The Good News Supplement: Monday 23rd December - Sunday 29th December
A bumper festive round-up of some good news stories from the gender beat. Enjoy!
Courting Success
A mother trying to prevent her teenager daughter from being prescribed being cross-sex hormones has secured a significant victory in the Court of Appeal.
For the past two years, Mrs A has fought to prevent her trans-identified daughter, now 16 years old, from medically transitioning. The case before the Court of Appeal centred on the teen’s wish to be prescribed cross-sex hormones by a private gender clinic. Mrs A’s case was initially dismissed by a lower court in April but the Court of Appeal has now ruled that earlier judgement was in error.
It’s highly unusual for the judiciary to override the wishes of someone aged 16 or over, who is deemed capable of granting consent to medical treatment and of having the capacity to do so. However, the judges deemed that being prescribed testosterone was not necessarily in the girl’s best interests and that further assessment will be needed. The result of this ruling leaves open the possibility that the girl’s wish to take cross-sex hormones could be overruled by the court.
Paul Conrathe, Mrs A’s solicitor, told the New Statesman that, in the light of this judgement, “It can no longer be assumed that just because a young person is 16 years old, intelligent and in good health their decision to proceed with cross-sex hormones is the end of the matter”.
As Transgender Trend write, this is a significant victory. “We are very pleased that the Court has handed down a judgment that strengthens protections for a very vulnerable age group. It is a judgment that gives hope to the more cautious parents in disputes about their child’s progression to experimental and life-changing hormones.”
The Dominoes Continue to Fall
Italy has become the latest European country to recommend restrictions on the prescribing of puberty blockers for children with gender issues.
Italy’s National Bioethics Committee has updated its policy on the use of puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria in minors. The new guidance states that puberty blockers should only be prescribed when mental health interventions have failed, and then only in the context of proper research trials.
A Level Playing Field #1
Lord Coe has vowed to protect female sports if he becomes IOC President.
Sebastian Coe has launched his manifesto for the position of President of the International Olympic Committee. If successful, he has promised to protect women’s sporting categories. He told reporters at his manifesto briefing that “On the female category, for me it was non-negotiable… If you don’t have clear policies, you end up with where you got to in Paris”.
We wish him the very best of luck for the election in March.
A Level Playing Field #2
The Texas Attorney General is taking legal action against the NCAA to protect the integrity of women’s sport.
Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas, has filed a legal suit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) ‘for engaging in false, deceptive, and misleading practices’ by marketing sporting events as female competitions in which trans-identified males are then allowed to participate.
Paxton has requested a permanent injunction prohibiting the NCAA from allowing biological males to compete in women’s sporting events in Texas or involving Texas teams, or alternatively requiring the NCAA to stop marketing events as women’s competitions when in reality they are mixed sex.
Leaving Them Kids Alone
Pixar have changed their minds about a ‘trans storyline’ in its animated streaming series, Win or Lose.
Win or Lose is Disney Pixar’s first-ever original long-form animated series. It centres around the members of a middle school softball team called The Pickles. It was to have featured a transgender storyline in an upcoming episode but that has now been dropped.
A spokesperson for Disney told The Hollywood Reporter, “When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline”.
See You In Court
Sex Matters is taking legal action against British Transport Police over its policy of allowing trans-identified males to perform intimate searches on female suspects.
In September the British Transport Police (BTP) issued guidelines that allow trans-identified male officers to strip search female suspects if the officer has a GRC.
Sex Matters is now taking legal action, seeking a judicial review of BTP’s adoption of this policy on three grounds:
The policy is systemically flawed for being inherently incompatible with, sanctioning or encouraging violations of the Human Rights Act, the European Convention on Human Rights and the Equality Act 2010, and is irrational.
The policy amounts to an error of law and/or is incompatible with sections 54 and 55 of PACE.
There has been a breach of the public-sector equality duty and/or failure of sufficient inquiry and/or failure to take into account relevant considerations.
Due to the serious Article 3 ECHR breaches that will occur under BTP’s policy, Sex Matter have asked the High Court to consider this claim more quickly than usual.
The redoubtable Akua Reindorf KC is the barrister representing Sex Matters in this case, and how exciting to see the brilliant Beth Grossman working on it too! For more information and to contribute to the legal costs, please see this link.
We wish Sex Matters and their legal team the very best of luck.
A Room of One’s Own
The head of Britain’s equalities watchdog has intervened over Labour’s acceptance of males in women’s legally protected spaces.
Last week we reported on the government’s tacit approval of the use of women’s spaces by trans-identified males.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has now intervened in this matter and demanded to see the transgender policies of hundreds of public bodies.
Baroness Falkner, the EHRC chair, said that her organisation would examine these policies and decide whether or not the Equality Act 2010 is being followed correctly in respect of women’s legally protected single-sex spaces.
Moira’s Back!
Wonderful news from down under; Moira Deeming MP has been reinstated to the Liberal Party room with a landslide victory of 23 votes to 4.
As a result, she was then able to take part in a vote to oust John Pesutto from his role as Victorian Liberal Leader and replace him with Brad Battin.
Looks like karma really is a TERF.
Wishing you all a wonderful new year and every happiness for 2025.
Well done to Mrs A for taking on the establishment's view that 16 year old children are capable of making best interest decisions on life changing medical treatments. After all, you can't buy a beer at 16!. This is exactly what we need the judiciary to be - the Grown Ups in the Room. We need laws that first and foremost protect our children from themselves and/or deluded parents, who are quite often attention-seeking, Munchausen's by proxy types.
Good to see Sex Matters taking BTP to court - one to help fund.
I do hope Seb Coe gets IOC job, fingers crossed
Great stuff JL, thank you so much for this demanding and difficult, but essential work - and Happy New Year!
Thank you for all your hard work, and a special thanks for ending the year with a good news edition! The other ones are SO depressing!