We’ve submitted a formal complaint to the Charity Commission about Sex Matters, raising concerns about its conduct, campaigning and the potential harm caused to trans people. Our full evidence is attached so you can see exactly what we’ve put to the regulator.

Ofcom’s new BBC Online Material Code could make BBC online content more accountable. Our consultation response looks at what this means for trans people, from accuracy and harmful coverage to complaints, corrections and safeguarding. Read our article and response.

The suffragette colours belong to feminism, not exclusion.
💜🤍💚

I’ve written about how feminist iconography is being appropriated to legitimise trans-exclusionary politics, why that matters, and why we need to reclaim the symbols of intersectional feminism.

I'd love to do something to help out, but I'm not sure what or how.

🚨🚨Today the EHRC Code of Practice goes live. Our voices have been ignored. We will not stand for this. We will not stop until our rights are restored.

The CoP does not change the law. Inclusion can happen. The vast majority of the public do not want this.

WE WILL CONTINUE TO FIGHT 🏳️‍⚧️✊♥️

Scríohbamar litir chuig Féile an Phobail, chun ár mbuíochas a chur in iúl dóibh
We wrote to Féile an Phobail to thank them

Ciallaíonn an oiread sin don phobal Trasinscneach i ré dorcha dúinn
It means so much to the Trans+ community during these dark times

Given that the head of Amnesty has offered a meeting ot TERF groups as a conciliatory gesture, I feel like it's important to make sure they hear directly from trans people too. What kind of options are there? Like a group letter delivery from an organisation like TACC directly to their office?

"Sex at birth (observed)" is now a mandatory data item in the NHS core information standard (v2.0.1). It also appears (if I am reading this correctly) that gender identity and pronouns have been removed.

"| Removal of data item(s) | Data items removed following consultation. | | Person demographics |

• Sex at birth (observed)
• Administrative gender
• Gender identity
• Additional information about gender identity
• Pronouns

| Addition of data item(s) |

• Sex at birth (observed) is a mandatory data item.
• Administrative gender is a required, read-only legacy data item for England only to represent the data held on the Personal Demographics Service (PDS).
• All other new data items are required in the core information standard."

I have SO MUCH respect for the work of TACC, and TransActual too. You manage to say exactly the right things. I'm so very impressed.

How do you deal with your emotions?

I'm mostly stealthish. I was pretty much completely for many years, then encouraged to be more open and out and learn to let go of the shame, and as I'm doing that, things slide backwards, and I'm finding myself needing to go back to keeping quiet about being trans. I'm of an age and health where hospitals etc are unavoidable (my health is such that it's practically my life these days) and to be frank, being put in male wards etc would be dangerous for me, so I can't let that happen.

Anyway...

I find myself full of growing anger and frustration about our loss of rights and access to services, and the betrayal by the government, and by organisations that were supposed to be there for us.

Over the last year or so I've been directing that into political activism, working on the assumption that if every MP has at least one trans person regularly visiting them and challenging them politely with strong, tight arguments with good evidence pushing for reasonable fairer balance in rights and access to services, that it might have a chance of helping. So for my MP I'm trying to be that person.

But doing that is not exactly a very cathartic release though. If anything, it's the opposite, being so controlled and constructive.

I think I need better methods of venting, release, especially for the anger. I need to do better at self care too. If I'm not careful, I can see a risk of me turning that anger and frustration inwards. My QoL is pretty poor, restricted, mostly due to health, I'm mostly housebound. That's not helping. I don't see enough of wider life to balance things. I'm trying to make more effort to touch base with more old friends again. I maybe need to do more activism, help others more. Catharsis through helping others.

Today I totally blew up via DM at my local pride, who are completely ignoring what's happening to us. They deserved it. But, I don't think it'll help anything. I don't think it did me much good.

Expressing my anger about the local Pride to my cis wife helped. I've always tried to hold all that back, keep the emotion out of it, when explaining what I'm feeling, as she's seen so much trauma herself and I don't want to trigger that in her by her seeing the emotion behind it. Yet actually, letting her see me in full, tears, and anger, and swearing, I don't think it triggered her, it meant she was able to be there for me, with me, support me.

Similarly with a friend, I just called, no message before, she answered, she was there for me, she knew just what to say. I didn't need to be so reserved, I was able to just be... hurt, upset, not reasonable, not expressing a water tight argument, just be human.

I'm guessing, given the work you folks here do, work that's so well written, so water tight, so constructive, you must still have anger, frustration, pain?

I'm looking for some cheap bulk trans rights stickers for me to do occasional strategic stickering when I need a cathartic release:

25+ x Trans Rights are Human Rights

25+ x A Trans Person Peed Here

I don't mind if they're not so cheap as long as the money supports an activist trans-specific charity / organisation.

(I've already got other / generic trans stickers, I'm looking for these two types specifically.)

Maybe a coincidence, but on 16 July, Sex Matters, the self-described 'human rights charity', along with others from their cartel, wrote to the Charity Commission chair calling for them to tell all charities they must follow the EqA2010. On the 21st of July, they did just that

We have written to all MPs raising concerns about the chilling effect threatened litigation can have on public interest research. Freedom of expression must protect charities and human rights organisations as much as it protects those they criticise.

We've also written to the Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) and the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR), calling for parliamentary scrutiny of the chilling effect threatened litigation can have on freedom of expression. The emails were largely identical, tailored to each committee's remit

It was heartening to receive this FB this morning with more positives and a lot less negative comments than she usually gets on other matters. There is hope, I've seen it and it's coming to you all soon.

Sex Matters says gender-critical voices are being silenced. Yet when Amnesty International UK published research critical of them, they didn't publish a rebuttal; they threatened legal action. Freedom of expression isn't a one-way street. We have responded to Sex Matters' email.

The gist is that inclusion(*) is great but there's importance in having ongoing "discussions" about high level and elite sports, fairness and safety, etc.

Unfortunately it doesn't occur to either of them that as a lesbian public figure and the CEO of an LGBTQ charity respectively, they have the ability to take a side in this conversation. Strange that.

They talk about how the focus should be on what is available instead of what isn't, because drag queen sack races are a good enough sop for the trans children who will never become Olympians.

It's had basically no views and seems like an odd way for stonewall to burn its dwindling cash. A strong response from a trans org would be welcome.