Health secretary wrote to Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, urging her to ‘take heat and ideology’ out of debate
The health secretary, Wes Streeting, has called on the Conservatives to maintain the cross-party consensus on gender identity services built before the last election in a letter to Kemi Badenoch.
Streeting wrote to opposition leader on Friday urging her to “take the heat and the ideology” out of debate amid controversy over a puberty blocker trial for children.
Mark Rowley says capital is a safe city, and claims of no-go areas are ‘completely false’
Members of the House of Lords have proposed “totally unnecessary” and “very cruel” amendments to the assisted dying bill in a bid to scupper it, Kim Leadbeater, the MP leading the campaign for the legislation, has said. Kiran Stacey has the story.
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The courts are a clumsy means to negotiate social relationships. Let organisations make up their own minds about inclusion
Towards the end of her life, I was a friend of the writer Jan Morris. I had known her for many years and, much to my regret, had declined an offer to do her “tell all” interview when she transitioned. Jan presented herself as a woman and had undergone an operation. To me she was simply a remarkable woman. She touched, sometimes humorously, on embarrassing incidents in her life. But it never occurred to me that a legal ruling might hover over our restaurant table and block her from going to the ladies.
Last April, the supreme court issued a ruling confirming that the word “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex, not a person’s legal gender. This has a wide-reaching impact on how equality law is applied in practice, particularly in providing sex-based rights such as single-sex spaces. Six months later, a draft code on the ruling’s implementation was sent bythe Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to the equalities minister, Bridget Phillipson. She has been sitting on it ever since, pleading for more time.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
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Not long ago, artists such as Lil Nas X and Olly Alexander were ruling pop. But success has stalled as acts face industry obstacles and rising homophobia. What now?
At the turn of the decade, gay male and non-binary pop stars seemed poised to take pop music by storm. Lil Nas X broke out with Old Town Road – which blew up on TikTok, sold about 18.5m copies and remains tied with Shaboozey’s A Bar Song (Tipsy) and Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You as the longest-running No 1 single in US history – and artists such as Sam Smith, Troye Sivan and Olly Alexander from Years & Years were all singing about gay love and sex.
But the initial promise has stalled. Lil Nas X’s attempts to build on his smash debut album have fizzled, and he is publicly dealing with mental health issues. In October, Khalid released his first album since being outed by his ex last year but only sold 10,000 copies in the first week in the US. A previous album, 2019’s Free Spirit, sold some 200,000 copies in the first week and led to him briefly dethroning Ariana Grande as the most listened to artist on Spotify.
Sandie Peggie won harassment claim against NHS Fife but tribunal dismissed claims of discrimination and victimisation
Sandie Peggie, the Fife nurse who was suspended after she complained about sharing a female changing room with a transgender doctor, will appeal against a “hugely problematic” employment tribunal ruling, her solicitor has confirmed.
On Monday, the ruling of a lengthy employment tribunal found that Peggie, who has worked as a nurse for more than 30 years, had been harassed by NHS Fife when she was expected to share the changing room with Dr Beth Upton.
Letters arguing research could harm participating children sent to medical regulators, health secretary and NHS
Campaigners have begun a legal process intended to suspend a clinical trial of puberty blockers on the grounds that the research could prove harmful to the children taking part.
The study was commissioned in response to last year’s review of gender identity services by Dr Hilary Cass, which found that gender medicine was an “area of remarkably weak evidence” and “built on shaky foundations”.
Some businesses still waiting for final EHRC guidance while firms that moved early to exclude trans people show no sign of backtracking
On Monday, a Dundee employment tribunal ruled a narrow win for Sandie Peggie, the nurse who complained about sharing a changing room with a transgender doctor. But the lengthy judgment also takes on the pivotal question that has been challenging employers, lawyers and campaign groups since April – does a supreme court judgment mean that transgender people must now be excluded from same-sex facilities that align with their chosen gender? Does it amount to a bathroom ban or not?
The supreme court ruled earlier this year that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex. Interim advice released by the Equality and Human Rights Commissionsoon after the judgment in effect banned trans people from using facilities according to their lived gender, and its official guidance is expected to closely reflect that advice.
World No 1 says ‘biological men’ have a ‘huge advantage’
‘She hit nail on the head,’ says battle of sexes rival Kyrgios
Aryna Sabalenka has weighed into the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sport, the world No 1 saying it would be unfair for women to face “biological men” in professional tennis.
The Women’s Tennis Association’s gender participation policy of its tour permits transgender women to participate if they have declared their gender as female for a minimum of four years, have lowered testosterone levels and agree to testing procedures. These conditions may be further varied by the WTA medical manager on a case-by-case basis.
It’s one thing facing a major diagnosis; it’s quite another dealing with your partner pulling away. But does the stereotype match the reality?
Jess never dreamed that she was going to get sick, nor did she consider what it would mean for her love life if she did. When she first started dating her boyfriend, they were both in their late 20s, living busy, active lives. “Sport was something we did a lot of and we did it together: we worked hard, played hard, we went for bike rides and went running and played golf together.”
But around a year into their relationship, all that stopped abruptly when Jess was diagnosed with long Covid, the poorly understood syndrome that in some people follows a Covid infection. For her, it meant “a general shutdown of my body: lungs, heart, stomach, really bad brain fog”. She went from being a sporty, independent 29-year-old with a successful career to sleeping all day and relying on her boyfriend for everything.
Fleeing an abusive home life, she went on to win a national Space Invaders tournament, taught herself to program and left a trail of popular games in her wake.
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