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Legal Challenge to Puberty Blocker Trial fails
Read More…: Legal Challenge to Puberty Blocker Trial failsThe attempt to stop the Pathways puberty blocker trial at the High Court has failed. After a two day permissions hearing earlier this week, Mr Justice Chamberlain refused to allow the application to go to full review on the basis that “none of the grounds of challenge has a realistic prospect of success”. The Bayswater Group (parents of transitioners), James Esses (psychotherapist) and Keira Bell (detransitioner) sought to have the Pathways trial blocked on the basis that: After reviewing 13,000 pages of evidence from both sides, Chamberlain decided to accept the arguments from the Department of Health and the HRA…
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Decision on Puberty Blocker Judicial Review tomorrow
Read More…: Decision on Puberty Blocker Judicial Review tomorrowA decision on whether a judicial review into the government’s Pathways puberty blocker trial can go ahead will be handed down at the High Court in London tomorrow at 2pm. The judicial review applicants are seeking permission to have the trial stopped, claiming the decisions which led to its approval were made unlawfully and the trial itself is unlawful. The judgment follows a two day hearing at the High Court earlier this week. The puberty blocker trial, if it goes ahead, will study the effects of puberty-suppressing hormones on 226 pre-pubescent children. Half will be given a six monthly dose…
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NHS Fife ordered to publish trans guidance
Read More…: NHS Fife ordered to publish trans guidanceFighting Fife With FOI The Information Commissioner in Scotland, David Hamilton, has told NHS Fife to make its 2024 Trans Policy available to the public under the Freedom of Information Act. NHS Fife has thus far refused to release the document, citing a number of exemptions, all of which have been rejected by the Commissioner. NHS Fife has until 13 August to comply with Hamilton’s instruction. The decision comes six months after the Scottish ICO issued a level 4 Intervention (the most serious) over NHS Fife’s handling of FOI requests relating to the amount of public money spent defending the…
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Morrison Loses Tribunal Claim
Read More…: Morrison Loses Tribunal ClaimA former Inclusion/Audience Development Coordinator has lost her claim against Belfast Film Festival for discrimination, harassment and constructive dismissal. Sara Morrison was employed by the Belfast Film Festival (BFF) for more than four years between February2020 and November 2024, when she resigned. Her tribunal took place in November 2025 and was extensively covered by this blog, funded entirely by readers. In a ruling dated 17 July 2026, employment judge Lisa Sturgeon and her fellow panel member Michael McKeown (a third panel member having stepped down mid-trial after a recusal application) decided that “the claimant’s claims are dismissed in their entirety”.…
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NHS attack doctor asked by GMC to “reflect”
Read More…: NHS attack doctor asked by GMC to “reflect”An NHS doctor has been asked to “reflect” on the consequences of her decision to tear a cameraphone out of a videographer’s hand during a protest in Cardiff in April. On Saturday 11 April several women’s groups banded together under the brand “One Year Later” to mark the anniversary of the For Women Scotland Supreme Court decision in Cardiff’s Central Square. Dr Sophie Quinney, clinical director of the Welsh Gender Service (WGS), joined a noisy counter-protest at the same location. Quinney took exception to being filmed and attacked the videographer responsible. You can read a fuller version of what happened,…
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Sex Matters v CPS Day 2: More Tongue Action
Read More…: Sex Matters v CPS Day 2: More Tongue ActionThis article may be better understood by reading yesterday’s report which also includes a backgrounder explaining how this case came to court: Sex Matters v CPS Day 1: Is the CPS Guidance on Sex by Deception Lawful or Not? The following is a report of the second and final day of Sex Matters’ attempt to have the Crown Prosecution Service’s current guidance (the Guidance) for Prosecutors on sex by deception ruled unlawful. Today’s judicial review hearing ran for just over two hours. It started by allowing Clair Dobbin KC (who I last saw representing Gareth Jenkins at the Post Office…
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Is the CPS Guidance on Sex by Deception Lawful or Not?
Read More…: Is the CPS Guidance on Sex by Deception Lawful or Not?“Questions of deception and consent may involve more complex issues where the suspect is trans or non-binary.” We are half way through Sex Matters’ (SM) legal challenge to the Crown Prosecutors’ Guidance on Sex by Deception. Or as the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has it “Deception as to Sex“. The issue at hand is consent, and whether the Prosecution Guidance (the Guidance) successfully navigates the issues around people who present as, believe they are or pretend to be the opposite sex (or consider themselves “trans” or “non-binary”). Sex Matters contends the Guidance gets it badly wrong, and mis-states the law…
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Gender Surgery’s Incontinence Problem
Read More…: Gender Surgery’s Incontinence Problem“This data is shocking, but they’re carrying on. Chelsea and Westminster are training up new surgeons.” One of the bigger scandals surrounding gender treatment concerns the long term effects of both hormone use and surgery. A particular aspect of it was brought home this week at a Rethinking Youth Gender Medicine conference* by Elaine Miller – a self-described “fanny physio”. Miller has a nice sideline in pelvic floor-based stand-up comedy and is also the woman who famously flashed her merkin at Nicola Sturgeon in the Scottish parliament’s debating chamber in 2022. Her account of the stunt and the planning which…
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A Tempest in Leeds
Read More…: A Tempest in Leeds“Encountering colleagues wearing SEEN lanyards in the workplace makes me feel unsafe.” This is Samantha Tempest. Tempest works for the civil service, and today at Leeds Employment Tribunal he was cross-examined by a barrister representing his ultimate employers, Defra (the government Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). Tempest is taking Defra to court because they won’t ban the SEEN (Sex Equality and Equity Network) group from posting messages on the staff internal message board. Nor will they ban the group itself. Or stop staff from wearing SEEN lanyards. SEEN believe that biological sex is important and underpins the…


