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The Guardian
16 hours ago
- General
- The Guardian
Why is there such a generational divide in views on sex and gender in Britain?
Differing attitudes to women's and transgender rights activism are often said to be generational. One poll, published a month on from the supreme court ruling that the legal definition of 'woman' in the Equality Act is based on biological sex, found 63% supportive of the ruling and 18% opposed. But younger people were far more likely to be in the latter camp, with 53% of 18- to 24-year-olds disagreeing with the judgment. In my age group, 50-64, the figure was just 13%. Such results echo earlier polls. As with any attempt to link a demographic with a point of view, there are plenty of exceptions. Last month Lady Hale, the octogenarian former president of the supreme court, became one of them when she argued that the ruling had been misinterpreted, telling a literary festival she had met doctors 'who said there is no such thing as biological sex'. The progressive explanation for the age gap is in the name: progress. As the arc of history bends towards justice, younger people are ahead of the curve. Social scientists call this a cohort effect, which basically means that when you are born is one of the influences (along with income, education and so on) on your politics. In relation to transgender rights, the reasoning is that people born since the 1980s are more relaxed about sex and sexuality, and more committed to personal freedoms including the right to define one's own identity. The obvious catch to this analysis, at the moment, is the way some young men have swung towards the hard right. If a cohort effect applies when it comes to gender, and assuming that future cohorts are in agreement, gender identity advocates can look forward to winning this argument eventually. Older, conservative voters (and politicians and judges and journalists such as me), who don't think someone's trans identity should take precedence over their biological sex when society decides which sports teams or prisons they belong in, are just causing a delay. This was the view endorsed by David Lammy in 2021 when he said there were 'dinosaurs […] in our own party' who want to 'hoard rights'. The extinction of such people would, he implied, sort things out in the end. Along with other middle-aged, gender-critical women, I have got used to dismissals such as Lammy's. One of us, Victoria Smith, wrote a book about such attitudes and called it Hags. But terminology aside, I think those who characterise this struggle as being between young progressives and ageing reactionaries are mistaken. While I fully support transgender people's right to be protected from discrimination, I don't regard the erosion of sex-based entitlements – including single-sex sports and spaces – in favour of an ethos of 'inclusion' as either liberal or leftwing. On the contrary, I think valuing inclusion over bodily privacy (in changing rooms) or fairness (in sports) is sexist – since women are more disadvantaged by these changes than men. And while gender identity campaigners claim autonomy and choice as progressive, even socialist, values, I see their emphasis on the individual's right to self-definition as congruent with consumer capitalism. Multinational corporations, including banks and retailers, embrace Stonewall's Workplace Equality Index and fly Progress Pride flags from their buildings because the shift away from the class politics of redistribution towards the identity politics of personal expression suits them. In 2023 the 40th British Social Attitudes survey described the widening age gap in UK politics as 'a puzzle', with changing party loyalties only partly mirrored in answers to questions seeking to place people on a left-right spectrum or a liberal-authoritarian one. To anyone looking for answers to the question of why such age differences exist – in relation to the supreme court or other issues – I would suggest that as well as cohorts (gen X versus Z and so on), they should consider the life cycle. Clearly, some things matter more to people as they get older, pensions being an obvious example. What if biological sex is another? This rings true with aspects of my own experience. For example, it wasn't until I had children that I learned about birth injuries, came face to face with pregnancy and maternity discrimination, or understood that the gender pay gap is also a motherhood penalty. It's not that I hadn't been aware of my female body before this. But one of the things about having babies is the way that the biological and social become so enmeshed. More recently, I've become fascinated by female evolutionary thinkers such as Sarah Hrdy, whose life's work has been to explore this tangle. Now, at 53, there is menopause and ageing. Most weeks my yoga teacher has something to say about the importance for women of strength-building exercises to ward off osteoporosis; of keeping our femur bones firmly in our hip sockets and using muscles to hold our reproductive organs in place. That male and female bodies go wrong in different ways is nothing new: the most common cancer for women worldwide is breast cancer, while in England prostate cancer is the most frequently diagnosed in men. What has only recently become better known, thanks to advances in medical research and campaigners such as Caroline Criado Perez, is that even when we get the same diseases there are differences, with examples including heart disease, Parkinson's and dementia. As with reproduction, later-life physiological divergences have social and economic consequences. Social care is a feminist issue due to women's greater longevity, as well as the sector's predominantly female workforce. Most of the poorest pensioners are single women as many wives outlive their husbands, but also because of lower average lifetime earnings linked to women taking breaks from employment to care for children. And what about men? Like women, the older they are, the less likely they are to tell pollsters that gender identity should replace biological sex as a legal and social category. This makes sense to me, since my argument is that consciousness of sexual difference accumulates across the life-course. The fact that men are far less likely to be actively involved in campaigning on this issue than gender-critical women – even when they agree with us – is also easy to understand. Now, as in the past, men need legal protection against sex-based discrimination, abuse or injustice much less often than women. I don't presume to predict that today's gender identity activists will one day change their minds. But it has never seemed clearer to me than it does now that women and men have some different needs and experiences that the law must recognise. Far from an old fogey's statute, I think the 15-year-old Equality Act, with its staunch protection of sex-based rights, is full of life. Susanna Rustin is a social affairs journalist and the author of Sexed: A History of British Feminism
Reuters
2 days ago
- Health
- Reuters
US judge says prisons must provide gender-affirming care for inmates
NEW YORK, June 3 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Tuesday ruled the U.S. Bureau of Prisons must keep providing transgender inmates gender-affirming care, despite an executive order President Donald Trump signed on his first day back in office to halt funding for such care. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, D.C., allowed a group of more than 2,000 transgender inmates in federal prisons to pursue a lawsuit challenging the order as a class action. He ordered the Bureau of Prisons to provide them with hormone therapy and accommodations such as clothing and hair-removal devices while the lawsuit plays out. The ruling does not require the bureau to provide surgical care related to gender transitions. White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said the Trump administration expects to ultimately prevail in the legal dispute. "The District Court's decision allowing transgender women, aka MEN, in women's prisons fundamentally makes women less safe and ignores the biological truth that there are only two genders," Fields said in an email. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the inmates, said the ruling was "a critical reminder to the Trump administration that trans people, like all people, have constitutional rights that don't simply disappear because the president has decided to wage an ideological battle." About 2,230 transgender inmates are housed in federal custodial facilities and halfway houses, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. About two-thirds of them, 1,506, are transgender women, most of whom are housed in men's prisons. The named plaintiffs, two transgender men and one transgender woman, sued the Trump administration in March to challenge Trump's January 20 executive order aimed at combating what the administration called "gender ideology extremism." The executive order directed the federal government to only recognize two, biologically distinct sexes, male and female; and house transgender women in men's prisons. It also ordered the bureau to stop spending any money on "any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate's appearance to that of the opposite sex." Lamberth, appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, said in Tuesday's ruling that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their lawsuit because the bureau did not perform any analysis before cutting off treatment that its own medical staff had previously deemed to be medically appropriate for the inmates. Even if it had extensively studied the issue before deciding to stop gender-affirming care, the decision might still violate the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment's protections against "cruel and unusual" punishment, Lamberth wrote. The Department of Justice had argued that the judge should defer to the policy decision of a democratically elected president, but Lamberth said a functioning democracy requires respect for "all duly enacted laws," including those that blocked the executive branch from acting in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner. Democratic self-governance "does not mean blind submission to the whims of the most recent election-victor," Lamberth wrote. The executive order said it was meant to promote the "dignity, safety, and wellbeing of women, and to stop the spread of "gender ideology" which denies "the immutable biological reality of sex." But the inmates receiving hormone treatments had little interest in promoting any ideology, and were instead taking "measures to lessen the personal anguish caused by their gender dysphoria," Lamberth wrote.
New York Times
2 days ago
- Health
- New York Times
Judge Blocks Trump Effort to End Treatment for Transgender Inmates
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons must provide transgender inmates with hormone therapy and social accommodations such as gender-appropriate clothing while a lawsuit over the issue proceeds, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday. The ruling, by Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, also certified a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of more than 1,000 inmates who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. The lawsuit claims the Trump administration's policy denying gender-related treatment to prisoners violates their Eighth Amendment right to medical care and the Administrative Procedure Act, which prohibits 'arbitrary and capricious' actions by federal agencies. In his order, Judge Lamberth said it was not necessary to address the constitutional issue at this stage of the case because the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on Administrative Procedure Act grounds. Under the act, he wrote, the Bureau of Prisons 'may not arbitrarily deprive inmates of medications or other lifestyle accommodations that its own medical staff have deemed to be medically appropriate without considering the implications of that decision.' Judge Lamberth was appointed by President Ronald Reagan. The ruling temporarily blocks a policy that stemmed from an executive order, issued by President Trump the day he took office, that no federal funds be spent for medical treatments 'for the purpose of conforming an inmate's appearance to that of the opposite sex.' That order, part of a broader push to eliminate protections for transgender people in the United States, suggested that recognizing the legitimacy of gender identities that do not match a person's biological sex 'has a corrosive impact' on the 'entire American system.' One plaintiff in the suit, Alishea Kingdom, a transgender woman who had been receiving hormone therapy since 2016, was denied hormone injections under the new policy, though she later began receiving them again, according to court documents. Two other plaintiffs, both transgender men, were told that their hormone therapies would not be renewed. Each was denied access to undergarments or hygiene products that corresponded with their gender identity. About 600 inmates with gender dysphoria are receiving hormone treatments, according to the Bureau of Prisons. The judge's order does not require the bureau to provide gender-related surgeries. The number of inmates requesting such operations is minuscule, and only two such surgeries are known to have been performed on inmates. Gender dysphoria can 'produce severe side effects ranging from depression and anxiety to suicidal ideation and self-harm if inadequately treated,' the judge wrote, adding that the Bureau of Prisons 'does not dispute this medical reality.' He wrote that it was not necessary to take into account debates over the efficacy of hormone therapies in his decision to issue a preliminary injunction against the policy. 'To conclude that the defendants have failed to meet the procedural strictures of the APA,' Judge Lamberth wrote, referring to the Administrative Procedure Act, 'is not to take any position on the underlying merits of the BOP's substantive policy decisions or the goals motivating the Executive Order.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Education Department investigating Jeffco schools for Title IX concerns on 2023 school trip
DENVER (KDVR) — The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights is taking actions throughout June to honor the 53rd anniversary of Title IX being signed into law, and one of the first actions announced Monday is directed at Jefferson County Public Schools. Title IX is a federal civil rights law that was enacted in 1972, prohibiting sex-based discrimination in any school or educational program that receives federal funding. 'Kelly Loving Act': Colorado lawmakers push for more transgender protections The federal department said Monday that it will direct investigations into the University of Wyoming and Jeffco Public Schools 'for allegedly allowing males to join and live in female-only intimate and communal spaces.' The Department of Education said it notified Jeffco Schools' superintendent about the investigation, stating the investigation is for the district's policy regarding overnight accommodations and gender identity. On July 24 of last year, the district's board of education revised an existing policy for transgender students, stating that students have a right to be addressed by the name and pronouns associated with their gender identity, be able to use restrooms assigned to their gender identity consistently asserted at school and creating a case-by-case framework for transgender or gender nonconforming students who need to use a locker room 'with the goals of maximizing the student's social integration and equal opportunity to participate in physical educations classes and (sports).' The policy specifically addresses overnight stay accommodations as well, which is also determined on a case-by-case basis, according to the policy, but with the goals of maximizing the student's social integration and providing equal opportunity to participate in overnight activity and athletic trips. FOX31 Newsletters: Sign up to get breaking news sent to your inbox 'In most cases, students who are transgender should be assigned to share overnight accommodations with other students that share the student's gender identity consistently asserted at school,' the policy states. 'Any alternative arrangement should be provided in a way that allows the student's transgender status to be kept confidential. Under no circumstance shall a student who is transgender be required to share a room with students whose gender identity conflicts with their own.' The Education Department said the district's policy removes 'the safeguard of single-sex overnight accommodations.' 'This comes amid several disturbing reports, including that parents of an 11-year-old girl in the district discovered their daughter would have had to share a bed with a male student on an overnight school trip without being notified by the school,' the U.S. Department of Education asserted in a press release. 'The district allegedly misleads parents by informing them that girls and boys will be separated for overnight accommodations without divulging that its definition of 'girl' includes boys who claim a female identity.' FOX31 spoke with the parents of the referenced 11-year-old girl in December 2023, who said the trip was to Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia during the summer of 2023. The girl was sharing a hotel room with three other girls. 'Her bedmate informed her that he was a boy who identifies as transgender,' the girl's mother told FOX31. The mother was also on the trip and said her daughter called her from the bathroom. 'She actually got along really well with the other student, but just felt uncomfortable with the idea of being in bed with a biological boy,' she said. Colorado officials address Homeland Security's 'sanctuary jurisdiction' list Jeffco Schools provided FOX31 with this statement in December 2023: 'Regarding the December 4 demand letter to Jeffco Public Schools from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF): In Jeffco Public Schools, student safety is paramount and partnership with families is a priority. We take this situation seriously. Because the district was only recently informed, and the trip occurred outside of the school year and through a private travel organization, we are still determining facts. However, it appears that the student's transgender status was not known when room assignments were made and our understanding is that as soon as their transgender identity was known, room assignments were adjusted. We are working with the private travel organization to learn more and we anticipate a more detailed response by December 18 as ADF requests.' Jefferson County Public Schools Secretary of Education Linda McMahan said the recognition of Title IX Month demonstrates the department's goal 'to honor women's hard-earned civil rights and demonstrate the Trump Administration's unwavering commitment to restoring them to the fullest extent of the law.' 'This Administration will fight on every front to protect women's and girls' sports, intimate spaces, dormitories and living quarters, and fraternal and panhellenic organizations,' McMahon said in the announcement. The school district provided a statement on the pending investigation to FOX31 on Monday. 'Jeffco Public Schools follows all Colorado state laws when it comes to how we treat students, staff and families. There is nothing in the language of Title IX that prohibits the degree of protection that the State of Colorado provides. Overnight accommodations are managed in accordance with district policy regulation JB-R2, which is grounded in Colorado's Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA), specifically Rule 81.9 – Gender-Segregated Facilities. Families always have the ultimate choice whether their student participates in any unique programming that involves overnight accommodations. We are unwavering in our commitment to the well-being of our students, staff, and families, and we strictly adhere to all Colorado state laws governing their treatment. Jefferson County Public Schools spokesperson It's unclear what will be involved in the investigation. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Telegraph
3 days ago
- General
- Telegraph
Spa that banned trans women is forced to apologise
Transgender rights activists have forced a spa to apologise for banning biological men from a steam room session. Beach Box Spa in Brighton was accused of giving in to the 'woke mob' after it said sorry for excluding trans women from the female-only session last Thursday. Owners had originally opted to exclude transgender women from the session to allow female customers to feel safe while relaxing in their swimwear. They later performed a U-turn after facing criticism from transgender activists online. In a message on their website, they said the decision had been 'wrong' and 'goes against everything we believe in'. They also said they 'believe trans women are women and trans men are men.' The firm is also now holding a new 'queer sauna session' from Thursday and said its staff may require further 'LGBTQ+ inclusion training.' Customers accused the spa of ignoring the law in light of the Supreme Court's ruling that transgender women are not legally women. One said: 'This self-flagellation over supporting women's right to safety, privacy and dignity is sickening.' Another customer pointed out that the business had opted to 'alienate and offend women' rather than take into account the court ruling. The row began after an Instagram follower asked if a transgender woman could attend, only to be told: 'This is for cis women.' Cis, or cisgender, is a term used to describe someone whose gender identity aligns with their biological sex. India Willoughby, a transgender newsreader and vocal critic of JK Rowling, accused the spa of 'excluding trans women from women's spaces'. One critic said: 'I absolutely loved your saunas but your decision to exclude trans women is incredibly disappointing. 'Your business operates in a queer city. I won't be using a space that excludes my trans siblings. Please do better than this.' 'Against everything we believe in' The full apology from Beach Box said: 'We got it wrong and we are so incredibly sorry. 'At Beach Box, we've always aimed to create an inclusive, welcoming space for everyone-regardless of gender, identity, background or lived experience. 'But this week, we made a mistake that caused hurt and disappointment, particularly within our trans communities. 'We want to say, with sincerity – we are truly sorry. 'We now understand that promoting or hosting a cis-only event goes against everything we believe in. 'It was wrong, and we take full responsibility for the harm this has caused. One of our comments on Instagram added to that harm, and we deeply regret it. 'We want Beach Box to continue to be a space where everyone feels welcome and we'll keep doing the work to make sure it feels that way.'
