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We are delighted that following our discussions with Edinburgh Council, the Museum of Edinburgh will now display a notice in the Past Shelves exhibition recognising that the terms “LGBTQ+” and “queer” used in this exhibition are contemporary terms, and that the use of them has been, and continues to be, contested - especially by some lesbians and gay men... [who] believe that applying these terms retrospectively obscures important distinctions between communities and misrepresents their history. (Full text below) The use of language that denies the distinctions between lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and trans-identifying people has been one of the main weapons used by the gender-identity lobby. Having this acknowledged is an important step towards reclaiming our language and our history. The discussions we had demonstrate that engaging with sex realist groups can be productive and effective. We hope that Edinburgh will continue to show that willingness, and other councils and institutions will follow suit. The full text of the statement is: The use of language in this exhibition The Museum of Edinburgh recognises that the terms “LGBTQ+” and “queer” used in this exhibition are contemporary terms, and that the use of them has been, and continues to be, contested - especially by some lesbians and gay men, and particularly when describing the history of the 1980s and 1990s. Many of the publications on display were produced by lesbian, gay and bisexual, or transsexual organisations at a time when the term “LGBTQ+” was not in use, and the word “queer” had a different meaning from its use today. Some people therefore believe that applying these terms retrospectively obscures important distinctions between communities and misrepresents their history. At the same time, “LGBTQ+” and “queer” are used today by some people as umbrella terms for the communities represented in this exhibition. Some people have reclaimed the term “queer”, while others reject it. The Museum recognises these differing perspectives. The exhibition was created in partnership with Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive, which uses both terms in its work to describe the community in general. We have therefore used these terms in the exhibition while recognising that language changes over time and that there is not universal agreement about the use of this terminology.

On 18 August Edinburgh Council's Policy and Sustainability Committee will consider a report on the EHRC Updated Code of Practice. It should be about how the council has set about complying with the CoP and implementing the FWS judgment, ensuring that single sex spaces and services are properly single sex, and are available as required. Instead, the Report largely focuses on how "trans" people will be disadvantaged and the steps the Council is taking to make sure they are provided for. The Council consulted with a long list of transactivist organisations, but not a single lesbian, gay or sex realist women's group. This is simply not good enough. The Report talks a lot about the needs of "trans" people. But says nothing about the needs of lesbians, gays, women or men who do not want to see a mixing of the sexes. This does not meet the Public Sector Equality Duty - which requires councils to consider how their actions will affect people with different protected characteristics, and monitor the impact of policies on them. It includes advancing equality of opportunity and fostering good relations between different groups. The Report does none of this. This is not good enough. We have written to the Council, and will also send a deputation to address the Committee meeting, to argue that the Report needs to be rewritten to take full account of the views of lesbians and other women, and to demonstrate exactly what the Council is doing to ensure it is complying with the law.

The Museum of Edinburgh has an exhibition called Past Shelves: Histories of queer reading. It consists of materials from the Lavender Menace archive. Lavender Menace - which was once a gay and lesbian bookshop, but is now completely captured by gender-identity ideology. Although there's some lesbian info (including brochures from the Deckchairs Collective which Sally co-founded in the 80s) all the blurb talks about "LGBTQ+", denying the existence of lesbian culture and community. Here's a the text of the letter we've written to complain. 28 June 2026 Dear Curators Past Shelves exhibition @ Museum of Edinburgh We recently visited the Past Shelves exhibition at the Museum of Edinburgh, and enjoyed viewing the materials on display. However, we were disturbed and offended by the narrative framing of these artefacts. Lesbian Persistence is a Scottish voluntary organisation founded in 2024, which works to raise the profile of lesbians socially, politically and culturally. The framing of this exhibition is a good example of why our work is needed. A large part of the problem is the language that is used throughout, which purports to be “inclusive” but in practice excludes lesbians. Far from feeling welcomed, we felt alienated, excluded, and erased, in particular because of the repeated use of the words “queer” and “LGBTQ+”. The use of the word queer In the late 20th century, “queer” was almost always an insult hurled at homosexual men and, occasionally, lesbians. But it is not a word any of our members have ever used for themselves, and they unanimously dislike it. (We asked them). We have always called ourselves lesbians or dykes, or sometimes gay. Today, the adherents of gender-identity ideology have resurrected the word “queer” to mean something entirely different. It is used as an umbrella term for everyone labeled as LGBTQ+. It also includes (non-trans) heterosexuals who wish to be seen as non-conforming in some way. This use of “queer” expresses a desire to be part of a minority, always to be regarded as different, and even to claim membership of an oppressed group. It does not express a desire for lesbian and gay life to be normalised, for deep acceptance and integration. As same-sex attracted women we do not see ourselves reflected in queer “identities”. More importantly, anyone using the term “queer” or “LGBTQ+” would likely exclude us from their community because we do not accept the basic premise on which it is founded: that it is possible to change sex, that a child can be born in the wrong body, and that men can be “lesbians”. Our refusal to go along with queer discourse regularly sees us branded as “bigots” by people who call themselves queer. By coincidence, one of us was also a co-founder in the late 1980s of the Deckchairs Collective, whose materials are featured (without attribution), in your exhibition, and which organised the Scottish Lesbian Gatherings. Those events came to an end when activists demanded the inclusion of “trans-lesbians” (i.e. heterosexual men who claim to be women). We can categorically state that to have that organisation “queered” is both historically inaccurate and deeply offensive. This principle would no doubt apply to some of the other featured organisations. The use of LGBTQ+ The LGBTQ+ acronym is also a misnomer. Although the first two letters are supposed to apply to lesbians and gay men, in practice, for the reasons explained above, it specifically excludes same-sex attracted women or men who believe in the immutability of sex. L, G and B all refer to sexual orientation. Everything else relates to some sense of “gender identity” or “queer identity”. These concepts derive from an ideology we in Lesbian Persistence, along with many other lesbians, reject. The acronym is used only to reinforce or promote “gender identity”. We have never come across any use of the term where sex-realist lesbians or gay men are being engaged. Although the term LGBTQ+ does not occur in any of the exhibition artefacts, it is used persistently in the interpretative narrative as an umbrella term in which internal distinctions are minimised. The components that those letters represent, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer, are, foremost, distinct communities, cultures, and identities. And this was especially true in the twentieth century, when the term LGBTQ+ did not exist. Even those organisations that went on to redefine themselves as including Trans and Queer(TQ+), only did so in the last 10 or 15 years, well after the period covered by Past Shelves. LGBTQ+ conflates sexual orientation with gender identity; it treats gender as an individual sense of self rather than a social construct. It depends for its integrity on being othered by the majority population. It prioritises difference (an alleged “LGBTQ+ community” vs everyone else) over diversity (multi-faceted overlapping personal and social identities). The exhibition’s anachronistic narrative presents lesbians as if we were members of a community that did not (and still does not) in reality exist, and as part of a cause whose political position many lesbians do not share. As lesbians, we regard the LGBTQ+ miscellany as offensive and othering. It encapsulates a specific political position: it valorises gender as a feeling; it diminishes the significance of lived biologically sexed experience, especially of women. By subsuming distinct communities and conflating sexuality with an individualised belief in gender, LGBTQ+ suppresses lesbian life and culture. It makes us invisible as a distinct group. It denies the autonomy of lesbians, as lesbians, to build our own community and public visibility. It puts us in a box that we didn’t choose. It is a highly contested term, not a neutral descriptor. Discourse adopted by the Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive The Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive is a genuine treasure in the artefacts it curates. But its curators are unequivocal in their reframing of the past through the LGBTQ+ lens. Their website states that they prioritise inclusive, contemporary language, though in some cases authors may not have identified with terms used in our database, either from a matter of taste or for the fact that contemporary terms did not exist in their timeline (our emphasis). This highly partisan, ahistoric position is evident in Past Shelves, a public exhibition by a public body. It would have been much more inclusive and more appropriate had it not been presented through an exclusive ideological frame. The Museum’s responsibility Interpreting history is always fraught with unconscious bias. That does not mean that egregious distortion is acceptable or inconsequential. An honest narrative would have acknowledged the distinct cultures that flourished from the 1970s well into the 21st century. It would have explained that communities occasionally came together in common causes but were distinct and autonomous. It would have avoided blatant anachronism. Lesbian culture would have been accorded dignity in and of itself. It would not have been subsumed under a political discourse that many lesbians oppose. The Code of Ethics (2025) of the Museums Association (of which the Museum of Edinburgh is a member) obliges you to be equitable and inclusive: to foster understanding and good relations between people of different identities and beliefs; to recognise that narratives have multiple perspectives (our emphasis). It obliges you to be transparent and accountable: to support freedom of speech, expression and debate; to support audiences to embrace and understand the complexity of information and knowledge by presenting multiple perspectives that have been evidenced and researched (our emphasis). A museum should not be used to amplify a singular framing of history while silencing other voices actively narrating that history. Edinburgh Museums has failed to uphold the Code of Ethics in this exhibition by denying the voices of historical subjects and of many contemporary lesbians, and by suppressing dissent from LGBTQ+ hegemony. Next steps This exhibition is a missed opportunity. It could have traced history sensitively and hosted a diversity of interpretations, allowing lesbians to speak for themselves and making lesbians and other distinct communities individually visible. Instead, lesbians have been conglomerated into an incoherent mix whose integrity we and others contest. We would welcome an opportunity to meet with you to discuss our concerns further, and explore future possibilities.

Photo: Jo Brew Sally spoke at the LGB Alliance conference on 18 April 2026 about the lesbian intervention - why she set it up, why it was essential to the outcome of the case, and what has happened since the Supreme Court ruling. Here's the full text. As Bev mentioned in her introduction, I have always believed women’s space and lesbian space is incredibly important. Not so long ago, we had that space - there was a vibrant lesbian culture, with pubs, discos, bookshops and even housing co-ops. The spread of transgenderism killed that. Our social and cultural events were invaded by men, shut down, or forced underground. Just speaking about being same-sex attracted was attacked for being transphobic. On top of that, lesbians are - always have been - almost completely invisible in national and international law, policy, practice and data collection. And, I would argue, we were largely invisible to the women’s rights movement as well. I was told more than once that lesbians were affected by transgenderism in the same way as heterosexual women, other than that we were expected to include men in our dating pool. That’s one heck of a big demand, and one which goes to the heart of lesbian erasure. It was also wrong to say it was the ONLY difference. A strong argument was being made about the need for privacy, safety and dignity in spaces for women - toilets, hospital wards, prisons, sports teams etc. These are all essential. They are also situational - they’re needed at specific times for specific situations. If you need a pee, or when you’re in hospital. But I was concerned about lesbian space. Our right to simply exist in the world as lesbians. To have existential space, rather than situational spaces. Our need for lesbian-only space isn’t situational, it’s foundational. It impacts every aspect of our lives. My lesbian walking group doesn't need to be a “safe space”. We're not specially vulnerable. We just want the right to exist as a lesbian group, to be able to hang out with other lesbians Reading the For Women Scotland judgments from the lower courts, I became increasingly convinced that the lesbian perspective needed to be heard, and that it could have a significant effect on the outcome. Whilst taking nothing from the brilliant work done by FWS, this argument was not part of their case. I realised that the only way to ensure that lesbians were fully visible, and heard, was to organise a lesbian intervention. So I did. Thank goodness. Because it was incredibly important in the final judgment. Many have said it was the lesbians wot won it. There was a key moment during the hearing when I knew - absolutely knew - we would win. They were discussing the right to have lesbian associations. You could literally see the judges’ minds boggle at the absurdity of a “transwoman” having to be treated as a man one day, but as a lesbian the next if he acquired a GRC. “The difference” said Lord Reed “is quite stark”. That's the moment I knew we'd won. And as Lady Simler pointed out, we aren’t allowed to see a GRC, meaning that in practice we would have to admit ALL men. And we have the wonderful lesbian barrister, Karon Monaghan to thank for the fact that lesbians aren't attracted to certificates is now written into UK case law. The judgment clarified that sexual orientation as well as sex is based on biological sex. This means we can assert we are same-sex attracted, and arrange our events and space independently of men. But Westminster, Holyrood and the Senedd have all been delaying and obstructing implementation of the law, as others have said. There's a mixed message on what’s changed since the ruling. Lesbians undoubtedly feel more confident in everything from organising lesbian-only events, to being clear on sex when providing EDI training. Women now feel confident to refuse men access, or remove them from their lesbian groups, whereas before they lived in fear of being harassed, closed down, or even sued. More lesbian events are happening around the country, with at least some advertised more openly. As one woman said: “I can go about running a great group without feeling as though the sword of Damocles is hanging over my head.” This positivity mainly comes from women who are already organising lesbian events. But there’s still a long way to go to overcome years of Stonewall law, misinformation, harassment and infiltration. Some women still feel it isn’t safe for lesbian events to exist, and that TRAs are allowed to threaten or shut them down. Women face continuing difficulties with venues, and being told it’s illegal to run women-only or lesbian-only meetings. One woman was told this by her head of EDI. Another was told by a lesbian city councillor that council spaces could not be used for lesbian-only meetings. Perhaps the worst example is an LGB - now LGBTQ+ - centre which allowed a man to join lesbian meetings. When some women asked that he be removed, the centre refused. So they asked to also have a separate, lesbian group. That too has been refused. We are also confronted by the problem of many so-called lesbian groups being “trans-inclusive” - i.e. mixed-sex - And they have no intention of going back to being single sex despite the ruling. There is particular concern for young lesbians, especially because of the capture of the education sector. One woman told me her college holds an event for trans visibility day. But there’s no equivalent for lesbians. Another college refused to allow an LGB group to have a stall at its Rainbow Week, saying it had to “protect its students.” Many organisations still have “dodgy” equalities policies. I’ve seen plenty that talk about gender or gender identity instead of sex, or are confused about sexual orientation. A lesbian member of the Green Party currently faces accusations of being a “transphobic bigoted right wing nazi” for proposing a motion on women’s rights which included a section on single sex spaces for lesbians. We have never been included in discussions on policy, and that doesn't look like changing any time soon. Meanwhile people who have never previously shown the slightest interest in lesbian rights are suddenly overcome with concern that “butch” lesbians might be asked to leave women's toilets. I haven’t heard of any lesbian groups who have had funding yet. Several have applied and been refused, generally with the excuse that there’s been a lot of demand. So it’s difficult to know whether it’s because of transactivism or lesbophobia. In conclusion, although the ruling has clarified our rights on paper, it’s still difficult to access them in practice. The Government's failure to implement the SC ruling continues to impede our ability to organise as lesbians and undermines our existential and foundational rights. When it is finally published next month, we will be scrutinising the EHRC guidance to check it fully reflects the law to protect lesbian rights. We will accept nothing less.

We've written to all party leaders in Holyrood about the importance of the lesbian perspective, and asked what their party will do to secure full and speedy implementation of the FWS Supreme Court ruling, and that they work to ensure lesbians are included in all decision making. This is the text of the letter to John Swinney, which was sent, with amendments about each party's position, to the other leaders. Links below Dear Mr Swinney Lesbian Rights We are writing to ask you to commit the SNP to ensuring that the Supreme Court ruling in For Women Scotland vs the Scottish Ministers is implemented in full, and speedily, now that the new session of parliament has started. The election provides an opportunity for a reset, after the hesitation and avoidance that we saw during the last parliament. It is also timely with the publication of the much-delayed EHRC Code of Practice, due to be published this week. Lesbian Persistence is a Scottish voluntary association with members across Scotland. We work to raise the profile of lesbians, socially, politically and culturally. We understand lesbians to be same-sex attracted biological women, as did the Supreme Court in For Women Scotland. The lesbian interveners’ argument is widely believed to have had a significant impact on that final ruling. Lesbians are uniquely affected by having men in our spaces. Heterosexual women’s need for single-sex spaces is largely dependent on the situation – using a changing room, or being in hospital for example. Our need for lesbian space, however, is foundational to our existence as lesbians. It pervades every aspect of our lives, from our social and dating circles to our need for sexual violence support. In recent years we have lost almost all of our cultural and social spaces and activities as they have been invaded by heterosexual men claiming to be lesbians. So, for lesbians, implementation of FWS cannot come a moment too soon. Full implementation means all public bodies, employers and service providers must clearly distinguish between biological males and females whenever sex is relevant, and amend policies and practices as necessary to ensure compliance. As a minimum this must include - the reinstatement of single-sex spaces where required – hospitals and changing rooms etc, and of course the removal of all men from women’s prisons; - the withdrawal and rewriting of all policies and guidance, including in the NHS and schools, that suggest it is possible for someone to be the opposite sex, or that self-ID has any legal validity; - the reinstatement of single-sex sports and leisure activities, clubs and competitions at all levels; - the proper use of the single-sex exceptions in the Equality Act and - the accurate collection of sex-disaggregated data. On which point we are extremely concerned to note that the Parliament currently wrongly lists a male MSP as a “woman”. We note that the SNP has consistently claimed to fully accept FWS, and also that you were recently in court arguing against it in the judicial review on prisons. Lip-service is neither implementation nor compliance. Whilst it is open to you to argue for a change in the law, until such time as that happens you are bound to implement the law as it currently is. As parliamentarians we have a reasonable expectation that you will respect the rule of law, and not act to undermine it. Secondly, we are asking you to pay attention to lesbians’ specific needs. Historically, we have been absent from discussions concerning law, policy and practice. This is true internationally, and at UK and Scotland level. We cannot recall a single instance at Holyrood where the specific needs or experiences of lesbians were taken into account Lesbians are also almost completely absent from any data collection. We are subsumed within the category of “women” or “homosexuals” and, more recently, “LGBT+”. But not one of these categories is able to reflect the needs or experience of lesbian women. Without data about lesbian poverty, lesbian parenting, lesbian health needs, lesbian tenure, lesbian’s experience of domestic or sexual violence, or lesbian employment it is impossible to be even ask if any policy will serve the needs of our community. This was exacerbated in the last parliament as there was no Cross-Party Group representing same-sex attracted lesbians or gay men. The LGBTI+ CPG membership was very heavily weighted in favour of organisations which deny the biological reality of sex. We hope you will support a better balance if the group is reestablished. After 27 years of the parliament in Holyrood, we would like your support in calling time on our invisibility. We would be grateful for a response setting out what steps you will take to ensure implementation of FWS, and a commitment to take lesbian needs into account. We would be very happy to meet with you, or the appropriate member of your team, to discuss ways in which lesbians can be better represented by our elected representatives. Best regards Letters to other party leaders: Anas Sarwar, Labour Russell Findlay, Conservatives Alex Cole-Hamilton, LDs Gillian Mackay and Ross Greer, Greens Malcolm Offord, Reform

2 image from: David Woolfall, CC BY 3.0 (Cropped) , via Wikimedia Commons. UPDATE We've received a reply from Wes Streeting (link below). In it he says the government is committed to a "full, trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices." We had raised with him the danger of such a ban negatively affecting young gays and lesbians (amongst others) who might be denied appropriate counselling and information. He goes on: "While I understand that you have concerns about the ban being trans-inclusive, please be assured that it must not cover legitimate psychological support, treatment, or non-directive counselling. The Bill must also respect the important role that teachers, religious leaders, parents and carers can have in supporting those exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity." It remains to be seen if the legislation manages to achieve that. Particularly in light of the final sentence. Given the extent of capture of many institutions, for example, the non-disclosure of information to parents, and the secret social transitioning of some children by schools, we are concerned about what "supporting [children] exploring their... gender identity" might consist of. We will be watching. We wrote, along with Lesbian Labour, to Wes Streeting welcoming the pause of the puberty blocker trial, and for laying an order to ensure the gender clinics release information on the 9,000 children - now adults - who have already been subjected to such treatment, to allow the Data Linkage Study to go ahead. We also pointed out that the issues for lesbians are much wider than the medical dangers - already serious enough - being investigated by the MHRA. All "gender affirming care" - medical, surgical or simply social - performed on young lesbians is deeply lesbophobic, having the intention of turning lesbians into ersatz "heterosexual men". We asked him to commit to opposing the "trans-inclusive" conversion therapy ban threatened by the UK government. Read the full letter here:

Text of talk by Sally Wainwright to WDI side event at UN CSW 12/03/26 The transgenderist project has been, above all, a war on language. The egregious harms done by feeding unnecessary drugs to children, or removing healthy body parts, and the insult to women’s dignity privacy and safety, are only possible if you’ve already bought into the linguistic gymnastics that deny basic truths. Before any of those things can take place, there has to be some level of acceptance that men can be “women”. Men can be women, it’s true. But only if you first redefine the meaning of the word “women” to be “adult human females and any men who pretend to be women”. Similarly, men can literally be “lesbians”. So long as you first redefine the word lesbian to mean “women who are same-sex attracted, and any heterosexual men who pretend to be women.” We see the same linguistic shenanigans in many other aspects of what was once normal speech. I always shudder when I read that an event is “inclusive” because I know that it excludes  me and other women who know what a woman is. Last weekend I went to a lecture by Caroline Criado Perez. What was remarkable about it – but shouldn’t have been - was that she spoke about women, and female bodies, as if it was 15 years ago – no apologies, no explanations about what she meant by the words ‘women’ or ‘female’. She just spoke in normal language and assumed – rightly – that everyone would understand her.   At the end of the event, the organiser told us that the lecture was in support of a charity which works with PEOPLE with endometriosis. Hmmm. What kind of people could they possibly be? And just for good measure, the lecture was being hosted by Edinburgh MEDICAL school. How have we got to the point where even doctors don’t know the difference between men and women? This mangling of language would have been grating at any time, but somehow it struck an even worse note following an hour long talk which immediately made sense, without having to translate trans-speak into English. The For Women Scotland case was essentially about statutory interpretation, that is, determining the precise meaning and application of the legislation. This is usually needed where laws are ambiguous or poorly drafted. There are certain rules which are applied, as well as an attempt to align the law with the original parliamentary intent. In this case the question was what is the correct meaning of the words Woman, Man and Sex in the Equality Act 2010? Could women include men who “live as women”, as the Scottish Government initially claimed? Tho I have no idea how to live as a woman – I’ve been told often enough that I’m doing it wrong - so I can’t see how a man can know. FWS challenged that definition in court and – on appeal – won a ruling that the Scottish Government had attempted to redefine the meaning of the word woman as set out in the Equality Act, which was outside its legislative competence. This meant that the law in Scotland was again – briefly - aligned with the Equality Act, which defined a woman as a female of any age. The Scottish Government then made a second attempt to redefine woman, this time claiming that men with a gender recognition certificate [GRC] constituted women under the Equality Act definition. And it was this that led to the Supreme Court case.  One of the rules Courts use to determine how legislation should be interpreted is the Literal Rule. This states that words should be given their ordinary and natural meaning.  The Equality Act states that the protected characteristic of sex refers to a man or a woman. It then defines a woman as a female of any age, and a man as a male of any age. The judges concluded that The definition of sex in the Equality Act makes clear that the concept of sex is binary, a person is either a woman or a man …… Although the word “biological” does not appear in this definition, the ordinary meaning of those plain and unambiguous words corresponds with the biological characteristics that make an individual a man or a woman. These are assumed to be self-explanatory and to require no further explanation. The judges referred in their ruling to sex as recorded on a GRC as “certificated sex”. They said that a certificated sex interpretation would cut across the definition of the protected characteristic of sex in an incoherent way. They described how this would mean that a woman was a biological female without a GRC or a biological male with a GRC. They added We can identify no good reason why the legislature should have intended that sex-based rights and protections under the EA 2010 should apply to these complex, heterogenous groupings, rather than to the distinct group of (biological) women and girls.. with their shared biology leading to shared disadvantage and discrimination faced by them as a distinct group. They were also concerned that a certificated meaning of sex would mean it could only be determined if you knew whether someone had a GRC or not, and that such a certificate is confidential. Using the certificated meaning of sex also gives us the ridiculous notion of a pregnant man. They’d not be entitled to any benefits specified as being available to women, such as pregnancy or maternity benefits, which are for pregnant women  and mothers . Not pregnant people  and parents . The Scottish Government accepted that pregnant men wouldn’t be entitled to maternity and pregnancy benefits and rights, but apparently thought this was a price worth paying to allow some fetishistic men access to women’s space. The judges however, concluded that Since as a matter of biology, only biological women can become pregnant, the [pregnancy and maternity] protection is necessarily restricted to biological women. References to a woman who has become pregnant or who is breastfeeding “only make sense if sex has its biological meaning. These plain, unambiguous words can only be interpreted coherently as references to biological sex biological females and biological males. They also pointed out that if biological women with a GRC were legally male, they would be excluded from protection when pregnant, notwithstanding a continued capacity to become pregnant. The Scottish Courts had suggested a way around this problem would be to give sex its biological meaning where necessary . The SC was having none of it – the judgment pointed out that (other than in very exceptional circumstances) a word must have the same meaning throughout a piece of legislation. The judgment said By its nature a variable definition is neither clear, constant nor predictable. It is the opposite in fact. It is also contradicted by the single definition of sex that fixes its meaning in the EA. People must be able to read a law and immediately understand what says. Using different meanings for the same word makes this impossible. And finally, the Supreme Court addressed the question of sexual orientation – specifically the way in which the case affected lesbians. Yet again, the ruling demonstrated just how important the accurate meaning of words is. The EA defines sexual orientation as being an attraction to the opposite sex, the same sex, or either sex. So, the judgment said a lesbian must be a female who is sexually oriented towards females…… This is coherent and understandable on a biological understanding of sex. On the other hand, if a GRC…. were to alter the meaning of sex, it would mean that a … (biological male) with a GRC (so legally female) who remains sexually oriented to other females would become a same sex attracted female, in other words, a lesbian. The Court basically echoed what we had argued in the lesbian intervention, saying that such an interpretation would mean that The concept of sexual orientation towards members of a particular sex…. is rendered meaningless. Although the For Women Scotland case was about the meaning of woman, man and sex in the Equality Act, much of the discussion in the judgment seems to me to have a much wider application.  I strongly recommend you read it if you’re at all interested. It’s written to be very accessible, and is full of useful arguments. I’ve only had time to highlight a few issues here, but I think they illustrate why language is so important in a legal context, as well as in day to day life. There’s much more in the judgment which relates to the meaning of language. It is impossible to litigate – or even to communicate -  if there is not a common understanding of the meaning of words, and therefore the meaning of laws. It’s essential that we keep that clarity in everything we say. The power of the transgenderist lobby has come from its ability to distort language. What you hear affects the way you think – if you constantly hear men being referred to by women’s names and pronouns, you come eventually to think of them as women. So we MUST always demand that language is consistent, unambiguous and above all, accurate.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls has invited submissions about violence to mothers. We're disappointed to see she made no mention of lesbian mothers. Though it comes as no real surprise, since it echoes the failure of any international treaties to recognise lesbians. If lesbians are to have our needs met, the first necessity is for the national and international community and, indeed, women's rights organisations, to stop viewing us as the same as heterosexual women in all respects except our attraction to other women. Whilst we are affected by many things in the same way as heterosexual women, there are also particular ways in which we are impacted and discriminated against. Lesbian Persistence will keep calling this out, until we gain proper recognition.

The UN's Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI is planning a report on violence against lesbians. But he includes heterosexual men who claim to be women in his definition of "lesbian". This nonsensical adherence to transgender ideology means that, yet again, men are being centred and women sidelined. Lesbian Persistence and Lesbian Labour wrote a response which has been submitted by a UK coalition of lesbian organisations. Our response critiques the approach and explains how transgenderism actively harms lesbians, states why including men in the category of 'lesbian' cannot lead to lesbian-focused solutions, and asks the IE to change the basis of his proposed report. Read the submission here

Social Work England is carrying out an independent review of social work regulation. Much needed after the Rachel Meade debacle! Here's our submission . Interestingly, the Scottish equivalent has behaved a bit better on the question of gender-identity woo.

We have written to Jenny Gilruth, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, about the recently reissued guidance on supporting transgender pupils in schools and expressing our concerns about the impact on young lesbians. This purported to be new guidance, but the only significant change is about the need to provide single-sex toilets, and even that is muddled. The guidance has many flaws, not least that it is not compliant with either the law or the Cass review. It continues to promote the false notion that every child has a 'gender identity'. It still recommends the social transition of children at school, despite Cass's warning that this is a significant intervention. And says that can be done behind parents' backs. Worryingly it does not provide proper safeguarding measures. We are concerned that many of the pupils who are affected by gender confusion are young lesbians, and our letter focuses on that concern. We await the Cabinet Secretary's response.

Sally gave a talk at the Women's Declaration International conference on 26 July about the origins of the lesbian intervention and why it was so essential to the Supreme Court ruling in the For Women Scotland case at the Supreme Court. Watch here .