Meanwhile, in Oxford:
Oxford City Council has declared that “biological sex” and “sex at birth” have no agreed medical or scientific meaning, while promising to pursue gender self-identification as far as the law permits.
Last Monday, Labour, Green and Liberal Democrat councillors backed a motion, The EHRC Code of Practice and Trans Rights, reaffirming the council’s 2021 declaration that “trans women are women, trans men are men and non-binary people are non-binary”.
The motion states that “biological sex” and “sex at birth” are phrases which “don’t have agreed medical or scientific meanings and there is no agreed identification to substantiate them, other than self-identification”.
It instructs council-run leisure facilities to adopt an “inclusive approach”, and says services should support gender self-identification “to the maximum extent permissible by law”.
Councillors also agreed that trans and non-binary people have been subjected to a “manufactured moral panic” intended to “demonise their existence and undermine their rights”.
Other motions, including on pregnancy services, helping vulnerable residents through heatwaves and transport provision, were shelved to make time for the discussion on trans access to single-sex spaces.
The resolution was put forward by Green councillor Max Morris, a senior lecturer at Oxford Brookes University who identifies as non-binary. His university profile says he has hosted talks on challenging “homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and sex work stigma”, and is active in his University and College Union branch and the university’s Palestine solidarity group.
Of course he is.
And how is the BBC covering this?
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