Author: Debbie Hayton

Physics teacher and trade unionist.

Categories
Sex and Gender

Language police twist trans cause

Lionel Shriver’s superb article “Why are the language police trying to wipe out women?” (News Review, last week) exposes the real focus of an out-of-control lobby that purports to support trans rights.

Changes to language alter the way we think. Divorcing the word woman from female biology separates women from their sex-based rights. It is misogyny, and in plain sight.

Meanwhile, the needs of trans people such as me — in particular, for medical and psychological support — continue to go unaddressed.

Debbie Hayton
Birmingham

* This letter was published by The Sunday Times on 21 February 2021: Language police twist trans cause.

Categories
GRA Reform

Why do we need more consultation on the Gender Recognition Act?

Debbie Hayton reports on the endless moves in Parliament to amend the Gender Recognition Act and asks whether MPs are focussed on the wrong target.

Continue reading “Why do we need more consultation on the Gender Recognition Act?”
Categories
Sex and Gender

Ideological virtue signalling does not advance trans rights or battle transphobia…it trivialises them

From using terms like ‘chestfeeding’ to claiming campaigning against trans electoral candidates is transphobic, trans activism has changed from an earnest campaign for rights into a mission to replace evidence with emotions.

Continue reading “Ideological virtue signalling does not advance trans rights or battle transphobia…it trivialises them”
Categories
GRA Reform Sex and Gender

Does the SNP really want to copy Norway’s gender revolution?

Five years ago, in June 2016, Norway allowed anyone to change their legal gender. Legislative Decree 71 was everything that the gender identity brigade would like to introduce in the UK: no diagnosis, no medical reports, pure self-identification. The age limit was set at six years old, providing the child has at least one parent’s consent.

Continue reading “Does the SNP really want to copy Norway’s gender revolution?”
Categories
Data Collection

It’s not right for a census to ignore people’s biological sex at birth simply to appease trans people like me

The usually dull once-a-decade government counting exercise is at the centre of a row, as members of the gender-identity lobby seek to declare themselves to be whatever they choose. But that would be a missed opportunity for us.

Continue reading “It’s not right for a census to ignore people’s biological sex at birth simply to appease trans people like me”
Categories
GRA Reform

Transgender people need better services, not self-ID

This post comprises the my written evidence supplied to the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee inquiry into reform of the Gender Recognition Act that opened on 28 October 2020

It was published by the Committee on their website on 26 January 2021 in both PDF and HTML formats.

Continue reading “Transgender people need better services, not self-ID”
Categories
Sex and Gender

“Chestfeeding”

Sir, Further to your report “ ‘Chestfeeding’ advice from trans-friendly midwives” (Feb 10), if Brighton and Sussex University NHS Trust needs a formal “gender inclusive language policy” to instruct staff to treat all patients with dignity and respect, then it has a bigger problem than “transphobia”. It is not “biological essentialism” to say that mothers give birth to children, and then breastfeed them with mother’s milk. It is essential biology.

Such attempts to control language may backfire spectacularly on transgender people like me as the public tires of being told what they are expected to think. If even the facts of life are deemed to be transphobic, then perhaps transphobia has lost all meaning.


Debbie Hayton
Birmingham

* This letter was published by The Times on 11 February 2021: Chestfeeding.

Categories
COVID-19 Education

Sorry Boris, school’s out for summer

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a disaster for children. But calls to extend the school year are not the answer. Obviously, teacher unions will object if their members are instructed to work more days and longer hours in the summer without a pay deal to compensate. However, if their protests have scuppered those plans so quickly, the government needs a better strategy. Besides, children need a new approach now, not later.

Continue reading “Sorry Boris, school’s out for summer”
Categories
Sex and Gender

Is the past being rewritten in LGBT+ history month?

Did you know that February is LGBT+ history month? If you have a ‘progressive’ employer you probably do. Banks, universities, local councils, NHS services and train operators are all getting on board. Rainbow flags are flying high above buildings across Britain. But do lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people really need their own month to reflect on the past? Or is this more an occasion to virtue signal in the present?

Continue reading “Is the past being rewritten in LGBT+ history month?”
Categories
Sex and Gender

The transgender debate is tearing the SNP apart

The storm that has been gathering within the SNP over transgender rights has now blown up at Westminster with the sacking of Joanna Cherry MP from her front bench role as Spokesperson on Justice and Home Affairs.

Continue reading “The transgender debate is tearing the SNP apart”