mainly women, who realised what was happening, and used tools such as Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to bring the truth into the open. These individuals are too many to name, but particular recognition must go to Nicola Williams and Fair Play for Women, Maya Forstater and Sex Matters, Naomi Cunningham and the Legal Feminist lawyer collective, and members of the policy-analysis group MurrayBlackburnMackenzie. In honour of this important work, here’s a list of five of the most shocking and revealing disclosures concerning gender ideology that’ve been made following FOI requests. Such requests represent a formal way in which members of the public can obtain information held by public authorities, under the 2000 Freedom of Information Act.
Click here to read the whole column, on ConHome.
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26 May 2021: Following the news that the Equality and Human Rights Commission is not going to renew its membership of the Stonewall Diversity Champions Scheme, our latest column addresses the serious risks of assuming that any organisation — no matter its stated aims or track record — is beyond reproach:
… And that stands for the vast number of public organisations that have also been blindly following Stonewall’s guide. It’s not only matters of law on which the public has been misled, after all. Just think about Stonewall’s general unconditional evangelism of “gender-identity” ideology. The way in which this ideology has taken hold has not only put some of the most vulnerable children in our society on a medical pathway towards to infertility and long-term health risks, but also to the homophobic assertion that it’s wrong for a gay woman to refuse to have sex with a male-bodied transwoman. Yet Stonewall still claims to be a leading gay-rights charity — as, of course, it once was. It’s devastating that a charity that has done so much good has fallen so far. But it’s not unthinkable. It never is. Whenever we assume that charities are beyond reproach, we leave unprotected those people they claim to protect, and are at risk of violating basic rights.
Click here to read the full article, on ConHome.
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12 May 2021: In our latest Radical column, Kate Coleman — the director of Keep Prisons Single Sex — writes about the dangerous ideological capture of the UK criminal justice system, and particularly the problem of the Equal Treatment Bench Book:
… However, in common with much current policy and guidance across public and private sectors, this chapter is steeped in the ideology of gender identity, which is unquestioningly presented as uncontested fact. This “institutional capture” has been comprehensively discussed elsewhere. The Bench Book goes far beyond appropriate and reasonable steps to ensure that transgender individuals engaged in legal proceedings don’t suffer disadvantage and are treated with respect and assisted in participating fully. Instead, the law is misrepresented, with judges urged to act according to these misrepresentations.
Click here to read the full article, on ConHome.
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28 April 2021: In our latest Radical column, one of our co-founders discusses the launch of The Journal of Controversial Ideas, and the irony of its first edition including an article defending from attack the idea that ‘trans women are women’:
Last week, the first issue of the long-awaited Journal of Controversial Ideas was published. It’s edited by Singer, alongside two other philosophers, though Singer appears to be its prime spokesperson. My assumption was this journal would be a place for full-on Singer-style controversy. After all, a recent New Yorker interview shows he still believes parents should be allowed to kill their disabled babies. So, imagine my surprise when I looked down its contents page and spotted an article defending from attack the idea that “trans women are women” (TWAW). Hilarious! Such an article is not the slightest bit controversial! TWAW is straight-up societal orthodoxy — particularly in intellectual circles. Sure, you might point out there’s also an article in the issue from “the other side” of the debate. Great. But it’s hardly controversial for a journal focusing on controversial ideas to publish a piece on a super-controversial topic — and what’s more controversial than arguing that only “adult human females” are women?
Click here to read the full article, on ConHome.
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14 April 2021: In our latest Radical column, one of our co-founders discusses the way in which UK prisons have adopted the ideology of gender identity:
…You may think this is just an example of the “woke” agenda being pursued by Democrats under the Biden administration. But regardless of your views on American politics, you should be aware that the UK has had such policies in operation for several years. In England and Wales, under the Ministry of Justice and HM Prison and Probation Service’s policy, set out in The Care and Management of Individuals who are Transgender, prisoners are accommodated by default in accordance with their “legal gender”. This means that biologically male offenders who have a gender recognition certificate (GRC) — and are, therefore, legally regarded as female (for almost all purposes) — are automatically housed in the women’s prison estate.
Click here to read the full article, on ConHome.
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19 March 2021: Writing for ConservativeHome, one of our co-founders provides an update on the census ‘sex question’ fiasco:
Some important progress has been made on the sex question, however. Following a recent successful legal challenge by the campaign organisation Fair Play for Women (FPW), the Office for National Statistics, which is in charge of the census in England and Wales, has, as reported by FPW, now ‘conceded that the proper meaning of Sex in the Census means sex as recognised by law’. An urgent change, to this effect, has been made to the guidance that the ONS had already issued. However, many questions remain. Here are three, to begin with…
Click here to read the full article, on ConHome.
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17 March 2021: In our latest Radical column, one of our co-founders discusses current debate about the banning of conversion therapy, arguing that whilst gender-identity campaigners in favour of a ban are seeking to portray their aims as being straightforwardly in favour of protecting vulnerable people from abuse, in reality they are exploiting an existing issue in order to further entrench gender ideology in medical practice:
There is a further complication. Groups who wish to include gender identity ‘suppression’ within a ban on ‘conversion therapy’ should explain how transgender treatments like hormones and surgery do not themselves amount to gay conversion therapy. Why should we not consider it to be the case that children (who are unable to consent to such ‘treatments’) who have been set on these medicalised pathways by UK medical professionals have, therefore, been made subject to gay conversion therapy? The vast majority of gender non-conforming children (a phrase which, in these gender obsessed times, is typically used to refer to girls and boys who simply do not confirm to sex-based stereotypes) do not transition. Rather, they accept their sex, and many of them grow up to be gay. So it is surely possible to frame the kind of ‘therapy’ and medical interventions that are carried out on such ‘trans children’ as a form of conversion therapy. Turning gay and lesbian young people into ‘straight’ transpeople, in this way, is sometimes called ‘transing the gay away’.
Click here to read the full column, on ConHome.
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3 March 2021: In our latest Radical column, we provide a summary and analysis of the pressing sex and gender debates vying for attention this week:
Our second dispatch from beyond the looking glass comes from the parliamentary debate on the bill to allow Cabinet ministers to take maternity leave. Following a rebellion in the House of Lords, the Government relented, and will allow the law to refer to ‘mother’ instead of ‘pregnant person’. The bill had been drafted in ‘gender neutral’ terms, in the mistaken belief that this is what drafting protocols require. In fact, gender-neutral language is only required when it is not necessary to refer to one sex or the other. The Equality Act, for example, is very clear in its references to women in the context of pregnancy discrimination (though it dates from 2010, when clearly much more backward views on gender identity were prevalent!).
Click here to read the full column, on ConHome.
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17 February 2021: In our latest Radical column, we address the way in which gender ideology is serving both as a cause of splits in the SNP, and a battleground on which a proxy war for the party’s control is arguably being fought:
Now, playing to the party base in times of trouble is, of course, nothing new in politics. Indeed, for supporters of other parties, it’s tempting to enjoy the schadenfreude of SNP MPs, MSPs, and activists turning their customary sanctimony and high-handedness on to each other. But don’t forget that this power struggle isn’t simply limited to arguments about sex and gender. It carries with it serious threats to free speech and democratic accountability, and reflects deep structural problems with the devolution settlement in Scotland. Sturgeon may be happy to instrumentalise the interests of trans people and women alike — for it is women who will suffer most at the introduction of self-ID — to try to hold on to her power over what increasingly often seems like a one-party state. But this isn’t just wrong in itself: it likely won’t end happily for anyone.
Click here to read the full column, on ConHome.
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2 February 2021: In our latest Radical column, one of our co-founders discusses the latest developments in the GIDS controversy, including the Care Quality Commission’s assessment that its services are “inadequate”:
The CQC report on GIDS is horrifying, but it is at least encouraging that the service’s failings have finally been formally recognised and action is being taken. While gender identity-activist organisations have focused on the CQC’s criticism about long waiting times for GIDS services (and this should certainly be addressed as the GIDS is operating way beyond its capacity), we hope to see attention being given to the underlying causes of the surge in referrals in the past decade, especially of young girls. We trust that the Health and Social Care Committee will be looking into this in the course of its inquiry into children and young people’s mental health, and call on that committee, and the Women and Equalities Committee, to hold the CQC to account for its long-time failure to identify and act on the failings of the GIDS before now. The CQC’s approach to sex and gender in its other work should also be examined.
Click here to read the full column, on ConHome.
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19 January 2021: In our latest Radical column, one of our co-founders discusses society’s need for philosophers, and why we should be concerned by the appalling treatment Professor Kathleen Stock constantly faces from many of them:
Professor Stock was awarded an OBE in December for ‘services to higher education and academic freedom’. Over the past decade, she has written and spoken at increasing length about sex and gender, emphasising her concerns about the rise of ‘gender-identity’ activism. She has approached this as a trained philosopher – writing analytically about complex matters in a clear and coherent manner. […] After the OBE announcement, many professional philosophers denigrated Stock on social media. They claimed she’s a weak philosopher, whose work is unworthy of public honour, and even – in one notable case – that it’s totally lacking in value. Learning, however, that the OBE hadn’t been awarded for the philosophical merit of Stock’s corpus, but for her embodiment of commitment to free speech, her opponents turned to character assassination.
Click here to read the full column, on ConHome.
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22 December 2020: On our blog, we discuss the progress that’s been made this year, while noting that there are serious instances of institutional capture everywhere we look. We point to the Law Commission’s current consultations as worrying examples of this:
If we had one wish for the new year, it would be for the true extent of what has been going on to be fully and publicly examined and understood. And for those who have failed these children — the adults charged with their care, and the adults who disinformed and emotionally blackmailed those charged with these duties of care — to be held properly responsible.
That this capture continues is all too evident, regardless of the important progress made this year. This progress is thanks to Truss, and to all who have pushed for the good — from Maya Forstater to Keira Bell, via Kathleen Stock and Alice Sullivan, and so many others in between.
Click here to read the full piece, on our blog.
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8 December 2020: In our latest Radical column, we reflect on the result of the Keira Bell case, and how deeply concerning it is that it’s taken a court case to call a halt to what is so obviously an example of the exploitation and harm of children. We contend that urgent institutional change, proper access to appropriate mental-health treatment, and serious accountability and redress are required — now:
The tide continues to turn. The judgment handed down in last week’s Keira Bell case is the latest example of pushback against the agenda of the gender-identity activists who’ve captured our institutions. Regular readers will know we believe this capture not only damages our democratic processes, it represents a serious direct threat to some of the most vulnerable members of our society.The judgment is a damning indictment of GIDS’ clinical practice. Its clinicians were criticised for their lack of data on the ages of the children they’d ‘treated’, on the number or proportion of these children who’d been diagnosed with autism or mental-health conditions, and for failing to track the outcomes of their patients into adulthood. But, if you’re thinking these findings might’ve led to contrition from GIDS, and all those who’ve advocated for these interventions, then you clearly haven’t been following these matters. One of the reasons institutional capture is so dangerous, is that it prevents necessary accountability and redress. Often, legitimate criticism simply cannot get through. And if you’ve ever voiced concerns about GIDS, you’ll know too well about the personal costs involved in speaking out.
Click here to read the full column, by us, on ConHome.
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24 November 2020: In our latest Radical column, we continue scrutinising the Women and Equalities Committee. We stand by our recent proposal that it should be urgently abolished and replaced (see below, dated 10 Nov). However, as we discuss in the column, we still thought it important to submit evidence to the committee’s new inquiry into Gender Recognition Act reform, not least to help to provide some much-needed balance. We also discuss a recent webinar we attended, in which the committee’ chair, Caroline Nokes MP, gave some particularly disturbing answers:
Even Caroline Nokes, the chair of the WESC, shows a lamentably bad understanding of the EA. Last week, in response to a question posed during a webinar hosted by the Tory Reform Group, she exclaimed that the EA has no relevance to men. Can it really be the case that the chair of the WESC doesn’t understand that the EA protects people from discrimination on the grounds of sex, whether their sex is male or female? […] Other moments in the Nokes webinar were similarly disturbing. From her general question-evading, to the moralising intimation that submissions focusing on single-sex risk were ‘ignorant’ and ‘offensive’, to the callous way in which she spoke of foreign-born homeless people as a ‘complex cohort’, it was often quite hard to watch. We fear this underlines the way in which the WESC has been captured. If Nokes is simply not up to the job, then that’s one thing. If she is seeking to misrepresent law, then that is quite another.
Click here to read the full column, by us, on ConHome.
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10 November 2020: We call for the abolition of the Women and Equalities Committee, on the grounds that it has shown itself to have been captured by a single-issue political campaign, and as such is clearly incapable of properly holding the state to account on the important matters within its remit. We propose it should be replaced with a Civil Rights and Freedoms Committee, at the earliest opportunity:
The WESC has even shown itself incapable of advocating for the one group specifically named in its title — women — and has focused instead on privileging the interests, at all costs, of people identifying as transgender. Perhaps, therefore, parliament should bring the WESC to an end? Perhaps it should be replaced with a committee charged with scrutinising the way in which the state upholds the equally-held freedoms and rights of all, rather than viewing these matters through the contested post-modern lens of identity politics? We therefore call on MPs to halt the WESC’s waste of taxpayer-funded state resources, and propose it should be replaced by a Civil Rights and Freedoms Committee, at the earliest opportunity. Focused on questions of equality before the law, instead of the grouping of people by particular identities, this committee could tackle everything from the privileges of citizenship, to the question of economic ‘levelling up’, to the risks of government by decree in the age of Covid-19. These are matters related to the fundamental values of equality and liberty, which can be approached by conservatives and progressives in common cause, without conceding to identity politics at the outset.
Click here to read our column on this topic, on ConHome.
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20 October 2020: We address the pressing issue of the ideological capture of the census ‘sex question’ in our latest Radical column:
It cannot be overstated how important the census is, not only to good public policy formation, but to good data collection and analysis, in general. A panellist on the Woman’s Place webinar referred to the census as “the mothership”. And anyone who’s ever done any research on any policy matter will be familiar with the use of census data; its methodological approach is, for everyone from academics to pollsters, a lodestar for survey design and so much more. Risking its standards, therefore, is tantamount to destroying a foundation post of our society.
Click here to read the full column, by us, on ConHome.
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6 October 2020: Here’s our latest Radical column, in which one of our co-founders discusses what the ongoing heated debate about who counts as a ‘woman’ means for women’s sport:
Superficially, it can seem the simplest of relevant areas of discussion. And parts of it definitely are: if you’re going to try to tell me that it’s simply not at all problematic for a six-foot-three 20-stone former-men’s-team loose-half prop to turn up for trials at the local women’s rugby club, and you won’t even consider why it might be problematic, then we’re probably not going to get very far. ndeed, I’d take a pot shot at the idea that you have no comprehension of what sportsmanship is — never mind its value, both to sport and to society in general. But once we get past the simple cases, we get into much more complex territory. And I’d contend that part of the reason for this complexity is that rules in sport are part of the game.
Click here to read the full piece, on ConHome.
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22 September 2020: Here’s our response — in column-form — to the momentous news that the government will not be proceeding with Self-ID:
It comes as a great relief, therefore, to learn that, aside from dropping the £140 fee, the current process will remain unchanged. A government spokesperson was quoted by The Sunday Times as saying, ”We think that the current legislation, which supports people’s rights to change their sex, is sufficient”. This does not mean that our struggle for civil rights and truth is over, however. The battle over self-ID has shone a light on the state of law and policy concerning sex and gender. In this column, we have written many times about the confusion and misinformation that has been propagated by public authorities, often on the advice of campaigners like Stonewall.
Click here to read the full column, by us, on ConHome.
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1 September 2020: Here’s our latest Radical column, in which we pose five questions, about sex and gender matters, to a set of Conservative MPs who recently wrote an article in favour of self-ID:
You note “there are many misconceptions” about proposed reforms to the GRA. Unfortunately, you’ve adopted misconceptions, yourselves. For instance, you refer to a person changing their “gender” on their birth certificate. Yet, despite the confusing language regarding “gender recognition” in the legislation, a GRC doesn’t change the gender noted on a birth certificate (because gender isn’t recorded there). Rather, it changes someone’s sex, for legal purposes – to align it with the gender with which they identify. Your confusion is understandable, in some ways: the wording of the relevant section of the GRA uses “sex” and “gender” interchangeably, and doesn’t define either. But it’s important that lawmakers – and particularly those agitating for profound change – are clear and specific, rather than helping to spread misinformation. Sadly, this is not the only example of misinformation we noted in your piece.
Click here to read our full piece, on ConHome.
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18 August 2020: Here’s our latest Radical column, written by one of our co-founders. She discusses the way in which the government has delayed in confirming its position on matters of gender and sex, and the danger of politicians hiding on the sidelines:
Legal rights associated with sex have become a political matter, whether we like it or not, and a Conservative government should not hide from making necessary political decisions to acknowledge the reality of sex, and the legal and policy considerations that flow from that. In real life, public bodies continue to adopt policies that are in conflict with current law. Yet these decisions seem to undergo little or no consultation or scrutiny – until, as seen with the spate of legal action against guidance to schools, brave individuals stand up and challenge them.
Click here to read the full piece, on ConHome.
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4 August 2020: Here’s our latest Radical column, written by one of our co-founders, on the topic of CNN’s ‘individuals with a cervix’ tweet’:
[…] So, we appear to have reached stalemate: people shouting across each other on the internet, with no hope for mid-ground pragmatic solutions. Or, do we? Well, aside from my concerns about what all this means for women – and, particularly, girls, as I’ve set out here, before – I’m also worried by the lack of concern for transpeople that is shown by those who shout “Transphobe!”, whenever anyone refers to the realities of biological sex. I wonder whether, potentially, this worry could help us – or, at least, those of us entering these discussions from a shared position of good will – to find a point of agreement.
Click here to read the full article on ConHome.
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21 July 2020: Here’s an open letter we wrote to Liz Truss, published on ConservativeHome. From a position committed to freedom, tolerance, and equal respect, we urge Liz to see through her commitment to protecting single-sex spaces, and to maintaining checks and balances in the gender-recognition process:
As you know, we’ve been thinking hard about sex and gender issues. We launched our Radical campaign last November, with the aim of searching out the truth, from a position committed to freedom, tolerance, and equal respect. As planned, we’ve engaged with people from across the political spectrum, and learned lots from researchers, activists, practitioners, and more. We’re writing to you now to share our latest thoughts, ahead of your expected announcement on the outcome of the consultation on reforms to the Gender Recognition Act.
Click here to read the full letter on ConHome, and here to engage with our tweet about the letter. You can also read the full letter on the blog page, here on our Radical site.
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7 July 2020: Here’s our latest Radical column for ConservativeHome, written by our two co-founders, setting out their top five ‘sex/gender’ reads for the summer:
1) It’s a badly kept secret that the Equality Act (2010) and the Gender Recognition Act (2004) aren’t exactly the best-drafted pieces of legislation. Discrimination solicitor Audrey Ludwig’s deep dive into the former – published just a few days ago on the WPUK site – emphasises its incredible complexity, in a neatly practical manner: she explains how she goes about determining whether someone has faced unlawful discrimination under the Equality Act’s purview. Along the way, Ludwig highlights the lack of “objective research and analysis” into the impact the introduction of “self-ID” would have on sex discrimination, and related issues, such as pay. Key to these matters, she reveals, is the role the “legal comparator” plays in discrimination cases: self-ID would change “who and who cannot be used as a legal comparator”, and this would have serious repercussions.
Click here to read the full piece, on ConHome.
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23 June 2020: Here’s our latest Radical column for ConservativeHome, written by our two co-founders, on the way in which so many public statements about sex/gender matters are rife with bad information, particularly regarding current law and practice:
Sadly, these kinds of mistakes pervade media commentary and the public claims of activists. In the wake of JK Rowling’s recent intervention in the debate, the editor of Pink News purported to ‘correct’ Rowling’s assertion that “A man who intends to have no surgery and take no hormones may now secure himself a Gender Recognition Certificate and be a woman in the sight of the law”. However, when the Pink News report was itself independently fact checked, Pink News had to make its own corrections, because Rowling had indeed been right: no medical procedure or treatment is necessary to secure a certificate. Rowling’s claim, therefore, that “many people aren’t aware of this” has seemingly been vindicated. But are the activists peddling this disinformation genuinely ignorant of the laws they’re campaigning to change? Or are they, at best, simply ambivalent about the truth – so focused on pushing for self-ID and the mandatory recognition of gender identity for all purposes, that they don’t care that the current law is not what they seem to find it in their interests to claim?
Click here to read the full piece, on ConHome.
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9 June 2020: Here’s our latest Radical column for ConservativeHome, written by a Radical associate, on the policing of language and the recent Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill:
The Bill makes the possession of “inflammatory material” illegal giving a judge the power to grant a warrant for the police to search your home, seize and destroy relevant material. Most authoritarian of all, the Bill specifically states that public performances – plays – will also be subject to this, seeing directors and actors brought before a court. These offences may result in up to seven years in prison. As pointed out by writer Stephen Daisley “this Bill comes in the middle of a debate about the law on gender identity. That debate is characterised by robust, often belligerent rhetoric, especially on social media.” Feminists are often derided as “TERFS” – trans-exclusionary radical feminists – and critics are called transphobic for arguing that sex is a biological fact. A Bill such as this would have a very real negative impact on debate over this issue. All we need to do is look at how some have already been persecuted for taking certain positions.
Click here to read the full piece, on ConHome.
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26 May 2020: Here’s our latest Radical column for ConservativeHome, written by our two co-founders, setting out some definitions of commonly-used terms in the gender debate:
‘Woman’ is a noun with a vast heritage; it’s hard to conceive of any verbal human civilisation that wouldn’t have had such a term. Woman relates both to biological realities, and to non-biological norms and assumptions related to those realities. Most of us have a pretty clear idea of what it is that makes someone a woman. It’s easier, however, to think of sufficient conditions for this – e.g. all human beings who have ever had a period are women; all human beings who give birth are women – than its full set of necessary conditions. Not all women have had, or will have, periods; not all women are petite; not all women like pink. Debate rages as to whether all sufficient and necessary conditions of being a woman are biological in nature. At Radical, we strongly believe they are: that sex is determined biologically, and that gender is a theoretical construct.
Click here to read the full piece, on ConHome.
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12 May 2020: Here’s our latest Radical column for ConservativeHome, written by one of our co-founders, about the urgent need for clear guidance on how the provision of single-sex services is intended to be protected by the Equality Act:
Four weeks ago, I wrote about the judicial review of the “trans inclusion toolkit”, which had been published by Oxfordshire County Council to provide guidance for schools in the county. A judge had found the case legally arguable, and it was to proceed to a full hearing later in the year. Days later though, the council decided that, rather than defend its guidance in court, the toolkit would be withdrawn, so the judicial review would not proceed. Now, another piece of educational guidance from a public authority has also been withdrawn, after another judicial review process was initiated by another concerned schoolgirl.
Click here to read the full piece, on ConHome.
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28 April 2020: Here’s our latest Radical column for ConservativeHome, written by one of our co-founders, responding to the recent speech in which Liz Truss set out the government’s priorities for equality policy:
You’ve probably read about the speech Liz Truss gave last week, setting out her priorities as Minister for Women and Equalities. Maybe not. If it weren’t for Covid-19, you definitely would have done: it was astonishing. One justification for continuing to write and think about things aside from Covid is that other people certainly are. In her speech, Truss made clear that she and her team are persisting with matters related to their brief, even though much has, understandably, been delayed. This is reassuring not least because – as emphasised in previous Radical columns – there’s an alternative power-base that’s very much continuing its influential work.
Click here to read the full piece, on ConHome.
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21 April 2020: Here’s our latest Radical column for ConservativeHome, written by one of our co-founders, on the topic of the ‘Toolkit’ judicial review:
It was announced on Saturday that an application by a 13-year-old schoolgirl (known as Miss A) for judicial review of Oxfordshire County Council’s Trans Inclusion Toolkit has been accepted by the High Court. This means that the case will proceed to trial, and that the girl’s claim, which has been supported by crowd funding and the Safe Schools Alliance, will be heard in full. If she succeeds, it may lead to the council having to withdraw the toolkit, along with other local authorities that also use it. The toolkit is an alarming document.
Click here to read the full piece, on ConHome.
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10 April 2020: A profile of our campaign was included in an article in The Critic magazine, about ‘the latest start-ups from wonk world’:
A new group set up by Rebecca Lowe, [former] Director of FREER, and Victoria Hewson, the Head of Regulatory Affairs at the IEA to challenge the emerging Trans orthodoxy. Making the case against ‘Self-ID’ – the right to define your own gender on demand which the government has shelved for now. Currently unfunded and worked on in their spare time.
Click here to read the full article, by David Scullion.
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7 April 2020: One of our co-founders wrote an analytical response to the ‘FLaG’ project’s ‘Attitudes to Gender’ survey results:
Radical stands for freedom as well as truth; we’ll die on the hill for the right of anyone to act (harmlessly) in line with whatever sex-based stereotypes they want. But taxpayer-funded academics must be called out if they’re trying to sneakily push through serious legislative change, which they can’t even get enough of their mates to support in a dodgy survey.
Click here to read the full piece, on our Radical blog.
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24 March 2020: Here’s our second Radical column for ConservativeHome, written by one of our co-founders, following recent reports that the government has ‘shelved’ the reform of the Gender Recognition Act:
Now, if the GRA were to be reformed in these particular ways, it would mean that a certificate would be available to anyone requesting it — without them needing to provide medical confirmation from a doctor, or evidence of having lived in their “acquired gender” for two years. This is already the case in a number of countries, cited as examples in the consultation document, and is informally known as ‘self-identification’ or ‘self-ID’. Although the consultation closed in October 2018, and the Government Equalities Office – which was responsible for the consultation – has stated that it received more than 100,000 responses, no responses have been published. Meanwhile, the issue has become increasingly politically charged in recent months, with candidates in the Labour leadership contest becoming embroiled in divisive debates on the matter of transgender rights, while high-profile legal cases concerning the treatment of childrenand women have been working their way through the courts.
Click here to read the full piece, on ConHome.
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10 March 2020: Here’s our first Radical column for ConservativeHome, written by one of our co-founders, on how ‘the culture wars over sex and gender are increasingly being played out in the courts’:
The judge in Maya Forstater’s recent employment tribunal found her belief that sex is immutable to be unworthy of protection in a democratic society. Harry Miller won a judicial review against the College of Policing over action taken against him for sharing ‘gender critical’ material on social media. Kate Scottow was found guilty of an offence for “caus[ing] annoyance, inconvenience and anxiety” during a sustained Twitter squabble with a serial litigant transwoman. And another judicial review has just begun, into the treatment of children by the NHS Gender Identity Development Service (GIDs) — brought by a nurse, a parent, and a former patient. This growing legal focus stems from developments in UK legislation and case law, alongside the impact of activist judgments by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Click here, to read the full piece on ConHome.
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17 February 2020: One of our co-founders wrote an article for ConservativeHome — calling for people on the centre-right to stop ducking the issue, and join the fight for free debate on sex and gender:
A powerful lobby has taken over, and is in the process of capturing our institutions — our schools, our universities, our police force, our healthcare services. It comes dressed in the language of rights; it comes with knives for our children, and refutation of the mental health concerns of our teenagers. It comes to take away our freedom, and crowd out our norms of civility and kindness.
Brave people on the Left have led the charge on this topic so far. Please, Conhomers, consider joining us in joining them against those who have hijacked this important debate. Armed with science and with compassion, we can work together on this, for the good of all.
Click here to read the full piece, on ConHome.
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January 31 2020: One of our co-founders wrote a piece on Medium — about the many confusing contradictions often present in the arguments advanced by lobbyists claiming to represent trans people:
Then, of course, even deeper contradictions arise at the level of words. ‘What is a woman?’, a group of women on a women’s rights march were asked, the other day. They could not say. Now, is that ‘could not say’ meaning an inability to say, or ‘could not say’ meaning a fear to? Transwomen are women, we are told. Yet, women is no such thing. Woman is not a thing.
Click here to read the full piece, on Medium.
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20 December 2019: We wrote a piece for spiked — about our campaign, and the essential role that debate and disagreement play within a democracy:
During the election campaign, the only politicians who spoke out on gender recognition, which was embarrassingly off the agenda for the most part, seemed to be those parroting the acceptable line. This is not just cowardly. It also eats away at our democracy.
Click here to read the full article on the spiked site.
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25 November 2019: We launched Radical.
We wrote about it, in the Telegraph:
If, like us and most people, you’re interested in sex, it’s been a big week. Attendees at the employment tribunal of a female researcher, sacked for tweeting that ‘male people are not women’, heard from her former employer that holding this belief was “incompatible with human dignity”. Meanwhile, a man launched a judicial review of police guidance on transgender hate crime, after being investigated for tweeting a “gender critical” limerick. These days, the hottest topic isn’t who’s sleeping with whom, but rather definition itself. Even our use of ‘female’ and ‘man’ in the previous paragraph is controversial. The very concepts of sex and gender are under the spotlight, and if you say something wrong, you might end up in trouble.
[…]
So today, we are launching ‘Radical’ — a campaign for truth and freedom in the ‘gender recognition debate’.
Click here to read the full op-ed on the Telegraph site.
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