Author: Debbie Hayton
Physics teacher and trade unionist.
The Department for Education has delayed yet further its long-awaited transgender guidance for schools. Rishi Sunak had pledged that the document would be in our hands ‘for the summer term’, but that looks increasingly like another broken promise.
Who can compete in women’s sports? This week’s* decision by the European Court of Human Rights further complicates the debate. Judges in Strasbourg upheld Caster Semenya’s appeal against World Athletics regulations that requited athletes like Semenya to lower their testosterone levels to be allowed to compete with women. The court ruled that those regulations were ‘a source of discrimination’ for Semenya ‘by the manner in which they were exercised and by their effects’, and the regulations were ‘incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights’.
The decision by two judges to refuse to allow the trans charity Mermaids to proceed with a bid to strip LGB Alliance of its charitable status is nothing short of a victory for gay and lesbian rights.
This morning’s* news that the LGB Alliance has won its case to retain its charitable status is a victory and a relief for everyone who wants to live in a free and progressive society. That status was challenged by Mermaids and Jolyon Maugham’s so-called Good Law Project. Their argument seemed to be that it was not acceptable for gay and lesbian people to set up a charity to promote gay and lesbian rights. If LGB Alliance had lost, we might as well have returned to the 1950s when same-sex attraction was practically unspeakable.
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Rishi Sunak is no transphobe
Does a woman have a penis? Of course not. Until recently, that basic biological fact was accepted by almost everyone. Perhaps it still is but, with the transgender thought police waiting in the wings, it is a truth that few politicians are willing to articulate.
Si la communauté LGBTQIA+ est devenue une église pour le nouveau millénaire, elle attire certainement des adeptes dans le monde entier. Une enquête menée par Ipsos auprès de 22 500 adultes dans 30 pays a montré que 9 % des adultes s’identifieraient désormais comme LGBT+. Parmi la génération Z – ceux qui sont nés après 1997 – le chiffre est encore plus élevé : 14 % se déclareraient LGB, 2 % se diraient asexuels et 6 % se placeraient quelque part sous l’égide des transgenres.
If the LGBTQIA+ community has become a church for the new millennium, it is certainly attracting adherents across the world. A survey by Ipsos of 22,500 adults across 30 countries showed that nine per cent of adults now identified as LGBT+. Among Generation Z – those born after 1997 – the figure is even higher: 14 per cent claimed to be LGB, 2 per cent said they were asexual, and 6 per cent placed themselves somewhere under the transgender umbrella.
Last night*, Professor Kathleen Stock told the Oxford Union that we need to talk about ‘reality’. She is absolutely right.
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What Parkrun gets wrong about trans rights
Siân Longthorpe’s record breaking time of 18 minutes and 53 seconds in the Porthcawl Parkrun highlights all that is wrong with a policy that allows runners to self-declare their sex and then pick up records and awards.
Debbie Hayton 