The Good News Supplement: Monday 6th January - 12th Sunday January

IMAGE CREDIT: Kelvin Grove Art Gallery & Museum

A bumper edition absolutely bulging at the seams with good news from the gender beat this week. Enjoy!

Title XX

There was wonderful news from across the pond this week; a federal court has killed stone dead Biden’s attempt to shoehorn males into a law that was intended to protect the rights of women and girls.

Title IX, passed as part of the 1972 Federal Education Amendments, prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education programmes.

In June 2021, the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights tried to include trans-identified males in that legislation. It issued a Notice of Interpretation stating that Title IX’s protection from discrimination would be enforced on the basis of sexual orientation and ‘gender identity’.

Following an avalanche of court injunctions, the new regulations were effective in only a scattering of states. Now they have been dealt a fatal blow nationwide. This week, US district judge Danny C Reeves ruled that the Biden administration’s rewrite of Title IX violated the Constitution and he scrapped the entire 1,500-page regulation.

The decision came in response to a lawsuit filed by the states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia.

Now Title IX is restored to its original purpose; protecting women and girls.

Courting Success #1

A woman forced out of the Civil Service due to her gender critical beliefs has not only been awarded a six figure sum, but compelled the departments involved to overhaul their transgender policies.

Last year we reported on civil servant, Eleanor Frances. She initially managed a team of policy officials at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and later moved to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). She tried to raise her concerns over Civil Service policies relating to sex and gender through all the appropriate channels. At first she was ignored, then side-lined and stripped of her responsibilities. Eventually, she had no option but to leave the Civil Service and make public her fears about its ‘politicised climate of fear’.

Eleanor then took legal action against both the DCMS and the DSIT, claiming unfair constructive dismissal and victimisation and direct and indirect discrimination based on her philosophical beliefs.

This week, in a significant victory, Eleanor announced that a settlement has been reached in her case. The DCMS and DSIT have agreed to pay her £116,749 plus associated taxes. Furthermore, as part of the settlement, the permanent secretaries of the two departments, Susannah Storey CB (DCMS) and Sarah Munby (DSIT), signed a statement in which they have promised to review their ‘gender assignment’ policies.

“We are committed to fostering a tolerant and respectful working culture. As such, our departments are working together to introduce a revised Gender Reassignment policy, informed by a new central model policy which we anticipate will be available by the end of the year. In accordance with the Equality Act 2010, the revised policy will balance the rights of staff with different protected characteristics, including but not limited to gender reassignment, religion and belief, and sex. It will also build on the work both our departments have been doing in consultation with our staff in recent years.

We are committed to upholding our duty of impartiality, in line with the recently issued non-partisan Guidance on Diversity and Inclusion and Impartiality for Civil Servants, and the principles of the Civil Service code. The code is clear that we ‘must carry out our responsibilities in a way that is fair, just, equitable and reflects the Civil Service commitment to equality, and that we must not act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests’.

A well-functioning Civil Service is one that allows its civil servants to safely hold, voice, discuss or challenge any lawful perspective, without fear or favour. We will ensure we have a safe and open dialogue with all our staff, and we are grateful to those staff who have aided the drafting of this updated policy.”

As The Telegraph reported, “Civil servants will no longer be labelled transphobic for expressing gender-critical beliefs under new guidelines”.

Rosie Duffield MP commented on the conclusion of this case, saying, “This is a significant victory and incredibly important to all those who have also faced discrimination and silencing at work due to their perfectly mainstream and personal beliefs”.

Huge congratulations to Eleanor and her legal team.

Courting Success #2

The Liberal Democrats will have to pay compensation to the woman discriminated against over her sex realist views.

Natalie Bird, a long standing Lib Dem member, had hoped to pursue a career in politics. In December 2018 she was nominated as the party’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Wakefield. However, after wearing a t-shirt that read ‘Woman: Adult human female’ to a party meeting, she was removed as a candidate, endured bullying and harassment and was hounded out of her role within the party.

She then launched a legal action for discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. It was a long time coming - three and a half years - but a highly unusual conclusion was finally reached at a hearing on 22nd July 2024. The Lib Dem’s barrister stated there had not been enough time for the party to withdraw from the case so they had put in a judgement against themselves for breaching Natalie’s contract and for breaching the Equality Act 2010, thus admitting every aspect of the claim in full. Such a decision is extremely rare and virtually never happens. Natalie’s lawyer, Elliot Hammer, commented that this was a ‘very important’ victory.

This week the court ruled that the Lib Dems must pay Natalie £14,000 in compensation. She has also been awarded 90% of her costs.

Celebrating the decision on her GoFundMe page, Natalie said, “I am delighted to report that I have been awarded £14,000 in damages in my case against the Liberal Democrats. I have also been awarded 90 per cent of my costs up to 1 August 2024. All this vindicates me seeing the case through to a final hearing”.

Huge congratulations to Natalie and her legal team.

Victory for Open Justice #1

A nurse taking legal action after being forced to share a changing room with a trans-identified male has won the right to have the case heard publicly.

Earlier this week we reported on Sandie Peggie, a nurse who works in the A&E department at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy. She had been forced to share the supposedly female-only changing facilities with a trans-identified male colleague, Dr Beth Upton. When Sandie protested, she was accused of bullying, suspended from her job and subjected to an investigation. She subsequently took legal action against her employer, NHS Fife, and Dr Upton himself.

In a very unusual move, both the NHS and Dr Upton himself made formal applications for the case to be heard in private and for the names of the individuals and the hospital department involved to be concealed. Sandie Peggie opposed this attempt to shroud her case in secrecy at a special hearing of the Edinburgh employment tribunal in November. She was joined in this action by campaign groups, Sex Matters, For Women Scotland and Tribunal Tweets, and by several media outlets, Associated Newspapers Ltd, Reach plc, Times Newspapers Ltd, and the BBC.

This week, Judge Antoine Tinnion rejected the attempts of both NHS Fife and Dr Beth Upton to veil this case in secrecy. He has ordered that all proceedings be made public and that all of the parties involved can be named.

“Potential public scrutiny of a witness’ evidence is an important part of the open justice principle, and it is right that witnesses should be aware of that when giving evidence as it provides an important incentive to give honest, truthful evidence…

Ordering Dr Upton’s name and identity to be kept anonymous will substantially fetter the rights of the press and campaigning groups to report on the case, and the general public’s right to read and have access to that reporting involving an issue of public importance and legitimate debate on which significant sections of the public are likely to take an interest and have an opinion.”

And there’s more… Sandie Peggie’s solicitor, Margaret Gribbon, has requested the tribunal should be conducted using accurate pronouns for Dr Upton. “If the tribunal uses preferred pronouns ‘as a courtesy’, the implication is that it is discourteous of the claimant and her counsel not to do so. But the claimant’s case is that Dr Upton should not be allowed to use the women’s changing room, because he is a man. It is impossible to put that case clearly and forcefully while referring to the man in question as ‘she’ and paying lip-service to the fiction that he is a kind of woman. The whole point is that he is a man.”

The hearing with take place next month. We wish Sandie and her legal team the very best of luck.

Victory for Open Justice #2

In similar news, another legal case involving gender ideology will now take place in the sunlight, not in secret.

In March last year, we reported on Elspeth Duemmer Wrigley, a lawyer who works at a body affiliated to the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and is the chair of her workplace’s Sex Equality and Equity Network (SEEN). At the time, Elspeth was being sued by a fellow Civil Service worker over the expression of her sex realist views.

Eventually, the claimant officially withdrew all accusations against Elspeth and the case was dropped. However, the claimant is still seeking other remedies against the government department involved, claiming that he is being discriminated against by the existence of a SEEN group at his workplace. Consequently, Elspeth and other SEEN members remain involved in the case.

The claimant in the case had applied for anonymity. His legal representatives, Lewis Silkin solicitors and Robin White of Old Square Chambers, claimed that there would be ‘potentially drastic and dire’ consequences if the claimant’s identity became public, including that he would be ‘outed’ as trans. This week it was reported that the tribunal refused the claimant’s request for anonymity. He can now be named as a Samantha Tempest.

The hearing will take place in November. We wish Eleanor and her legal team the very best of luck.

Off You Pop, Then

Canada’s prime minister and gender zealot-in-chief, Justin Trudeau, has resigned from office after almost a decade of steeping the country in trans ideology.

This week, Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has resigned. As Michael Cuenco writes in Unherd, Trudeau has been forced out, ‘kicking and wailing’, by his own MPs. “They had finally risen up after months of plummeting poll numbers, one regional caucus after another declaring their wish to see him go”.

Trudeau joins the group of ousted leaders - Joe Biden, Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf - whose dogged adherence to gender woo led to some of their most unpopular and disastrous policies. Are politicians starting to get the message, yet?

The Tanker is Turning Around

A recent poll demonstrates a definite shift towards sex realism and growing public support for single-sex spaces and sports.

In December, YouGov conducted a poll for Sex Matters which shows that “Public opinion is moving quickly towards the position that people born male do not belong in women’s spaces”.

Almost three-quarters of respondents believe that women’s sport should exclude all males, regardless of their gender identity. Furthermore, an overall majority of respondents support changing the Equality Act 2010 so that ‘sex’ is defined biologically. These figures demonstrate a considerable shift towards sex realist views compared to the same survey conducted in May 2022.

A Level Playing Field

England Hockey has updated its regulations on trans inclusion to make the women’s game strictly female-only.

This week England Hockey launched its new trans and non-binary participation policy which comes into effect on 1st September 2025.

“Based on the current available evidence - and that hockey requires the physical capabilities of strength, endurance, speed and acceleration as key factors for success - hockey is considered a gender-affected sport. Based on this evidence, we have determined that the Trans and Non-Binary Participation Policy should restrict trans participation in order to secure fair competition. We are committed to supporting all affected players to ensure they find the right path for them to continue to participate in hockey.”

England Hockey is, therefore, setting up a new ‘open category’ for which all trans-identified and ‘non-binary’ players will be eligible. The women’s category will only be open only to females. The actual kind.

Hot Off The Shelf

There’s a newly published children’s book just out which challenges gender stereotypes and rejects the rhetoric of trans ideology.

Key & Column Press is a newly launched publishing company “Where books are playful and truthful. Fighting harmful ideology one book at a time”. Its first release is ‘I Am Still a Girl!: Whimsical Poetry About Serious Girlology’ written by Alice Engel.

“Have you ever worried that you're bad at being a good girl?

Well, stop worrying, sister! Girlology isn't something you have to practice--you're born with it. It's not about what you do or what you wear. It's not about makeup, and it's NOT about fabulous hair.

This book's playful poetry and illustrations celebrate girls of all hairstyles, play styles, and clothing styles, while its basic biological facts confirm that girls of all kinds are born girly--right down to their bones and chromosomes.

Are you weird and wild? Nerdy and mild?

The only ‘you’ in the crazy crew?

Good news: You're still a girl!”

You can buy copies of this lovely book via Amazon.

Glinner of Hope

Bid farewell to Our Graham as he heads to the USA to embark on new adventures.

You can see Graham off in style at an event in central London this Monday. Hear Graham in conversation (with plenty of time for an audience Q&A) followed by a book signing and some socialising. You can join the event in person or online. Tickets are selling fast!

Don’t forget that Graham’s memoir, Tough Crowd, is still available from Amazon, The Express shop, Lightning Eye, Waterstones, Blackwells and all other discerning outlets. (There are also audio versions available on Audible and Spotify too.)

And Finally…