Girlguiding drops 'trans-inclusive' policy
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 20 Dec 2025
Girlguiding has dropped its trans-inclusive policy and only biological girls will be entitled to join the guides in future. It announced that it has updated its equality and diversity policy following the recent Supreme Court ruling that girls and women are defined in the Equality Act 2010 by their biological sex.
A joint statement from the trustees, CEO and Chief Guide said it was a “difficult decision” made with “a heavy heart” and that they are now looking at how the change affects existing members.
Landmark win for Darlington Nurses
en staff
Date posted: 19 Jun 2025
Eight pioneering nurses who formed their own union to defend the rights of women “have won a landmark battle for a female-only changing room,” website dailymail.co.uk reports.
“The Darlington nurses launched a legal action saying transgender policies put them at risk, deprived them of dignity and breached their human rights,” according to the Daily Mail.
Christian nurse in fresh transgender battle
Christian Concern
Date posted: 24 Mar 2025
A senior Christian nurse is launching a case against a hospital trust in a row over a transgender patient.
Jennifer Melle, 40, from Croydon, is taking action against Epsom and St Helier University Hospital Trust, claiming harassment, discrimination and human rights’ breaches.
Australian doctor suspended over online posts
en staff
Date posted: 20 Sep 2025
An Australian doctor, who lost his medical licence after voicing anti-abortion views online, engaged in professional misconduct, the Victorian Civil and Administration Tribunal has ruled.
Jereth Kok, an Evangelical Christian, had 11 years’ unblemished experience as a GP before the Medical Board of Australia (MBA) suspended him in 2019 for professional misconduct. Between 20 May 2010 and 15 October 2021, he made numerous posts on Facebook and Christians websites, included describing abortion doctors as “butchers” and “contract killers”; being transgender was a mental health issue; and doctors treating gender dysphoria was “medical butchery”.
Politics USA
The US Supreme Court and questions of justice
Tony Bennett
Date posted: 26 Jul 2025
In the UK we are used to Parliament being the law-making body for the nation. But a recent ruling by the UK Supreme Court on the meaning of “sex” for the purposes of gender discrimination showed that sometimes it’s the Supreme Court that has the final word.
How the US Supreme Court works
Our Supreme Court is not yet 20 years old and is only just beginning to make its mark. The United States Supreme Court, on the other hand, was created back in 1789 as a coequal branch of the federal government, alongside Congress and the Presidency. It even has the power to declare Acts of Congress unconstitutional, and thereby null and void. (The UK Supreme Court has no comparable power.) Through this power, the US Supreme Court has become the final arbiter of what the laws mean and, most importantly, what the Constitution means. That’s why most important cases of legal and constitutional importance end up there.
USA: New task force to remove ‘anti-Christian’ bias
Emily Pollok
Date posted: 18 Apr 2025
President Trump is on a mission to get rid of “anti-Christian bias” in the US, creating a task force especially for the purpose.
Headed up by Attorney General Pam Bondi, the task force is to “immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government”, Trump announced in Washington recently during National Prayer Breakfast events.
letter from Australia
Prayer? Unlawful. Puberty blockers? Fine
David Robertson
Date posted: 4 Jun 2025
In April the New South Wales Conversion Practices Ban Act came into effect. Its stated aim is “to ban practices directed to changing or suppressing the sexual orientation or gender identity of individuals”. The reaction from the churches has been mixed.
Churches of a more “progressive” bent broadly welcome the ban. More-Biblical churches are concerned – although some leaders think that it will not make much difference. They argue that prayer is not banned. The legislation explicitly states that general religious teachings, sermons, private prayer or personal reflection are not considered conversion practices and are not illegal. For example, expressing religious beliefs or seeking spiritual guidance through prayer is permitted.
news in brief
Employment tribunal won
A scientist who resigned after expressing gender-critical views has won his employment tribunal case.
Peter Wilkins, a Christian, had worked at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory for nearly 15 years before leaving in 2023. He had raised concerns over abusive descriptions of employees that had gender-critical beliefs. The tribunal found there had been “a failure to engage” with the idea that gender-critical views are “worthy and required to be respected”.
Christian loses unfair dismissal appeal
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 16 Apr 2025
A secondary school teacher who told year 7 pupils at a Church of England school that being LGBTQ+ was a sin and is “not fine”, and that transgender people are “just confused”, has lost her appeal against dismissal.
Glawdys Leger, a Christian, lost her teaching job after 12 years at Bishop Justus Church of England School, Bromley in May 2022 after a pupil’s mother complained about “very distressing” comments she allegedly made in class. The pupil was “exploring” who she was.
Kristie Higgs wins groundbreaking court case after unfair dismissal
Nicola Laver
Date posted: 12 Feb 2025
A Christian was unlawfully dismissed from her role as a school pastoral worker after she criticised LGBT relationship education on her social media, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
Lord Justice Underhill made clear that dismissal merely because the employee ‘expressed a religious or other protected belief to which the employer, or a third party with whom it wishes to protect its reputation, objects will constitute unlawful direct discrimination within the meaning of the Equality Act’.
How should we relate to the transgender community?
Among the big news headlines recently was the Supreme Court ruling that decided a woman is defined by their biological sex, in accordance with the 2010 Equality Act. The Court also deliberated the meaning of “man,” “woman” and “sex”.
Justices Lord Hodge, Lady Rose and Lady Simler, along with other justices, unanimously agreed that “woman” can only be defined biologically. And therefore this ruling protects women from biological men trespassing into boundaries reserved exclusively for women – for example girls toilets, changing rooms etc.