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 .

Someone can be simultaneously man and woman according to UK Gov Schrödinger’s cat was famously both dead and alive. Since 2004, we have had a situation where some people are recognised by the government as both male and female. Simultaneously. Schrödinger would have had a field day. Approximately 8,500 people in the UK possess a gender recognition certificate (GRC), issued in line with the Gender Recognition Act. This grants them a certificated sex which is the opposite to their biological sex. This allows a male with a GRC to do many things as a “woman” (and vice versa). But the Gender Recognition Act itself contains exceptions for certain purposes. A woman with a GRC is still to be treated as female when it comes to succession and hereditary peerages. (Of course! We can’t have women sex-changing their way into inheriting their younger brothers’ entitlement). Possession of a GRC does not change a male’s status as “father” of his children; does not prevent him from being identified as the perpetrator of a sex-specific crime such as rape; and does not make him a “woman” for gender-affected sports. So even within the terms of a GRC, the holder is treated as both sexes at once. A male is a “woman” when he gets married, but remains the father of his children. He is a “woman” when he is buried, but a man  if his deceased father has a hereditary peerage to hand down. Men with a GRC have also insisted they are “women” when it comes to matters of discrimination, and women’s rights to single-sex services. They have demanded entry to women’s hospital wards, rape crisis centres, changing rooms and hostel accommodation. And of course, toilets. On the back of those demands, men who do not hold a GRC but who claim any manner of “trans” identities have also demanded entry into women’s services and spaces. The recent Supreme Court ruling in the For Women Scotland case on the meaning of sex  in the Equality Act 2010 (EA) brings a welcome return of clarity, common sense and scientific reality to this state of affairs. The ruling unequivocally states that the words “man”, “woman” and “sex” in the EA refer to biological sex, in all circumstances, without exception. The judgment protects women’s and lesbians’ spaces and services from intrusion by males. Importantly, it also leaves intact all three of the protections for trans-identifying people, whether or not they possess a GRC. They are protected – and may not be discriminated against – on the basis of their biological sex, their sexual orientation, and their gender reassignment status. The rest of us mere mortals, who do not claim a different gender-identity, have only the first two protections. The clear legal definition in the FWS ruling is immensely important. Women are always, and only, biological women. And men are biological men, and no amount of magical thinking can make the opposite true. Or can it? Unfortunately, the FWS ruling is not the end of the story. It only considered how people who have acquired a GRC are affected by the Equality Act. But it does not address other legal situations where the falsification of someone’s sex might have an impact. One particular cause for concern relates to the searching of a detainee who claims to be “transgender”. Female police and prison officers have been forced to strip search men who claimed to be "women" on the grounds that this protects the prisoner’s dignity. This has not been restricted to men with a GRC, but require only that the detainee claims to be “trans”. No thought was given to the dignity of the hapless women officers, some of whom have been extremely distressed or traumatised. For some years, and despite the absence of any legislative authorisation, people have been allowed to falsify the sex marker on their driving licence, NHS record, bank account or passport, even if they do not have a GRC. Yes, you read that correctly – a man can be male as a matter of biology, certificate (or rather the lack of one) and law, yet nevertheless have a range of ID documents declaring him to be a “female”. Such instances of sex falsification create a massive safeguarding risk – how do you protect women from a male sex offender if all his documents now show him to be a woman named Isla? Even though the FWS ruling clarified that we have the right to lesbian- and women-only spaces and services, there will be instances where it is extremely difficult in practice to exclude men who present documents saying they are “female”. Sex-falsified documents also have implications for law enforcement. How do you identify a male fraudster if he has documents stating he is a woman? Sex falsification can also be life-threatening for the person concerned, if the doctors treating him don’t know her or his biological sex. Many symptoms and drug doses are different for men and for women. At least one baby has died because medics treating his mother for unexplained abdominal pains believed she was a man, so didn’t run any of the checks related to pregnancy until it was too late. There has never been any legal right to self-ID as a different sex in the UK. That was clarified in an earlier FWS case in 2022. And this year, the Supreme Court ruling shone a light on the ridiculous concept that it is possible to “change sex”, even on paper. Although it only considered the EA, its logic reinforces the case for an end to sex-falsification across the board. Yet there is not a single type of documentation that has not been corrupted by allowing anyone who wishes to obtain documents which falsely record their sex. The UK and Scottish governments must urgently take action to withdraw all such documents, and reissue the holders with ones that accurately record their sex. Until that is done, those falsified documents will provide cover for the many organisations who are refusing to implement the law, or only doing so reluctantly. 'We asked', they will no doubt cry, 'but Freddie had a driving licence showing he was a woman. How could we possibly have known otherwise?' And even organisations genuinely wanting to provide single-sex facilities will be faced with a situation where it is all but impossible to implement. Thus we will end up not only with Schrödinger's sex, but also with Schrödinger's rights - in a situation where we have an unequivocal right to single-sex and lesbian spaces and services . And at the same time we are denied them.

JK Rowling - still as Harry Potter's beloved mother - at the London premiere of the 6th part of the saga 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince', November 16, 2009 Photo Michael Melia / Alamy Stock Photo Polish journalist Krystyna Romanowska has published a long article in Polish magazine Warehouse, about JK Rowling's involvement in supporting women's rights. She spoke to quite a few UK lesbians, including Elaine and Sally from Lesbian Persistence. The article's in Polish, so here's also a google-translated pdf . (With apologies for Google's grammatical and stylistic errors!)

Police Scotland were consulting organisations on their new approach to collecting and recording data on sex and gender identity. (We tweeted a long thread about it here ). They've got the general idea that they are separate concepts and that sex has to be accurately reported. But they wanted feedback on the wording of their proposed questions. Which were to ask about 1. Sex. Right idea, but none of their proposals for the wording of the question are acceptable. 2. Gender identity. Probably good idea to ask about this for statistical purposes. It could be useful for us to be able to analyse how many suspects think they're some version of "trans". But it's difficult to find an appropriate wording. 3. Whether the person considers themselves to have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. We don't agree with asking this question at all - the PC of GR is an objective measure as set out in the Equality Act. Not a subjective notion of what someone thinks - and many people don't understand the EA definition anyway. Our full response is here