After an 18-month fight, an LGBT+ activist who fled Jordan is finally “supported, seen and heard” in their new home in Australia.
AlShaima Omama AlZubi, 25, who identifies as a non-binary lesbian, has been a “victim of rape, sexual assaults, torture, forced marriage, forced conversion therapy, forced hospitalisation, and forced veiling abuse that dates back to their childhood”, according to Amnesty.
AlZubi, an LGBT+ and women’s rights defender, comes from a powerful family, with many members working for Jordan’s government, and whose “influence extends across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq”.
They first fled to Turkey from Jordan in July 2020, and later made it to Lebanon, planning to travel onwards to Australia on a humanitarian visa.
But in December, 2021, they were stripped of their passport and detained by Lebanese authorities for five days, who told them there was an Interpol Red Notice out of their arrest. During this time, Amnesty suspected that the Jordanian embassy in Lebanon was working on having them repatriated.
Finally, after tireless work by NGOs and Australian diplomats, AlZubi was able to board a flight to Australia on 30 December.
Speaking to SBS News, they said that since arriving, they have begun seeing a therapist and are finding their place within the local LGBT+ community.
They said: “Now I feel supported, seen, heard and treated like a human being regardless of my beliefs, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
“[I want to] move on in my life, continue my education, [and have] a great career and independence.
“Finally I have the chance to be myself without people shaming me and trying to kill me for it.”
In a message “to all of the women and the LGBTIQ+ community in the Middle East”, they added: “There’s always a way to be free. We just need the right people to help us.
“Never be ashamed of being yourself, never be sorry for who you are. Don’t let religion or anyone control your being. No one on Earth can be you.”
While homosexuality was decriminalised in Jordan in 1951, LGBT+ people face frequent harassment, discrimination and violence.
There are no laws to protect queer people from discrimination, no recognition of same-sex relationships, and one 2019 study found that 93 per cent of Jordanians believe that society should not accept homosexuality.
New Jersey is set to decriminalise HIV transmission, ending an historic law that “fuels stigma”.
Under current New Jersey law, a person who engages in sexual penetration by any body part without disclosing they are HIV-positive could face up to five years in prison.
For other sexually-transmitted infections, the sentence is limited to 18 months.
On Monday (10 January), state senators voted 26-11 to pass a bill, S-3707, that would put an end to this.
The bill would still criminalise the transmission of non-airborne infectious or communicable diseases, but will no longer target those living with HIV or STIs.
“This legislation is a step in the right direction [to] removing the stigmatisation that surrounds individuals living with HIV,” said Senate majority leader Teresa Ruiz, one of the bill’s co-sponsors.
“The criminal code is meant to punish actions that harm others, not discriminate against people living with a chronic health condition.”
New Jersey state senator Teresa Ruiz speaks at the 25th Anniversary of Kid Witness News. (Paul Zimmerman/Getty Images for Kid Witness News)
Co-sponsor senator Joe Vitale said the bill would bring New Jersey in line with “what we now know about the transmissions of certain diseases, especially in light of the advances in treatment”.
It’s a law that has been a “huge priority” for activists, he said.
“I am thankful to the advocates who brought this issue to our attention, not only for leading the way on solid public health policy,” Vitale added, “but also in serving those in need in New Jersey.”
‘Criminalisation does not prevent HIV transmission’
Even activists across the pond celebrated the news, who said that such laws are based on long-outdated conceptions of what HIV is and deepen animosity.
Matthew Hodson, a British HIV activist and executive director for NAM aidsmap, which monitors HIV criminalisation law, told PinkNews: “Criminalisation of HIV creates barriers to HIV testing and treatment, which only serves to increase opportunities for HIV to be transmitted.
“Criminalisation does not prevent HIV transmission.
“There is a shameful history of such laws being used against people in cases where not only has HIV not been passed on but there was no actual possibility of HIV being passed on.
“Criminalisation fuels stigma and is often used against those who are already marginalised or vulnerable, including against LGBT people in countries with state-sanctioned homophobia.
A history of the US criminalising the transmission of HIV
At least 35 US states, many in the Midwest and Deep South – still have laws on the books that criminalise “HIV exposure”, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A 2017 analysis of 393 HIV-related convictions in Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri and Tennessee found the average sentence was nearly eight years in prison for having sex without first informing their partner of their status.
In Arkansas, ‘intentional HIV exposure’ carries a minimum of six years and a maximum of 30 years alongside thousands of dollars in fines.
People convicted of ‘intentional exposure’ in South Dakota and Louisiana are also required to register as sex offenders, the Center for HIV Law and Policy says.
Ohio and Tennessee enforce this requirement regardless of intentionality, while in Arkansas it is not a statutory requirement but a court may order it.
A man holding a PrEP tablet. (Daniel Born/The Times/Gallo Images/Getty)
At least six states even have laws that enhance sentences for sexual offences if the person convicted is living with HIV, the Movement Advancement Project found.
The Movement Advancement Project said nearly three in every 10 LGBT+ people live in a state with such outdated law in place. Such laws are often used to punish people who have done no harm, the American Academy of HIV Medicine has warned.
Michigan, for example, exempts those living with HIV who have sex without disclosing their status as long as they are on viral suppression medication.
Many states scrambled to roll out laws criminalising people living with HIV amid the paranoia of the early HIV epidemic, when acquiring the virus was considered a death sentence.
Science in no way supports laws that single out people living with HIV, and activists have argued that these laws are tinged with racism and transphobia.
People living with HIV are more likely to be trans, Black and Latinx, meaning that they are disproportionately targeted by the laws, Lambda Legal and Injustice Watch have found. Some prosecutors even weaponise hateful stereotypes of these demographics to justify the charges.
If New Jersey repeals its law, it would join Illinois and Texas in throwing out entirely their HIV-specific criminal laws.
Missouri, California, Iowa, North Carolina, Nevada, Virginia and Michigan, meanwhile, have all softened their anti-HIV laws since 2014, according to the CDC.
American Idol star Clay Aiken has launched a second congressional bid after being inspired to fight hate perpetuated by North Carolina’s top lawmakers.
Aiken was the runner-up on the second season of American Idol in 2003. Afterwards, he launched a music and acting career – even appearing as acontestant on Celebrity Apprentice hosted by former president Donald Trump.
In 2014 he turned his attention to politics, winning the Democratic primary in North Carolina’s second congressional district, but he was defeated in the general election by Republican incumbent Renee Ellmers.
Now he’s running for Congress again. But this time, Aiken, who has referred to himself as a “loud and proud Democrat”, is running to represent the newly drawn sixth district. He is hoping to replace representative David Price, who was first elected in 1986 and said he would not seek re-election in October.
Aiken told Variety that he wasn’t initially planning to run for congress again, but he changed his mind after hearing a homophobic speech by North Carolina’s lieutenant governor Mark Robinson.
He described how “several people” asked if he would be interested in running for Price’s seat after the long-time politician announced he would be retiring from the role in 2022.
“I told them, you know, I’m keeping an eye on it, but I’m not really necessarily thinking about running right now,” he recalled.
“He gave a speech in which he said: ‘What is the purpose of homosexuality? What purpose do homosexuals serve?’” Aiken said.
He continued: “I watched that sort of with just dumbstruck awe that someone could be so ignorant.
After watching it, I said, you know, ‘I got your purpose, bitch. I will show you’.”
Clay Aiken onstage during the opening curtain call for “Ruben & Clay’s First Annual Christmas Show” on 11 December 2018. (Getty/Walter McBride)
Aiken described himself as a “North Carolinian” his entire life, adding his family has “been here since the 1700s”. He said Robinson’s anti-LGBT+ hatred made him “really think about the reputation” the state has “gotten over the past several years”.
“In my entire life, I’ve never known a time when this state has had a reputation that wasn’t progressive and welcoming and friendly,” he added.
He added that some friends wouldn’t want to visit because they didn’t feel “comfortable in North Carolina”. Aiken said he was “sick” that his beloved state has such a reputation, and he isn’t “willing” to let it continue any longer.
“And that p**ses me the hell off,” he said. “Because this area is not like that, and the fact that people outside of this state have this opinion or this perception of North Carolina based on people like Mark Robinson and Madison Cawthorn.”
A group of North Carolina voters have launched a bid to keep Cawthorn, a Republican congressman, off the ballot in this year’s midterm elections, citing his alleged involvement in the 6 January Capitol riot.
Cawthorn claimed the election was stolen from Trump during the “Save America Rally” before the riot and has been accused of firing up the crowd, The Guardian reported.
A group of voters have said that Cawthorn can’t run for Congress because he fails to comply with an amendment in the Constitution.
The 1868 amendment says no one can serve in Congress if they have “previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same”.
In the video announcing his congressional run, Clay Aiken condemned Cawthorn and Robinson as “white nationalists” and “hateful homophobes”.
He also acknowledged it wasn’t a “North Carolina thing” before showing images of reviled GOP representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia) and Lauren Boebert (Colorado).
The Times has been forced to issue two corrections within two days after publishing ‘anti-trans’ misinformation.
On Tuesday (4 January), the newspaper finally offered a correction to a story on inclusive language around birthing which it published almost a year ago.
In February, 2021, a Times article claimed that in new guidance, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust was telling staff in perinatal services to “say ‘chestfeeding’ instead of ‘breastfeeding’”, and to “replace the term ‘mother’”.
A quick glance through the trust’s guidance proves this claim to be categorically untrue, as it clearly states that it will be “taking a gender-additive approach”, which it says means “using gender-neutral language alongside the language of motherhood”.
However, it took a ruling by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) to convince The Times to admit the inaccuracy of its story.
In its correction, the newspaper said: “Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust’s guidance did not advocate the universal substitution of the term ‘breastfeeding’ with ‘chestfeeding’, rather that the term ‘breast/chestfeeding’ should be used instead in the trust’s literature and communications.”
With no evidence, The Times claimed that hundreds of ‘male-bodied sex offenders were classified as women’ in recent years
Just a day later, on Wednesday (6 January), The Times was forced to print another correction relating to trans people.
In the story, Massie claimed: “We pretend that women can — and do — commit rape… In England and Wales 436 male-bodied sex offenders were classified as women from 2012 to 2018.”
In the correction, The Times said: “In fact, under English law, accessories to a crime are charged as principal offenders, and therefore women can be charged with rape.
“How many female defendants were ‘male-bodied’ is not recorded. We are happy to make this clear.”
Following the correction, The Times has now re-published the piece, removing the explicit claim that all recorded female sex offenders are trans.
However, at the time this article was published, it continued to claim that “436 rape defendants were classified as women”.
Stonewall CEO Nancy Kelley was among those to comment on the correction, tweeting: “Good to see [The Times] issuing a formal correction of the misinformation it published on rape statistics.
“Trans women are constantly being represented as threats and as predators in our press and public conversation. They are not.”
A trans woman currently incarcerated in Texas could become the first American to receive gender-affirming surgery while in federal prison.
Cristina Iglesias, 47, is a trans woman who has been incarcerated in Texas’ Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for 27 years.
glesias made prison officials aware that she was transgender when she was first sent to prison, in 1994, and has been working to access gender affirmation surgery since 2016.
Just last year, after she launched legal action against the BOP, she was finally moved to a female facility after suffering “severe physical and sexual violence”, according to the ACLU of Illinois, which is representing her.
She alleges that the BOP is violating her rights under eighth amendment, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment”, but not allowing her to undergo necessary gender affirmation surgery.
Finally, on 27 December, Chief Judge Nancy J Rosenstengel issued a decisionin the US District Court for the Southern District of Illinois.
Rosenstengel ruled that the BOP’s Transgender Executive Council must evaluate Iglesias for gender affirmation surgery, and that it must complete the evaluation before 24 January.
If both the council and the BOP’s medical director approve the surgery, then the BOP must produce a detailed plan for it to go ahead, including a timeline of preparation for the surgery, a list of possible surgeons, and a timeline for the trans woman’s recovery.
While a few trans inmates in state prisons have been approved for the surgery, the decision marks the first time in US history that an federally incarcerated trans person will be evaluated for gender affirmation surgery, and could see Iglesias become the first person ever to access the life-saving surgery from within the federal prison system.
Cristina Iglesias and her legal team hope her case will set a precedent for other trans folk in prison
John Knight of the ACLU of Illinois, who represents Cristina Iglesias, said in a statement: “For years, Cristina has suffered greatly from the denial of appropriate healthcare and the constant threats to her life while in BOP detention.
“Cristina has fought for years to get the treatment the constitution requires. The court’s order removes the unnecessary hurdles and delays BOP has repeatedly constructed to prevent her from getting the care that she urgently needs.
“We hope that the order directing BOP to move forward will result in medically necessary and long overdue healthcare for Cristina — and, in time, for the many other transgender people in BOP’s custody who have also been denied surgery and other much-needed gender-affirming care.”
Iglesias herself told the Dallas Morning Newsin a statement: “I am happy to have had the chance to tell my story and am hopeful that other transgender people will benefit from my case.”
A judge in Taiwan has ruled in favour of a gay man who wants to adopt his husband’s non-biological child, in a historic step for LGBT+ rights.
Currently Taiwan, which in 2019 became the very first country in Asia to legalise marriage equality, only allows same-sex couples to adopt when one partner is the biological parent of the child.
But on 25 December, a family court in Kaohsiung city ruled that 38-year-old Wang Chen-wei’s child, who he previously adopted, could also be adopted by his 34-year-old husband Chen Chun-ju.
However, the ruling only applies to their specific case, and has not legalised same-sex adoption across the country.
Chen-wei told AFP: “I am happy that my spouse is also legally recognised as the father of our child… but I can’t feel all that happy without amending the law.
“It’s really absurd that same-sex people can adopt a child when they are single but they can’t after they get married.”
According to Taipei Times, Chen-wei added on Facebook: “We will continue to fight. The key is having the law revised.
“If our family wants to adopt another child, will we have to go through the same process again and gamble on which judicial affairs officer we get? Or will the law have been amended so it won’t be so hard for everybody?”
The path forward for other same-sex couples who want to adopt is unclear.
The Act for Implementation of Judicial Yuan Interpretation No 748, which legalised same-sex marriage in Taiwan, does not expressly allow or forbid same-sex adoption of children who are not biologically related to either parent, and only mentions one spouse adopting “the genetic child of the other party”.
While the Kaohsiung ruled that it the child in question should not be discriminated against, and that it would be “inappropriate to give a negative or discriminatory interpretation of the provision”, the Taiwan Equality Campaign said that two other couples it supports had had their adoption requests rejected.
Jennifer Lu, executive director of the LGBT+ rights group, told AFP: “We hope the rulings serve as a reminder to government officials and lawmakers that the current unfair legal conditions need to be changed.”
A California bill aiming to outlaw forced and unnecessary genital surgeries on intersex children has been pulled.
California state senator Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, has been working for three years to try to ban the “corrective surgeries”.
His bill, SB225, would have banned unnecessary surgeries on intersex children under the age of 12, but it has been stuck in the Committee on Business, Professions and Economic Development, according to the Associated Press.
In 2020, the bill was opposed by committee chairman and state senator Steve Glazer, who said he believed it was moving “in the right direction,” but that he did not support the bill in its current form.
It has faced opposition from parents who want to make decisions on behalf of their children as well as the California Medical Association, and on Tuesday (4 January) Wiener said the bill “does not appear to have a viable path forward”.
He wrote on Twitter: “For three years, we’ve worked to pass legislation to protect intersex babies from medically unnecessary genital surgeries.
“Sadly, SB225 continues to lack the votes in the Business and Professions Committee. Despite this setback, I’m committed to this fight.”
Speaking to the Associated Press,Wiener added: “Pausing medically unnecessary genital surgeries until a child is old enough to participate in the decision isn’t a radical idea. Rather, it’s about basic human dignity.
“I’m not giving up, and I stand in solidarity with the intersex community in its fight for bodily autonomy, dignity and choice.”
Ebony Harper, executive director of California TRANScends, told PinkNews: “We are furious that SB225 had little to no support in the California state legislature. You can not claim pro-LGBTQIA+ liberties and drop the ball on protecting intersex babies.
“We hear stories of infant genital mutilation and the mental harm that it often causes.
“These archaic practices need to stop now… People are dying; there are high rates of suicide in our intersex communities because of mutilation. It is our duty to protect intersex babies, that will become intersex adults, defending them from non-consensual cosmetic medical interventions, violence, and protection from discrimination.
“That is our duty! And California has just dropped a huge ball… We will regroup and support any future bill to ensure protection from infant genital mutilation.
‘We want our intersex community to know you’re not alone, and we stand with you, love and support you.”
Intersex is an umbrella term, which encompasses those who are born with sex characteristics outside of the binary “female” and “male” definitions, and being intersex is thought to be as common as having red hair.
However, around the world, intersex children are forced to undergo unnecessary and cosmetic surgeries to “correct” their genitals.
These surgeries can cause long-lasting harm, and a 2013 United Nations report said: “Children who are born with atypical sex characteristics are often subject to irreversible sex assignment, involuntary sterilization, involuntary genital normalizing surgery … leaving them with permanent, irreversible infertility and causing severe mental suffering.”
There are currently no laws in the US, federal or state, which protect children from these surgeries.
The trans Pride flag has been planted on the peak of Antarctica’s highest mountain, Vinson Massif, by trans climber Erin Parisi.
Dedicating her achievement to “the resilience of the trans community” that “took me in when I had no hope”, Parisi said trans people “showed me that it’s better to be visible and free, than live in self-imposed exile, and that stigma withers when we visibly embrace our truth”.
Parisi added, in an Instagram post: “We’ve been pushed down, often even beat up, and faced every kind of coldness through our lives – our resilience keeps us rising to the top.”
She reached the 4,892 metre summit of Vinson Massif on 26 December after setting off for Antarctica on 18 December.
Reaching the highest point in Antarctica is part of Parisi’s years-long attemptto be the first openly trans woman to complete the “Seven Summits”: a mountaineering challenge to climb to the highest point of each of the planet’s seven continents.
Antarctica’s Vinson Massif was Parisi’s fifth peak of the seven summits: she still has Mount Denali, in Alaska, and Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world, left to go.https://www.instagram.com/p/CYG_ja7uTPa/embed/?cr=1&v=14&wp=996&rd=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinknews.co.uk&rp=%2F2022%2F01%2F03%2Ftrans-pride-flag-seven-summits-antarctica-erin-parisi%2F#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A1040%2C%22ls%22%3A825.0000000000001%2C%22le%22%3A848%7D
Speaking to PinkNews in July 2020, when she’d reached four of the seven peaks, Parisi also spoke about resilience when thinking about ascending Mount Everest as an openly trans climber: “When I look at Everest, I really very much see it as our way to be resilient, and to show that story of strength and recovery and resilience.”
She also described climbing Russia’s Mount Elbrus in June 2018. She didn’t fly a trans flag at the summit – the rainbow Pride flag is considered anti-family propaganda in Russia, and Erin knew she couldn’t face two weeks in a Russian prison – but she made a ‘T’ symbol with her hands at the top.
“That T is kind of my little rebellion where it’s like, you know, I’m trans and I’m on top of this mountain, the highest point in Europe, and this is this is who I am.”
Erin Parisi making a ‘T’ sign for Trans Pride on the peak of Mount Elbrus, Russia – Europe’s highest mountain – in 2018. (Supplied)
As well summiting Vinson Massif in 2021, Parisi has climbed Argentina’s Aconcagua, in 2019; Russia’s Mount Elbrus, in 2018; Tanazania’s Mount Kilimanjaro, on International Women’s Day (8 March) in 2018; and Australia’s Mount Kosciuszko, also in 2018.
For each summit, Parisi takes a trans Pride flag – the pink, white and blue flag designed by trans Navy veteran Monica Helms – to plant at the peak.
Helms is aware of Parisi’s mission: “She said it’s her life’s dream to see it sit on top of Mount Everest. I did commit to Monica that I would bring a trans flag to the top of Everest.”
Israel will allow surrogacy for same-sex couples, single men and trans people from next week after a decade-long legal battle.
Health minister Nitzan Horowitz announced on Tuesday (4 January) that new rules making surrogacy accessible to all families will come into effect on 11 January.
Currently, surrogacy in Israel is only legal for heterosexual, married couples and single women who ask a surrogate to carry their biological child. Same-sex couples and single men must currently go abroad if they wish to access surrogacy, making the process even more complex and expensive.
According to the Times of Israel, while announcing the lifting of the ban, Horowitz said: “Today we put an end to injustice and discrimination. Everyone has the right to parenthood.”
Horowitz, who is Israel’s second openly gay Knesset member, said that the new surrogacy rules would include trans parents, and that they would enable “future fathers, gay couples and essentially every person in Israel equal access to surrogacy in Israel”.
“This is an exciting day for me, as a gay minister who is well aware of the exclusion and discrimination against us over the years,” he added. “It’s my personal struggle too.”
The 2021 court ruling on surrogacy came more than a decade after a petition was first filed at Israel’s top court in 2010 by gay couple Etai Pinkas Arad and Yoav Arad Pinkas.
Arad and Pinkas said in a statement that the announcement marked “a historic day”, and a “day of joy for Israeli society in general and in particular for the LGBT+ community, also due to the inclusion of the trans community in the amendment to the law”.
The Aguda – the Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel said in a statement on social media: “After years of struggle – in the streets, in the courts, in the Knesset and in the government, we have succeeded and this is the achievement of us all.
“The right to be a parent is a basic right for every person and today we are taking a historic step in the struggle for equality.
“Along with the joy, we know that even today our struggle is still far from over. The road is still long and begins first of all with the most vulnerable populations in the LGBT+ community, and we are here to continue to fight for the rights of us all, everywhere.”
A leading group of girls’ schools has updated its admissions policy to exclude trans girls from being admitted as students.
The almost-blanket ban on trans girls has been implemented because, the group says, to let trans girls become pupils would jeopardise the schools’ status as single-sex. However, the policy encourages schools to support, affirm and include trans boys and non-binary students.
This decision has been called “unwise at best” by legal experts, who say that case law and statutory guidance suggests that a case-by-case approach – which the policy advises schools to take in the case of trans boys and non-binary people applying to become pupils – is “most legally defensible” as well as “the fairest way to proceed”.
The policy comes from the Girls Day School Trust (GDST), a group of 25 independent schools in England and Wales that charge fees and are subject to fewer regulations than state-funded schools in the UK.
In a December 2021 update to its “Gender Identity Policy”, the GDST says it aims to set a framework for “how the GDST will support students in relation to gender identity, while recognising the fundamental principle that support will always need to be individualised and based upon acting in a student’s best interests”.
While the policy is inclusive towards trans boys and non-binary people, saying that applications from these students should be “carefully considered on a case-by-case basis”, it also places a ban on trans girls from being admitted to a GDST school.
Girls Day School Trust will admit girls ‘based on legal sex’
“The GDST is committed to single-sex education for girls,” says the six-page GDST policy, seen by PinkNews. “Admissions to GDST schools are based on the prospective student’s legal sex as recorded on their birth certificate.”
Under the UK’s gender recognition laws, only trans men and women over the age of 18 are able to correct their legal sex on their birth certificate. In the UK, pupils typically turn 18 in their final year of school – meaning the policy bans all but a tiny, if not non-existent, group of trans girls who have legal gender recognition being GDST students.
This is confirmed by the policy, which continues: “GDST schools are able to operate a single-sex admissions policy, without breaching the Equality Act 2010 on the basis of an exemption relating to biological sex.
“The GDST believes that an admissions policy based on gender identity rather than the legal sex recorded on a student’s birth certificate would jeopardise the status of GDST schools as single-sex schools under the act.
“For this reason, GDST schools do not accept applications from students who are legally male. We will, however, continue to monitor the legal interpretation of this exemption.”
Legal experts warn school trans policy is ‘unwise at best’
The Trans Legal Project, which monitors developments in British law as they affect trans rights, told PinkNews that the new GDST policy is “unwise at best” and that there are two main legal concerns.
“Does admitting a trans girl remove the single-sex status of a girl’s school?” a spokesperson from the Trans Legal Project said. “Our strong view is that admitting a trans girl does not jeopardise the single-sex status of a girl’s school and the GDST is wrong about this.”
And secondly, the spokesperson said, “the law is not clear” on whether “a girls’ school [can] simply refuse to admit a trans girl” – which is why “the GDST policy is unwise at best”.
“Case law and statutory guidance covering gender reassignment in other areas suggest a case-by-case approach should always be taken,” the spokesperson added. “This would seem to be the most legally defensible and the fairest way to proceed.”
Making the law about single-sex exceptions clearer for service providers was one of the recommendations of a recent inquiry by a cross-party group of MP’s into gender recognition laws.
The Women and Equalities Committee, chaired by Tory MP Caroline Nokes, published the results of its year-long inquiry on 22 December.
As well as making various recommendations to improve and streamline the gender recognition process for trans adults, the committee said there needs to be “better guidance on the single-sex and separate-sex exceptions” and urged the government to produce it, including “worked examples and case studies” made “in collaboration with trans rights groups, on best practice to provide trans and non-binary inclusive and specific services”.
Cheryl Giovannoni, chief executive of GDST, said in a statement that “first and foremost” the principle of the policy is to “offer a supportive educational environment to those students who are exploring their gender identity or in the process of transitioning”.
“Our trans students are welcome in our schools and our policy primarily sets out ways in which schools can support them,” she said. “A trans student already at our school can remain at the school for as long as they wish to do so. Young people exploring their gender identity need space and time to make decisions, free of pressure.”
Giovannoni added that GDST schools “are able to operate a single-sex admissions policy, without breaching the Equality Act 2010 on the basis of an exemption relating to biological sex”.
“Under current laws and guidance, the GDST believes that an admissions policy based on gender identity rather than the legal sex recorded on a student’s birth certificate could jeopardise the status of GDST schools as single-sex schools under the act. We will continue to monitor the legal interpretation of this exemption.”