After last week’s momentous Supreme Court ruling that men who pretend to be women aren’t really women, Sir Keir Starmer has finally broken his silence to do a full U-turn on his previous opinion that “trans women are women”. Asked by a journalist on April 22nd whether he would repeat that statement, the Prime Minister said the ruling had “answered that question” and that he was “really pleased” with the “much-needed clarity” it brought, adding that it was now time to “move on”.
Downing Street was subsequently asked if Sir Keir still believes that “trans women are women”, with his official spokesman responding: “No, the Supreme Court judgment has made clear that when looking at the Equality Act, a woman is a biological woman. That is set out clearly by the court judgment.”
His comments came just hours after the Education Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson welcomed the ruling, saying trans women should use male toilets, adding that “services should be accessed on the basis of biological sex”.
Phillipson appears to be another fickle politician blowing with the prevailing wind, since only last year she said in an interview on Times Radio that trans-identifying men with a Gender Recognition Certificate should use female toilets.
Many gender critical campaigners will only be convinced that Phillipson is taking this issue seriously if she publishes the guidance for schools on gender-questioning children which was commissioned under the last Conservative government, as the majority of schools still allow children to socially transition and be recognised as the opposite sex.
The Telegraph cartoonist Matt was as usual on sharp form, depicting Westminster as the papal conclave with white smoke showing that the Starmer “has decided what a woman is”.
It may be satire but for many women who have been persecuted by trans activists and lost their livelihoods because of the Government-sanctioned gender ideology, it adds insult to injury that the Prime Minister thinks he can just skip over the last few years and pretend that because he now agrees women can’t have penises that everything is fine.
Everything is certainly not fine. The education system (from nurseries to universities), the NHS, Government departments and most publicly-funded organisations are completely entrenched in the gender cult and it will take a full-scale public investigation to find out how and why this has been allowed to happen.
Now is not the time to “lower the temperature” as Starmer asserted to the leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch during PMQs this week, to the wrath of some social media commentators who christened him “Mr Flip-Flop”.
It was gratifying to see Badenoch challenge Starmer during PMQs on his “lack of moral courage” for “cheering an ideology that denied safe spaces for women and girls because he thought it was cool to do so” and for “hounding” the former Labour MP Rosie Duffield “out of his party for telling the truth”.
However, the Conservatives are just as guilty for allowing gender ideology to become entrenched in education and public services – after all, it was Boris Johnson who was Prime Minster when the DfE introduced compulsory LGBT relationship and sex education (RHSE) into schools in 2019, thus opening classroom doors to trans activist organisations looking to indoctrinate children.
It was also the Conservatives, under the leadership of David Cameron, who in 2010 placed Arts Council England (ACE) in charge of the budget of libraries in England.
As revealed in the new report from the Family Education Trust (FET), ‘Losing Our Libraries‘, the fact that ACE has been left to control funding without proper oversight has led to public funds being funnelled to further social causes and promote gender ideology to children.
FET’s research paper, conducted by members of the Women’s Right Network, found that 80% of grants for libraries by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) controlled by ACE goes to private companies, the vast majority of which (including eight of the 10 awarded more than £300,000 a year) are charities.
The report argues that lack of scrutiny on how taxpayer’s money is used has led to library mission-creep beyond their core purpose and has made them vulnerable to social trends, including the influx of the gender movement.
Gender ideology and wider ‘social justice’ ideology has become demonstrably prevalent in the librarians’ professional body, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). Guidance from this body on ‘Managing safe and inclusive public library services’ explicitly calls into question library neutrality, a violation of its ethical commitments to impartiality and the avoidance of ‘inappropriate bias’.
Indeed, the shortlist for the Carnegies, the UK’s longest running book awards for children, which are managed by CILIP and judged solely by librarians, includes a graphic novel exploring gender identity nominated for the 2025 Carnegie Medal for Illustration. Homebody by Theo Parish is described as a cross between a comic and a journal and said to be:
A refreshing authentic visual autobiography told through an intimate graphic novel. Theo the lead character takes us on a rites-of-passage journey about self-acceptance and coming to feel confident in one’s own body. Issues around gender, identity and sexuality are explored in a clear, confident and accessible way through the visual narrative and build empathy and compassion.
The age rating is aged 14-plus and has the content warning that it contains “some homophobia, gender dysphoria, transphobia and dead-naming”.
The press announcement for nominations states:
Theo Parish, one of two debut author-illustrators competing for the Medal for Illustration, has been shortlisted for Homebody, a “memorable” and “original” graphic novel about trans identity and the importance of living authentically. Judges hailed this “important book” as an “original” take on a “complex” subject, “illustrated beautifully” using the colour palette of the trans flag.
Such ideological infiltration, especially as regards LGBT concerns, can also be seen throughout the system of institutions governing libraries, including the Arts Council and even the current Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.
This lack of neutrality undermines the high level of trust which the public puts in libraries to concentrate on promoting literacy according to objective measurements and standard principles of good governance and ideological neutrality.
‘Losing our Libraries’ exposes how the Reading Agency, an organisation that has developed a highly trusted brand within the library sector with its flagship initiative, the Reading Well scheme, promotes gender ideology and signposts children to LGBT activist organisations through its teenage book list.
Getting a book onto the Reading Well scheme is extremely lucrative for publishers, since every library in England and Wales has at least one copy of every title.
As of May 2024, there were 3,159 libraries in England and Wales. Freedom of Information Act requests reveal that the initial funding from DCMS was £3.5 million, of which £2.5 million was a one-off award to cover the cost of the Reading Well collections including eBooks and audio books. Between 2018 and 2024, Welsh libraries were awarded more than £1.8 million by the Welsh Government to purchase these titles, some of which were also made available in Welsh language translations.
It is to be expected that key individuals in the publishing industry will have connections to organisations like BookTrust and the Reading Agency. However, a small number of individuals hold a surprisingly large number of influential positions across these organisations.
Between them, David Shelley and Paul Kelly hold directorships at 23 publishing houses and both are Trustee Directors of the Reading Agency. David Shelley is a Director at Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, and CEO at Hachette. Hachette owns or trades under the name of Franklin Watts, Jessica Kingsley Publishers and Wayland. Meanwhile, the portfolio of publishing houses under David Shelley’s influence owns a high proportion of the titles on the Reading Well book lists. Whilst there is no evidence of any wrongdoing, of the 33 books in the current Reading Well for Children list, 16 are from Hachette or Hodder, including eight titles from Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Overall, more than half of the Reading Well titles are published by companies where David Shelley is CEO or a Director, with the Reading Well for mental health list having 25 of 37 titles owned by Shelley’s companies.
Given the extent to which gender identity ideology is embedded in publishing generally and Hachette in particular, in local councils, CILIP and Arts Council England, it is unsurprising to find books promoting this highly contested, counterfactual ideology being enthusiastically offered to children by public libraries.
Three of the books that are included in the Reading Well for Teens list in the category Sexuality, Gender Identity and Mental Health are highly questionable as to the objectivity, veracity and coherence of their contents. The titles are: Welcome to St. Hell: my trans teen misadventure by Lewis Hancox; Coming Out Stories edited by Emma Goswell and Sam Walker; Queer Up by Alexis Caught.
All three of these titles promote gender identity ideology as fact, while Coming Out Stories signposts readers to transgender activist organisations including Mermaids and LGBT Youth Scotland. Both of these organisations have promoted puberty blockers for children. LGBT Youth Scotland has been subject to claims of child grooming and sexual exploitation, with its former CEO James Rennie being convicted in 2009 of child sexual assault.
Meanwhile, Mermaids provided breast binders to children and appointed paedophile apologist Jacob Breslow as a trustee. Mermaids was recently investigated by the Charity Commission for England and Wales which found it guilty of multiple child safeguarding failures.
An organisation like the Reading Agency that is encouraging children to read books promoting the idea that they can change sex, and directing them to activist groups keen to offer them misleading, harmful advice, must be challenged about these activities. Instead, Arts Council England continues to fund them with taxpayer’s money, no questions asked.
Perhaps the Prime Minister expects us all to applaud his newfound confidence in knowing what a woman is. While the courtroom battle over the legal definition of a woman may be won in legal terms, the war against gender ideology will only be over once we have eradicated the influence this dangerous movement has on society as a whole.
Lucy Marsh is the Communications and PR Officer of the Family Education Trust.
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The Arts Council provides funding to the “decolonise Shakespeare” RSC.
I’m happy to say that our local library, Frome, has never had any of this crap. Great book stock, librarians are excellent (I worked on library systems for 25 years, and chat to the staff and the systems librarian by email about problems.
It’s “Libraries West” a consortium of Somerset, Dorset, South Glocs, Bristol and Bath.
Sadly they gave to go to tender very five years – and it’s always the cheapest; the new one is dreadful – the last one is fine.
NO ILL function, which I used all the time, for such as academic books.
Can’t pay online
Horribly bug ridden (though I worked out why one was happening the other day, emailed the systems librarian who is passing it on to the suppliers
Can’t get the coders any more.
This needs seen to be believed. An open letter to Parliament, with a very long list of demands from some very disgruntled trans people indeed. And going by the names of ‘the aggrieved’ at the bottom, I’m wondering how many of them are ‘women’ of the bepenised variety. Between this lot and the Muslims it’s like a contest to see who can whinge loudest and longest to attain the ‘UK’s Biggest Perma-Victim Group’ status;
”Dear Members of Parliament,
We are writing to you with the hope that you will see the injustices being done and finally take a stand against the removal of the rights that trans people in the UK currently have access to. Silence and inaction is no longer an option, and will be taken as an indication of hostility towards the transgender community.
The illegitimate Hodge Ruling from the Supreme Court last week was the final step too far. A ruling conducted by a judge with a known anti-LGBT history fuelled by his religious beliefs, who flatly denied trans people a voice in the hearing with the deliberate intention of overstepping his judicial boundaries, a ruling that blatantly lied about the application of how ‘sex’ was defined in EA2010, and was done so in the service of a corrupt establishment intent on destroying the lives of transgender people in the UK.
The whole ruling is beyond corrupt, and represents a gross miscarriage of justice that needs to be independently investigated by the international courts.
We will state plainly – this ruling effectively means transgender people cannot live our lives in the UK at all, and illegitimately overrides the ECHR court ruling of Goodwin vs UK which forced the then Labour UK Government to enact the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
This, and previous governments already have a long and sordid history of abusing transgender people while claiming we ‘deserve dignity and respect’, while your policies and refusal to act actively harm and kill us.
The previous status quo was a compromise we tolerated out of fear. That ends now. Since even those meager protections are now being stripped away by a handful of people who hate us beyond reason, as a community we are now presenting a list of non-negotiable demands for immediate action:”
https://archive.ph/2025.04.24-182121/https://transrightsnow.uk/?s=09
The […] Ruling from the Supreme Court last week was the final step too far.
Presumably, the aggrieved is now not just aggrieveder anymore and not even aggrievederest but aggrievederester and heading for aggrievederesterest. Kopfrechnen schwach, Religion sehr gut¹, as the German saying goes.
¹ Numeracy poor, religious theory excellent.
we are now presenting a list of non-negotiable demands for immediate action
Among a host of others, these non-negotiable demands include the immediate legal abolishment of human sex in every aspect in all of the UK, from toilets to prisons to passports and marriage documents. What must not exist must not be mentioned anymore so that the undersigned can live their lives. Insofar there are people who hate them, I’m wondering if it ever occurred to them that acting like an alien invasion force with legitimate, absolute control of the lives of all other people could have played a part here.
I think they are hated because they are whiney and fucking annoying not to mention aggressive at times.
Yes nothing says, “Look how vulnerable/marginalised/oppressed I am” like a big bloke in a dress with bad hair and a ‘gender affirming’ moob job, threatening women who don’t submit to his ideology and getting his nob out to piss on a statue which symbolises women’s rights.
These men aren’t satisfied with the equality and rights they always had under the law. They wish to supersede women’s sex-based rights. And I knew this Supreme Court ruling wouldn’t be the end of it because their ideology, need to dominate and cult-like mentality coupled with their go-to reliance on claiming victimhood means that, like Terminators, they’re relentless and won’t ever give up. Also, if they’re that obsessed with being accepted and referred to as ‘women’, they’d all have their willies chopped off and a fauxgina instead, but the majority don’t. Now why is that? Why not go the whole hog and have the courage of their convictions?
The silly, narcissistic buggers think they’ve got a chance at getting a Supreme Court ruling overturned. Maximum delusion;
https://goodlawproject.org/crowdfunder/fighting-fund-for-trans-rights/?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=transfund_crowdfunder_transfund&utm_medium=social_media&utm_content=24-04-2025
“we are now presenting a list of non-negotiable demands for immediate action”
Not that I don’t believe Kneel will overstep the mark and F. this up but just what “negotiating” powers do these people believe they have? Bring the country to a standstill? A national strike for trannies, yes that should do it.
FFS !!
As they cannot live their lives anymore, mass suicide in front to the palace of Westminster would suggest itself. Could become a BBC special moderated by Chris Packham who’ll certainly find a way to involve climate change.
When we are faced with real problems. Lack of affordable energy, food shortages and fewer jobs, social breakdown, all this wokey cokey nonsense will just disappear. The strong and well prepared will survive and the weak will go to the wall.
I wonder if we would have suffered all this nonsense if schools were single sex as they should be.
First, I doubt it. Sex education is taught in all schools today, so there’s no reason to suppose single sex schools would escape the marxist edicts of LGBTQ+ being handed down from above.
And I would strongly disagree with your proscribing of co-education. I myself look back on my school days with great pleasure. I was fortunate enough to attend a quality grammar school in a leafy London suburb, which was co-educational. Very strong academically, with good discipline and a happy school all round.
The presence of boys and girls together is a natural state of affairs, and we all got along very nicely, with a few romances blossoming and early learning of how to deal with the opposite sex part of our growing experience. My first girlfriend was a lovely girl who I went out with when I was in the lower sixth and she in the 4th. It lasted well over two years, and is a delightful memory to this day.
Some say girls do better in science in single-sex schools; maybe they do, but they also miss out on a lot.
I should add that this was the early Sixties, she came from a nice Catholic family, so it was a classic romance, although we did get pretty steamed up at times.
Today you may have a point, given that young girls in certain cities share their school with predatory Muslim youths.
Breaking.
https://truthsummit.substack.com/p/live-reiner-sentenced-3-years-9-months?triedRedirect=true
Reiner Fuellmich sentenced:
“Reiner has been sentenced to 3 years and 9 months, minus one year and one month of time already spent in prison, with 5 months of the time spent in prison not to be counted as the court held that the trial had been deliberately and needlessly prolonged. So prison time is to be 2 years and 8 months. Plus Reiner is to pay back the 700,000 Euros that were not put into his account – which is the reason he could not pay back.”
Talk about injustice. That poor man.
The Global Satanic cabal hunts down and tries to destroy lovers of Truth. And today we also learn that one of Satan’s earthly buddies, Klaus Schwab, is being found out too, so the evil is certainly starting to crack, what with Trump and Farage on the rampage too. Only the European Union is able to sustain a fascistic grip on its subject peoples, but who knows how things will turn out there?
The Speaker is beginning to show he is not up to the job of giving balanced leadership to back benchers in the HoC. He appears to have become a poodle of HMG.
Bad news.
“appears to have become a poodle”
It’s been bloody obvious for over six months.
Till my tongue stiffens will any of this make any sense to me!
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/remember-you-are-english/
One for the News Round-up.
“Remember you are English.”
Painful yet moving and inspiring.
Yes, it dammed well is worth reading in full.
Seeding the sky is a conspiracy theory!
It’s impossible to trust a politician who openly bases his beliefs about basic matters, like what a woman is, exclusively on court rulings. If a court ever rules differently in the future, Sir Keir’s entire reality will immediately shift again.
Does President Xi spend vast amounts of time discussing with his ministers what a woman is?
Sir K has said that he isn’t a man of faith. Yet when he believed that a man could become a woman he was expressing faith in transubstantiation; a Catholic doctrine.
Just scrap the Arts Council.
The people who presently sit on the Arts Council will find a way to continue what they’re doing now. This is really just a mirror image of the inane knives cause crime assertion. The problem is not that public institutions exist but that the wrong people are in control of them. And these people won’t go away just because public infrastructure is demolished.