A Week in the War on Women: Monday 3rd July - Sunday 9th July GOOD NEWS SUPPLEMENT

Plenty of good news stories from the gender beat this week. Enjoy!

Victory For LGB Alliance

Best news of the week! Mermaids’ legal challenge to the LGB Alliance’s charitable status has been rejected. Resoundingly so.

Two years ago the scandal-beleaguered ‘charity’, Mermaids, together with the erroneously named Good Law Project, launched a legal action hoping to rob the LGB Alliance of its charitable status. They failed. This week, Judges Griffin and Neville from the General Regulatory Chamber rejected their challenge

In a statement following the judgement, LGB Alliance said, “We are absolutely delighted with this judgment and with the news that we will retain our charitable status. Two years ago, we were clear that Mermaids had no standing to challenge our registration and today the tribunal has confirmed that we were correct. Whilst this is a battle we did not seek, neither would we flee from it”.

Our happiest and heartfelt congratulations to Kate Harris and Bev Jackson and everyone at LGB Alliance. We’ll be raising a glass to you all.

“MERMAIDS ON THE ROCKS” - image credit: @harlequinpub

Of course, Mermaids itself is currently being investigated by the Charity Commission which opened a ‘regulatory compliance case’ at the end of last year over serious safeguarding concerns. It’s hard not to feel a certain amount of schadenfreude.

Bluskye Thinking

Allison Bailey has won £20k in a very rare cost award by an employment tribunal. Garden Court Chambers failed entirely in its cost claim against her.

“We have received judgment from the hearing that took place last week to determine the costs applications made by Garden Court against me, and by me against Garden Court.  The Tribunal found that I should pay none of Garden Court’s costs, but they must pay £20,000 of mine. Getting an award of costs in the Employment Tribunal is difficult, and rarely done.”

Brakes Applied To Ireland’s ‘Hate Speech’ Law

Ireland’s controversial Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 is being held up until autumn.  

The bill passed the final stage in the Dáil in April and the Second Stage in the Seanad last month. However, despite both houses rising for the summer recess imminently, the bill will not go forward to the Committee Stage until September at the earliest. 

According to the The Journal, “A number of government senators requested a meeting with the minister to highlight their concerns about the new law”. Lets hope that means there are some adults in the room who will veto this draconian legislation.

The Countess Campaigns

In other news from Ireland, The Countess has just launched an excellent campaign to legislate the country’s prisons being single sex.

The intention is to amend the GRA 2015 and prevent males from being accommodated in the Irish female estate. The Gender Recognition (Amendment) (Prisons) Bill 2023 was drafted by Laoise de Brún BL and introduced to the Dáil by Peadar Tóibín TD and has been signed by Carol Nolan TD already.

If you’re in Ireland, there are a number of ways to lend your support to this campaign. “Members of the public can help with this campaign by emailing their local county councillors, TDs and Senators. Share on social media and make your voice heard.” More information here.

Bye Bye Mein Herr

Germany’s proposed self-ID legislation has fallen at the final fence over fears it could be exploited by criminals trying to evade justice.

‌The new law was set to be agreed by cabinet by the end of the month and voted on in the Bundestag in the autumn. However, Germany’s law enforcement bodies and interior ministry have raised serious concerns about the legislation meaning that, for now at least, it has been removed from the cabinet’s agenda.

Vive La Résistance

A psychiatrist in Australia has filed a complaint with the Queensland Human Rights Commission against the state’s children’s hospital over its trans health policies.

Dr Jillian Spencer was employed as a senior staff specialist in the consultation liaison psychiatry team at the Queensland Children’s Hospital. Her claim with the QHRC alleges that she was forced to comply with gender-­affirming polices that risked causing substantial harm to young ­people and was prevented from adopting a neutral therapeutic approach to treating her patients.

She is seeking amendments to health policy ­pursuant to the state’s Anti-­Discrimination Act that “No health worker may be required to use a patient’s preferred pronouns” and that “Affirmation of a child’s gender identity cannot be imposed on health professionals”. She also requests acknowledgment by the hospital that a rejection of the affirmation model is a protected political belief and a reasonable professional judgment which should be respected.

We wish Dr Spencer the very best of luck with her case.

For The Reading List

In other news from Down Under, the book they tried to ban, Professor Holly Lawford-Smith’s Sex Matters, was published this week.

When Professor Lawford-Smith’s work on gender ideology incurred the wrath of trans activists, her publisher refused to go ahead with the book. However, with the help of the Free Speech Union, the matter was resolved and the book is out now!

You may recall that a brave schoolgirl started a petition to defend single sex spaces in her school. Initially, Change.org took her petition down. But it’s back up now! So please sign and share if you’re able.

And Finally…

(With the news that Mhairi Black will be standing down as an SNP MP at the next election, now seems the perfect time to bust out this pearl from the archives.)