A Review of 2024

My review of 2024s key Brighton moments certainly throws up some highs and lows. Are we winning the battle against the gender identity cult? Actually, yes, maybe. The publication of Hannah Barnes’s Time to Think in March and the ground-breaking Cass Report in April added weight to the case put by many of us in Brighton a year earlier. Brighton is no different to the national picture: the UK is living through years that have witnessed a tell-tale spike in the numbers of teenage girls (often autistic, often same-sex attracted) identifying as trans and seeking medical transition. In as much as our council leaders look at this phenomenon at all, their default position is that progressive innovations like the Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit are helping children to discover ‘who they really are’.

While the near total ideological capture of the city council (both its elected and senior executive layers) is formidable, the cracks began to emerge across 2024 and we suspect a national press article in December gave a clue to how these cracks will widen in 2025 (in short, a Brighton father of a 16-year old will bring a High Court case against the NHS arguing a certain Brighton GP defied Cass Review guidance). Other Brighton parents are minded to do the same. A prediction for 2025? – never make predictions, but rats off a sinking ship comes to mind.   

INTRODUCTION

We entered 2024 having endured six months of a new Labour administration under the strict supervision of Bella Sankey. Elected in May 2023, an early indication of the gender-ideology stance taken by Labour in Brighton came when I wrote to every councillor. I asked if they were aware of an anonymised case reported in the national press that appeared to describe the experiences of a Brighton family. The Sunday Times had interviewed the parents of an autistic girl who had been socially transitioned by her secondary school without informing them. A reply from Labour’s Cllr Mitchie Alexander suggested she was not privy to the fact that Sankey and senior officers knew all about this case. Mitchie Alexander doubted the press article was referring to Brighton but her reply revealed the council group-think that we encounter all the time. Echoing the guidance that the council recommend (the ‘Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit’), Cllr Alexander’s view of social transitioning appeared to equate ‘coming out as trans’ with past debates around Section 28. For Mitchie, kids come out as trans just as they come out as gay (they’re just discovering ‘who they really are’). As with Sankey’s proclamations on protecting “our precious trans children” against those awful people who would deny their existence, Mitchie imagines the parents as cruel and bigoted: “Wanting to change your name, wanting to be referred to as a different gender, wanting to bind your breasts is not anything to be ashamed of”, wrote Alexander. Unsurprisingly, her standpoint points the finger at parents who block a child’s desire to be who they really are. As the actions of Brighton social workers described in the Sunday Times article demonstrate, the council simply brands these parents as bigoted and cruel. With reference to the article, Cllr Alexander was keen to reinforce the gender-activist view that ‘young trans people’ simply need and deserve their parents support: “Too many young trans people take their own life, as the people who they love and others around them, do not tolerate/acknowledge their identity”. Perhaps 2025 will be the year news of the suicide-myth reaches Brighton and Hove?   

My public question to the equalities committee (11/07/23) asked the new Labour administration to confirm it fully embraces and abides by all nine of the protected characteristics as laid out in the Equality Act (the council answered, yes it does). However, the council’s answer to my next question on whether BHCC agree that Gender Critical belief is worthy of respect in a democratic society was the first indication that the council will pick and choose if it abides by the Act. The answer given by Cllr Pumm (emailed to me) presented the council’s caveat that it “reserved the right to challenge any expression of beliefs which causes harm or undermines the dignity and safety of others”. For Pumm and the BHCC senior execs/lawyers who approved his answer, GC belief that causes “harm” (or makes trans persons feel ‘unsafe’) appear to justify their unlawful discrimination of Allison Hooper. (See a Freedom of Information response on this here.) As has been correctly noted by legal experts “Asserting biology shouldn’t be deemed hateful by any rational person. Disagreement – espousing beliefs that are themselves lawful – is not hate. Seeking to manufacture a situation in which non-hate is deemed hateful acts against the interests of trans people; alienates the general public; and is itself harmful”.

Ten days later, the very first Full Council meeting of Sankey’s administration made its extreme views on gender identity abundantly clear. This time, I put questions to Bella Sankey that so enraged her she even surprised her supporters by branding the parent-concerns about social transitioning I had raised as “baseless smears” (1).

JANUARY

Jan 27^th – Julie Burchill strikes!

In this annual review, a high point can include an article that simply lets the world know about Brighton’s all-round horror show of ideologically driven governance. One of these appeared in the Spectator. Titled ‘Brighton shows why you shouldn’t vote Labour’, Julie Burchill’s acerbic description of the mess we’re in surely spoke for many a fellow resident who had initially celebrated Labours routing of the awful Greens: “It’s like there’s an ongoing competition between the Greens and Labour to see who can finish off B&H in the shortest time”. This paragraph was especially prescient:

“Next week, Sankey will host another of her patronising ‘Reimagine Brighton’ events, where the public show up believing that they can have their say. This time the idea is to ‘brainstorm’ on the theme of ‘safety in the city – how can we ensure women and girls feel safe?’ Well, ensuring only women – rather than men who think they are women – can access Brighton’s rape crisis centre might be a good start”.      Julie Burchill, The Spectator, 27/01/24

Jan 29th – a shocking incident at the ‘Reimagine Brighton’ event.

And so it was that two days after Burchills piece appeared in the Spectator we witnessed the first low point – very low. With Sankey herself present at the event (as if to ensure maximum impact), the actions that took place at ‘Reimagine Brighton’ were grotesque. One way of making Brighton & Hove “a safer city for women and girls” was to perform, it seemed, a live enactment of what council bullies traumatising rape victims looks like (this blog entry by FiLiA CEO Lisa Marie Taylor describes what happened). Of course, in the warped world of Brighton & Hove, the lessons of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre debacle become inverted and female survivors who think biological sex is real and the provision of female-only counselling matters absolutely should be denounced as bigots. 

   
The confiscation of her handout at the ‘Reimagine Brighton’ event began a harrowing year for survivor Allison Hooper for whom the trauma of past sexual violence was compounded by the re-traumatising experience of having her experiences and concerns, which she had expressed on a single page handout, snatched from the hands of attendees by angry council officials. For Allison, right across 2024, it must have felt like Sankey’s council set out to deliberately silence her every attempt to be heard. Read the council’s VAWG strategy here.

FEBRUARY

Feb 1st: At the first Full Council meeting of 2024 a question from Bev Barstow asked why it was that the council imagines the notorious Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit to be lawful when it plainly isn’t and the government draft guidance unlawful when it plainly is. “Surely it is time to suspend the toolkit and defer to the draft guidance?”, Barstow asked (Cllr Helliwell confirmed that the council will continue to recommend use of the Trans Toolkit). February also saw the local LGBTQ (but increasingly TQ) activist group Allsorts Youth Project hold parent sessions advising on how to challenge the draft government guidance. We quickly learnt that Allsorts were being very careful who it allowed in to these sessions. Predictably, the purpose of these sessions was to reinforce the message that the government guidance must be rejected because it “seeks to deny the existence of transgender pupils, discouraging them from coming out and being their authentic selves”.

Feb 26^th: Allison Hooper’s heartfelt letter to new CEO Jess Gibbons: by classifying the letter as a complaint, the council was able to use a notorious twist in it’s procedure. Numerous complaints from residents attending the Reimagine event (we know of six) were simply determined by the Monitoring Officer as having no “merit”. All of the complainants later appealed to the ombudsman but of course it is not part of the ombudsman’s role to challenge decisions made by the Monitoring Officer

MARCH

March saw some excellent developments. March 27^th 72 pages of legal advice were published by KC Karon Monaghan (read about this here) and a day later we saw the publication of a paperback version of Time to Think by Hannah Barnes. This contained a completely new chapter and several pages exposing the rogue Hove GP Dr Sam Hall. A day earlier Jo Wadsworth broke the story with a very welcome piece in Brighton & Hove News. It was alleged that Dr Hall was using a loophole in the NHS rules in order to give children cross-sex hormones without proper clinical assessment

In the same paper, a piece by Jean Calder appeared on March 3rd titled ‘Does our council have a woman problem?’. Jean’s piece returned to the Reimagine Brighton incident and traced the roots of the council’s silencing of gender critical women (most notably the ongoing Sarah Summers case and the physical ejection of a woman from the council chamber in October 2023).

APRIL

April 10^th was a high point for Brighton and the whole country. The final report of Dr Hilary Cass detailing her recommendations to NHS England following her review of gender identity services for children and young people. Cass was a vindication of all those voices arguing that social transitioning kids in school was not a neutral act and in many cases harmed children by placing them on a pathway to medical and surgical changes

April 13th – Brighton and Hove women protest outside the WellBN clinic. Their action was covered by the Sunday Times in its article ‘Doctor exploits NHS loophole to prescribe hormones for children’ (subtitled, ‘Despite a warning against the controversial drugs in the Cass report on transgender care, a Brighton GP is still handing them out’). Eight months later, news of the alleged actions of Hove GP Dr Sam Hall resurfaces in a December Telegraph story on a father taking the NHS to the High Court over actions taking place at the WellBN clinic.

April 13th also saw a very welcome Guardian article on the Toolkit and the legal opinion by Karon Monaghan of Matrix Chambers which, wrote the Guardian, “concludes that schools and councils using the toolkit are very likely to be in breach of equality and human rights legislation, and at risk of being sued by unhappy parents”.

“Hall, who transitioned as an adult having been married and had three children, is a revered figure in Brighton. Posters celebrating him as a “trailblazer” were seen around Brighton during last year’s Pride parade. He works closely with the local trans youth charity Allsorts, dubbed “the Mermaids of the south coast” — the trans charity that lobbied doctors at Gids and supports the use of puberty blockers — and is a prolific blogger who has talked openly about how his practice is guided by his beliefs”.

MAY

The month of May began with by-elections in east Brighton following the suspension and resignation of two Labour councillors for alleged electoral fraud after their success the previous year.

May 2^nd – For our timeline of highs and lows the significance of these by-elections was the attempts I made as an independent candidate to highlight the emerging schools safeguarding scandal. As I told Julie Bindel (who devoted a whole episode to Brighton in her podcast series ‘Julie in Genderland’ – see episode 5), the more that parents sounded a safeguarding alert the more this was presumed to be baseless and driven by the malign desire to propagate anti-trans rhetoric. The attacks on me by Green and Lib-Dem candidates were predictable but who knew that local MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle would go to the trouble of standing outside a Polling Station to warn voters that Hart is “anti trans” (later when I confronted Lloyd he argued that his criticism of me was accurate because I’d challenged the Labour council’s “work on trans rights”. Unlike Sankey’s ‘Baseless Smears’ accusation when I’d raised the safeguarding issue a year earlier, LRM’s outburst was particularly ill-judged coming as it did barely a month after the Cass Report and Wes Streeting’s unequivocal embrace of the report as a “watershed moment”. Captured by the gender identity mind-virus he may have been, but LRM was a hard working constituency MP and the manner of his removal as a candidate in the July General Election was wrong.

May 3rd saw the first PSHE Brighton parents drop-in. By this time PSHE Brighton (the parents group I am part of) had been contacted by a number of families in the city and this was a chance for us all to meet. Drop-in events continued bi-monthly throughout the rest of 2024.

JUNE

June 23^rd – The Brighton ‘Let Women Speak’ (LWS) rally held on the grassy area at Grand Parade was (once again) impressive for its defiance in the face of large numbers of pro-gender ideology activists who came to hurl abuse at women but also for the failure of police to protect attendees as the rally came to a close. That women were chased by gender activists though nearby streets, surrounded on street corners, forced to shelter in shops as mobs screamed ‘fascists!’ and ‘No Terfs on our turf’ was troubling enough. But the fact that police were indifferent when women pointed out that one of their tormentors was Alan ‘Sarah-Jane’ Baker, was shocking. Baker had spent 30 years in prison for kidnap and torture and later for attempted murder. He openly advocated for violence against gender critical women. Read press coverage on the LWS rally here.

The fact that you had to be brave to come support the LWS rally in the face of such visceral  hatred; and the fact that the police, at best, seemed to regard the LWS women as provocateurs (and no better than their tormenters) says something about the hyper-woke atmosphere engulfing Brighton. The hostile environment that greets anyone defending the sex-based rights of women and girls links directly to Bella Sankey. Her outspoken contempt for those who expose the harms of gender ideology, her administrations support for gender affirming schools guidance and her cold-blooded indifference to rape survivors requesting single-sex counselling serves to green-light the kind of ‘no Terfs on our turf’ manifesto so enthusiastically embraced by the likes of ‘Sarah Jane’. Arguably, open season on terfs had already been declared 12 months earlier when Cllr Pumm declared that the council ‘reserved the right to challenge’ terfy beliefs that make the likes of Pumm feel unsafe. No surprise then that zero tolerance on anyone who appears to be criticising gender ideology emboldened management in a discussion on schools safeguarding held at the Southern Belle pub (see SEPTEMBER below).

June also saw the first of Allison Hooper’s deputations to council submitted for approval (the council’s procedure allows short speeches from the public to be read out at a committee meeting). Allison’s deputation presented the original concerns outlined in the confiscated handout. The response to her formal complaint following the confiscation incident on January 29^th made the platform offered the public via deputations the obvious route to getting her concerns heard. The council response had made clear: “The complaints procedure is not the appropriate means by which to raise or discuss wider political or social issues, or the council’s approach to them”.  However, Sankey rejected the deputation because “Cabinet is not the correct forum for this to be raised” informing Allison that it had already been dealt with by the Council’s complaints process (which, of course, it had not).

JULY

A version of the deputation was re-submitted in July by Julia Basnett. It made clear that the ‘political or social’ issue of survivors forced to self-exclude from services unable to guarantee a male will not be present had explicitly not been dealt with by the complaints procedure. However, the exact same excuse (essentially a fiction pretending that this had been dealt with) was given by Mayor Asaduzzaman.

  
July 11^th: A question to Full Council by resident Gary Vallier asked if the council accepted that Karon Monaghan KC was correct in her finding that the Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit is in breach of numerous Acts of parliament; that it flies in the face of government guidance and that it rides roughshod over  multiple instances of binding case law in both the domestic and the supranational courts. The robot-like Sankey loyalist and deputy council leader Jacob Taylor ducked the question by claiming that the guidance is “non-prescriptive” and is, in any case, under review (2).

July 23rd – The council launch a public consultation on the Toolkit.

Also in July: Resident Julia Basnett receives a reply from senior council officer Emma McDermott confirming the council’s definition of ‘woman’. Julia learns that the council “defines woman/girls as women/girls in all their diversity” (from Enquiry # 587678) (see note 3a). Her question on how the council understands the Forstater Ruling was not fully answered until November (3b).

AUGUST  

(a quiet month!)

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SEPTEMBER

Sept 5th – PSHE Brighton write to Labour Cabinet member and gender identity activist Cllr Tristram Burden. Cllr Burden (who is one of my ward councillors in Queens Park) had told me that a PSHE Brighton letter to all councillors had not been received by him. PSHE Brighton, therefore, responded by re-issuing the letter and re-emphasising that a meeting with Cllr Burden would be very welcome in order to discuss with him the voracity of parent-concerns raised. He did not reply.

Relations between Tristram and myself had deteriorated by this stage. This councillor is one of the few who, in June 2023, had listened to my detailed account of the suffering of a Brighton family caught up in the schools safeguarding scandal. I stressed that BHCC leaders knew instances of children socially transitioned at school without the parents knowledge. I pointed out the role played in schools by Allsorts Youth Project and the Toolkit (both posing a risk to children who are ushered on to a ‘conveyor belt’ toward medical interventions without proper clinical diagnosis). Tristram’s response was to firmly deny that any such safeguarding breach exists (a position that he has maintained ever since). I asked him to check my claims with Bella Sankey and senior officers such as Deb Austin. A few days later he emailed me: “We won’t be taking this question any further. Rest assured the well-being of children and young people is hugely important to us as councillors, as it is to the committee”. On January 13th 2024 I went to Tristram’s surgery to raise the safeguarding issue a second time. He told me that he and his administration do not accept that there are any safeguarding breaches arising from schools who follow the ‘trans toolkit’. Nor were there schools failing to safeguard in relation to ‘social transitioning’ or any risks from deploying council recommended third party providers such as the activist group Allsorts Youth Project.

To have a ward councillor rebuff such a serious safeguarding alert was astonishing and, despite the pointlessness of issuing a Standards Complaint about this, I registered one anyway. His September 5th 2024 email to me ended with the line “The same questions you’ve been asking have been thoroughly answered and nothing has changed. Further cyclical correspondence on this issue will be ignored, Adrian”. The BHCC decision to regard all citizen concerns about a schools safeguarding breach as “baseless” has been the hallmark of the council for 18 months (from July 2023 to present). Despite the October 2023 Brighton & Hove News article Parents seek apology from council leader for calling their concerns ‘baseless smears’ (subtitled: ‘Head teacher accepts teachers knew their child used a breast-binder in school but kept it from them’), it seems that every Labour councillor has been instructed by Bella Sankey to refute such claims or say absolutely nothing. As the parents state, “Rather than admit the significant safeguarding issues exist, Bella Sankey doubled down in the full council meeting on Thursday 19 October. She said “I don’t recognise any of the concerns’ that we have raised”.

While it may be the case that Labour ‘backbenchers’ simply believe that the concerns are merely ‘smears’, Tristram Burden and other Sankey loyalists selected for her ‘cabinet’ know the truth but look the other way. The line that stood out in the press article was when the family of the child given breast-binders made clear that the council had full knowledge of the matter. In fact, “they [the council leaders] provided lawyers to the school to help them respond to it” [i.e. to the parents complaints]. An insight into how the Labour administration had chosen to silence the public – by claiming their concerns were ‘not recognised’ (or by avoiding engagement altogether) – came in the response to my August 2023 Subject Access Request (SAR):

Sept 10th – A new podcast series from Julie Bindel includes a whole episode devoted to Brighton & Hove. Episode 5 of Julie in Genderland meets parents and campaigners in conflict with the council over its gender affirming ‘Toolkit’ guidance for schools. Rachel Cashman of PSHE Brighton, researcher and campaigner Helen Saxby, parent and ex-teacher Julia Basnett and myself all take part. I’m really grateful to Julie Bindel and producer Samantha Smith for this series of nine episodes. Earlier episodes include contributions from Stephanie Davies-Arai of Transgender Trend, therapist and campaigner James Esses, and ex-BBC Newsnight journalist and author of Time to Think Hannah Barnes alongside the harrowing accounts of parents caught up in the nightmare.

Sept 13th – Brighton & Hove News publish this article outlining some of the objections to the Toolkit presented by PSHE Brighton. ‘New school trans guidance ‘worse than ever’, parents’ group says’ also made reference to the letter PSHE Brighton sent to schools detailing the many flaws of the Toolkit. “Governors are not asked to consider safeguarding in the list of responsibilities set out in the revised toolkit and the accompanying consultation”, stated the letter, “This is a key omission, as safeguarding should be one of the central planks on which the toolkit is based”. The letter warned governors that they will be liable should any risks transpire.

Sept 17^th – The council receive more questions from Julia Basnett intended to clarify the council’s stance in relation to the precise facts of the Jan 29^th confiscation incident (see the council’s November reply below).

September 17^th also witnessed the Southern Belle pub incident where a meeting of Free Speech Brighton was shut down by security guards. The landlord objected to a talk by a retired teacher arguing that children should not be subject to gender ideology in schools. The speaker, along with the entire audience of this pre-booked event were ejected. Shocked, they reassembled at a nearby pub only to have the same Pagoda security guards follow them – and they were ejected again!

As luck would have it Julie Burchill attended this event; see her eyewitness account in the Daily Mail here.

OCTOBER

Oct 17th – Finally, a deputation to the council’s Oct 17^th Cabinet meeting, submitted by Allison Hooper was accepted for reading. The reading and the reply given by gender identity activist Cllr Emma Daniel has been covered by Wall of Silencing on X (see the clip here: tps://x.com/BrightonWoS/status/1859573384318689739). Every one of Allison’s points were deflected. Instead, Cllr Daniel pretended that the deputation was about something else. Later, when challenged on this, Cllr Daniel replied, “I honestly engaged with the point that I felt was at the heart of the deputation which was your access to a service to work through the trauma you have experienced and my genuine regret at the length of the waiting lists for women who need services”. Of course, Allison’s point touched on a raw nerve for this Labour administration. They must never speak of their cult-like devotion to gender identity ideology which demands strict adherence to the belief that “transwomen are women” even if that leads female survivors to self-exclude from trauma services or the council’s VAWG strategy to erase all mention of female spaces. We await Cabinet 23/01/25 to see if the strategy is signed-off unchanged (see note (5) below for an update after that meeting takes place).

Oct 24th – Bev Barstow asks a question to Bella Sankey at Full Council. Bev made the point that while it was the case that Allison Hooper had finally achieved an opportunity to read her deputation, the reply Cllr Daniel gave sidestepped every single point Allison had raised. She asked, “does this administration accept that the Wall of Silencing vigil taking place outside this building right now is brave and principled leaving you all feeling just a little ashamed?”. Asserting the fictitious council line that all Allison’s points had been thoroughly answered, Sankey added, “I don’t accept that characterisation of silencing”.

Outside Hove Town Hall as the Full Council meeting of October 24^th took place, a Wall of Silencing vigil unfurled a banner and held speeches. See the coverage here: https://x.com/CashmanRachel/status/1849705583848435716

NOVEMBER

Allison’s letter to Cllr Daniel 15/11/24 soon became an Open Letter to all councillors.  On November 28^th Cllr Daniel replied but the gaslighting of Allison was so stark it warranted a response (5).

In November senior council officer Emma McDermott replies to Julia Basnett’s follow-up questions (6). The reply is extraordinarily candid. McDermott clarifies the council position on the ‘Reimagine’ incident. For survivors like Allison Hooper to uses phrases such as ‘men who identify as women’ is to commit the act of misgendering: “this phrase misgenders trans women by implying they are men who identify as women rather than women. [    ] Women are women, regardless of whether they are transgender or cisgender. [    ] The vocalising of an argument should not nor does not require the use of language that harms and impacts on the dignity of other people”.  On the Forstater Ruling, McDermott’s earlier emphasis on how the judgment does not mean that those with gender-critical beliefs can ‘misgender’ trans persons with impunity becomes clearer in relation to Allison Hooper. Ignoring the fact that the Equality Act protects Allison using necessary language (7), McDermott recites the council’s mistaken view that the treatment of Allison Hooper was justified because of ‘harms’ inflicted on the ‘dignity’ of trans persons who are left feeling ‘unsafe’.

DECEMBER

If we thought December would be a quiet month we were proved wrong!

This Daily Telegraph piece appeared on December 22nd. ‘NHS faces High Court legal fight over cross-sex hormones prescribed to boy‘ described a Brighton father who is bringing legal action against the NHS after his 16-year old son was given cross-sex hormones (despite the NHS accepting the advice of the Cass report on prohibiting the use of these drugs). He will seek a judicial review in the High Court of the decision allegedly made by Hove GP Dr Sam Hall to prescribe powerful medication blocking male testosterone and adding female oestrogen (which impacts on brain development, fertility, and sexual function) without, states the article, “any diagnostic process compatible with the Cass Report nor NHS England’s clinical commissioning policies”. “One community group, PSHE Brighton, raised concerns about what it described as a “pipeline of vulnerable, traumatised, often autistic and same-sex attracted children in Brighton and Hove being fast tracked for irreversible sex-change treatment”.

(Left, Dr Sam Hall) Dr Hall is alleged to have prescribed cross-sex hormones to the boy, identified in the Telegraph piece as as Child O. Dr Hall was mentioned by Hannah Barnes in a new chapter in the paperback version of Time to Think. Read Hannah’s Dec 22nd post on X here: “I wrote how demand for WellBN’s service is down to long waiting lists for gender clinics. The practice sees ‘bridging prescriptions’ as a way to relieve distress & improve lives of trans people. But it’s not at all clear 16 year olds meet any of the criteria for such prescriptions”.

The year ahead

January looks like being an interesting month with Cabinet and Full Council meetings scheduled. These meetings are likely to see attempts made to approve both the BHCC official VAWG Strategy and the Trans Toolkit (following a public consultation ending Oct 10^th). The Full Council meeting on January 30^th will come exactly one year on from the infamous ‘Reimagine’ incident and councillors (the vast majority of whom have been silent on this issue and the schools safeguarding scandal) will be confronted by our second Wall of Silencing vigil.    

As I complete this review of 2024, just 3 days into 2025 and we’ve been met with a proliferating national and international resurgence of reporting on the UK rape-gangs scandal. The story was triggered by the Labour government’s decision to reject the request of Oldham council for a national public inquiry into historical child exploitation in the area. Of course the rape gangs scandal isn’t just an issue local to Oldham. It stretches right across the UK and back through the decades. The abomination it represents is, broadly speaking, analogous to the UK-wide safeguarding scandal driven by extreme gender ideology. As with the reality of rape gangs in Oldham, Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford, Oxford and elsewhere, individual councillors, social workers and school leaders across the country were soon made aware of vulnerable girls falling victim to gender activists but they chose to look the other way. Like the rape gangs horror, those who knew included a significant number for whom it was politically more important to avoid presenting a gift to bigots or ‘fueling the far right’ than it was taking action to stop the ongoing abuse of children. Similar parallels have been drawn between aspects of the findings of the Cass Review and what Professor Alexis Jay found in Rotherham.

At Brighton and Hove City Council, alongside former and current CEOs and Monitoring Officers and alongside the various relevant senior executives who promoted gender ideology, every single one of our 54 councillors elected in May 2023 became aware of the safeguarding breach in schools this past year. None among this cohort can claim they didn’t know. All of the 2023 intake of councillors were briefed on the Cass Report and on the KC advice prepared by Karon Monaghan, and all were sent a copy of Time to Think. Every headteacher and chair of governors were made aware. While 2025 is likely to see many councillors and officials resolutely continuing to place their ideologically correct desire to never appear ‘anti-trans’ above their duty to keep children safe, we can only hope that most will jump ship.

Similarly, in the case of women survivors denied single-sex services, we hope councillors will feel ashamed of the treatment dealt out by leaders to Allison Hooper. To those councillors who have reached out to the likes of Allison Hooper and who have engaged with PSHE Brighton we commend you and hope others follow your lead.

This review has been prepared by me (Adrian Hart) in a personal capacity rather than as part of or on behalf of any campaigning group I’m associated with. However, Wall of Silencing (@brightonWoS, #wallofsilencingbrighton) are happy that anyone wishing to contact me or Allison Hooper does so using wallofsilencingbrighton@gmail.com – Thanks!

Notes:

1. Baseless Smears. Question to Full Council, 4.30pm 20^th July. (Adrian Hart)“In recent years, Council officers recommended third party providers to schools. Some conducted classroom lessons and staff training. Groups such as Allsorts and Race Matters advised on procedure and future strategies.Criticism has been made of certain groups that the materials delivered in schools are contrary to or misrepresent the law, national standards, guidelines, policy and evidence. It seems these groups are not regulated to ensure materials provided appropriately reflect law and national standards. Can Council reassure parents that it will stop recommending such providers and implement quality assurance measures to ensure compliance with national policy, law, regulation and guidance?” Cllr Sankey’s reply (see BHCC minutes for 20/07/23) ran to 500 words. It included, “The council does not recommend or work with any third party nor recommend resources that breaks or misrepresent the law and so these claims and accusations are baseless smears. [ ] On a personal note, I am disappointed to see these baseless attacks on providers of education in our schools…”. Hart’s supplementary was: “To be clear – parents require reassurance that third party providers are suitably qualified, that these organisations have the in-house expertise to operate within the boundaries of government guidance and the law for example safeguarding and recognise the limitations of their proficiency. For example, parents have described charity organisations in the city (who have no staff clinically qualified in gender dysphoria) affirming a child’s gender, which according to the NHS is not a neutral act, and facilitating referrals to GPs who are known to prescribe cross sex hormones to children without specialist diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Indeed one charity organisation, present in most schools in B&H, are listed as an official partner of Gender GP, who have previously been subject to investigation by the General Medical Council and medical tribunals processes.Does the Chair agree that any individual or organisation working in local authority schools (or funded in any way by the council) who promotes gender ideology and affirms the gender of individual children must be suitably clinically qualified to do so or otherwise risk a catastrophic failure in this council’s safeguarding duty?  
2. Resident Gary Valier’s question to July 11th Full Council: Gary Valier asked: “Does the council accept that Karon Monaghan KC is correct that the BHCC Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit is in breach of the Human Rights Act 1998, the European Convention on Human Rights, the Equality Act 2010, The Education Acts of 1996, 2002 and 2006, the School Premises (England) Regulations 2012, departmental statutory guidance including Keeping Children Safe in Education, EHRC Guidance (both Statutory and Technical) and multiple instances of binding case law in both the domestic and the supranational courts?”. Councillor Taylor, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and City Regeneration replied on behalf of Councillor Daniel, Cabinet Member for Children, Families, Youth Services and for Ending Violence Against Women and Girls: “Thank you Gary for your question. Councillor Daniel would ordinarily answer but is unwell today, so I’m responding on her behalf. And thank you for the correspondence that we’ve had over some months on this important subject. The first thing to say is the toolkit is not prescriptive and it encourages a case-by-case approach, which takes into account the needs of the student, their family and the school community. It does not and could not seek to override statutory guidance or binding statutes. The second thing to say is that the Council is in the process of reviewing the toolkit and will be launching a public consultation on the revised version very soon. Potentially as early as next week. Thank you.” Gary Valier asked the following supplementary question: “When you say, Councillor Taylor, that the toolkit is not prescriptive, it does not prevent any school from taking decisions in the best interest pupils. This is a deliberate phraseology from the Council, I believe, to expose each school to legal risk should any parent or teacher undertake legal action. How on earth is this shifting of the blame without tackling the root cause of concern and the failures, in my opinion, of the toolkit protect and safeguard children in the city, or indeed protect the interests of schools and prevent taxpayer money being spent on legal fees and court action?” Councillor Taylor replied: “Thank you, Gary, for your follow up question. As I say, the document has always been clear from its inception, its introduction, that it is not prescriptive, it is guidance. I think the best thing to say is that, as I’ve said, we will very shortly be publishing a new version of the toolkit and have a full public consultation. I fully understand you have strong views on this as to many others across the city. I think that consultation will be a really important chance for everyone to feed in their views and evidence to that process for the Council to consider.”
3. (a) Extracts from the July 2024 BHCC answers in response to Julia Basnett’s questions asked on Julia’s behalf by her ward councillor: (i) Please clarify the definition of female/woman/girl as used in the BHCC VAWGDASV strategic direction. [ANSWER] “Brighton and Hove VAWGDASV strategic direction document defines woman/girls as women/girls in all their diversity. [ ] VAWG is the umbrella term that describes the wide range of abuses that predominantly and disproportionately impact upon women and girls but can be experienced by all genders. (ii) Could you also kindly; Set out how our VAWGDASV strategy consultation and drafting processes have fully explored provision of female only counselling services to rape survivors. [ANSWER] This appears to be a question about commissioning intentions rather than the strategic direction document for VAWG shared at Cabinet and detailed explorations will be conducted at the point of commissioning. The Council jointly commissions counselling services to rape survivors in partnership with pan Sussex partners. These arrangements are in place until 2026 with an option to extend until 2028. Partners follow consultative processes to agree what will be commissioned in any future service model. (iii) & (iv) These questions sought confirmation on the BHCC position in relation to the protected characteristic of sex given that the BHCCs VAWG (including domestic abuse) strategy fails to include it and states, “In summary, VAWGDASV can take many forms which include physical, sexual, psychological, and economic abuse and can happen to anyone regardless of age, ethnicity, religion, gender, ability or disability or sexual orientation”. Clarification was also sought on BHCCs understanding of the Forstater Ruling: Julia asked, “in reference to her gender critical beliefs, it is my understanding that Maya Forstarter v CGD Europe and Others: UKEAT/0105/20/JOJ established that gender-critical beliefs, including a belief that biological sex is real, important, immutable and not to be conflated with gender identity, are protected under the Equality Act and the European Convention on Human Rights. It would follow, then, that nobody should feel silenced, intimidated or denounced for holding them, regardless of how they have been arrived at. In writing this I find myself wondering if it also follows under the Public Sector Equality Duty that it could be considered the Council’s responsibility to foster good relations between individuals holding gender critical beliefs and those who do not”. [ANSWER] “Females represent the majority of victims, and the needs of women/girls is incorporated in all our strategic intentions related to VAWG. However, we recognise that VAWG does not only affect women/girls. BHCC seeks to ensure that everyone who is affected by VAWG is supported irrespective of their sex or gender. [ ] This does not conflict with single-sex space provision where appropriate with suitable safeguards in place. It also does not prevent provision of spaces that are inclusive on the basis of non-binary sex and gender. [ ] The right to hold gender critical beliefs is protected, but as above there are significant restrictions on what this means in practice. There is the situation therefore of balancing rights of all and this will often be determined by the precise facts of a case. It is agreed that as part of the PSED ways of reconciling differences are an objective even where this is very challenging”. (v) This question asked if BHCC could confirm that “Protection for the expression of gender critical beliefs is recognised by BHCC and as such individuals in our City should not feel silenced, intimidated or denounced for holding them” and “Whether under the Public Sector Equality Duty the Council has a responsibility to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between those holding gender critical beliefs and those who do not?”. [ANSWER] “An authority may be allowed to restrict freedom of expression if, for example, someone expresses views that encourage racial or religious hatred. Like the right to freedom of expression, the right of each person to be protected from discrimination and violence are fundamental human rights.The expression of gender critical views may amount to discrimination/harassment if it manifests and has the effect of violating an individual’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. The expression of gender critical views may meet this criterion even if they are not directed at a specific transgender person”. [on PSED] “having due regard to the PSED] “does not require council to achieve the above as you will appreciate that reaching consensus on very polarised views, on any matter, is a difficult task and possibly unachievable. However, we remain committed to ensuring that we provide safe space for all residents to give their views to the council about services needed in the city and we then must balance for diverse people’s needs equitably within the resource constraints we operate”. (b) Extracts from the September 2024 BHCC answers in response to Julia Basnett’s questions asked on Julia’s behalf by her ward councillor: (i) pt1 [Julia asked] The confiscation of Allison’s handout was justified by Ms Glossop in an email to me (23/02/24) stating, “they were experienced as offensive by other participants and were proving to be disruptive to the event”. In her handout, Allison uses phrases such as ‘men who identify as women’. Does the council perceive these phrases to be ‘misgendering’ (and the cause of “offensive”) and therefore reasonable grounds for confiscation? [ANSWER] “Yes – this phrase misgenders trans women by implying they are men who identify as women rather than women. The more respectful and accurate phrasing would simply be “trans women” or “transgender women” when relevant to specify, or just “women” in most contexts. Women are women, regardless of whether they are transgender or cisgender”. [(i) pt2] Further to your previous response to Cllr Gauge (Enquiry 587678) please tell me whether the council regards its action to confiscate Allison’s handout (because it was experienced by a participant(s) as offensive) to be a proper balancing of the protections accorded to Gender Critical Belief with the protections accorded to trans persons? (I refer to your replies on p3, a, b and c). [ANSWER] “It was determined that on balance the removal of the handout was proper to balance the protections accorded to people with different intersecting identities. The vocalising of an argument should not nor does not require the use of language that harms and impacts on the dignity of other people. As the note was being received by some attendees on that basis, it was removed. While the right to hold gender critical beliefs is protected, there are restrictions on what this means in practice/how it manifests. Those with gender-critical beliefs cannot ‘misgender’ trans persons with impunity. The expression of gender critical views may amount to discrimination/harassment if it manifests and has the effect of violating an individual’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. The expression of gender critical views may meet this criterion even if they are not directed at a specific transgender person”. 
4. “Nov 28th
   
   Dear Allison,
   
   Thank you for coming to present your deputation and for this letter by way of follow up to the deputation. I understand this is a deeply personal matter that deserves careful consideration. In my response to you at Cabinet, I sincerely and honestly engaged with the point that I felt was at the heart of the deputation which was your access to a service to work through the trauma you have experienced and my genuine regret at the length of the waiting lists for women who need services. Our approach to service provision is guided by evidence-based best practices and focuses on ensuring all survivors can access the trauma-informed support they need. The women’s sector in our city has a long-standing track record of managing services safely and effectively for all women, including those with gender-critical beliefs.  We recognize that survivors have diverse experiences and needs. Our commitment as a Council is to ensure compassionate, inclusive support that prioritises individual healing and recovery. Service decisions are based on professional standards, community needs assessments, and contemporary research on trauma support. I share your concern about service accessibility.  We are actively working to:  Optimize use of existing funding; Increase investment; Reduce waiting lists for trauma support services.  The upcoming Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy, developed through extensive consultation with survivors, support organisations, and healthcare professionals, will further strengthen our commitment to supporting all individuals who have experienced gender-based violence. My focus remains on ensuring fair access and expanding service provision to prevent domestic violence and sexual abuse. I value your engagement on these important issues.  Sincerely, Emma“

Dec 6th Dear Emma,
Thank you for your Nov 28^th reply to my Nov 15^th letter/Nov 25th Open Letter.
I had hoped that you would accept the seriousness of the issues I attempt (and keep on attempting) to raise but alas these issues seem to elicit such contempt within the council that, once again, you make no reference to them at all. I must say, it takes some effort on your part to tip toe around the questions I asked in my letter:

·         I responded to the matter of the council consulting with Women’s Aid asking “if this will result in the delivery of future and current services that appoint staff using the protected characteristic ‘sex’?”, but you side-stepped this completely.

·         I gave you an opportunity to reassure female survivors like me that you support Labour minister Anneliese Dodds when she said that government “will protect single-sex spaces for biological women” and that you confirm BHCC will do the same. I quoted three other Labour ministers too. But you side-stepped these points completely.

·         I asked you to correct me if I am wrong to imagine my council regards ‘gender critical’ belief to be false, bigoted and unworthy of respect. And you side-stepped this too.

At the end of my Nov 15^th letter I tell you that “I’m not sure what it will take for the gaslighting to stop”. I can’t quite believe that you would openly taunt me on this point. Yet, in your Nov 28^th reply you refer to my deputation to cabinet and have the audacity to write “I honestly engaged with the point that I felt was at the heart of the deputation …”. You then write, “… which was your access to a service to work through the trauma you have experienced and my genuine regret at the length of the waiting lists for women who need services”.

For the record, the substantive issues I raised in January and on numerous occasions since (as you, your fellow cabinet members and certain senior officers know full well) have never taken the form of a complaint about lengthy waiting lists. For you to openly and publicly pretend that my access issues boil down to this – to evade the questions I ask and the issues I raise as you have – takes ‘gaslighting’ to new heights. That you/BHCC have engaged in this technique is not only deeply distressing for me, it is the antithesis of a trauma-informed approach and brings both the council and its VAWG strategy into disrepute. I might add that I’ve researched the law on this matter and on five separate occasions since the January confiscation incident, and culminating in our exchanges, BHCC’s responses to my attempt to be heard meet the standard for harassment as defined and prohibited by s.26 of the Equality Act 2010.   

For the record, the substantive issues I raise are and have always been:

·         the desperate need of female survivors of sexual violence in Brighton & Hove to have their council address the absence of single-sex trauma provision within the two publicly funded services that exist;

·         and to have our council engage with the problem of survivors self-excluding from services (the problem being that those services openly state that they cannot guarantee a male will not be present in the spaces provided for trauma counselling);

·         And to have our council justify the explanation it has given to women for aggressively confiscating my handout, which they were offering to attendees of the ‘Reimagine Brighton & Hove’ event. This public event purported to be an opportunity for residents to discuss issues around the theme of safety for women and girls. The explanation eventually given to them for snatching my words on a page (written because I could not attend) from attendees hands was offense caused by “misgendering”. My crime was to use the words ‘men who identify as women’, which, according to BHCC officers, were “offensive” and required sanction because they “misgender trans women by implying they are men who identify as women rather than women” (1).

It is very plain to see that, when interacting with survivors who believe biology is real and that female-only spaces matter, the council’s idea of a trauma-informed approach is to bully, intimidate and insult in the hope that we fall silent. When that fails, Emma, you harass me with replies that deliberately evade every one of our concerns.

Upholding extreme gender ideology appears to be BHCCs official approach. This stance is unlawful because it supports an openly hostile response to women who dare to express the sex-realist views council dogma opposes. Despite the fact that our views exist as a protected characteristic (those who hold ‘gender critical belief’), the council choose to defy the law. Your leaders stand up in this chamber and mock the Equality Act by pretending to support this protection of belief while instantly withdrawing it when these beliefs are expressed out loud (2).  BHCC seem unaware that survivors like me need to use clear language when describing our concerns and the law permits this. Yet BHCC condemns our language as “offensive”.  

In this grotesque misunderstanding of the Forstater Ruling, BHCC brand the concerns of women as false, bigoted and unworthy of respect. It then seeks to punish survivors like me who speak out.

In my case, the whole of 2024 witnessed the council mounting a sustained wave of harassment against me. I suffered the humiliation of my words on a page being vilified and confiscated in public. My heartfelt letter to the CEO about that experience was ignored and two separate deputations were rejected on the spurious grounds that my issue had been dealt with.

Emma, I have been shaken by every step of this ghastly interaction with my council. The deputation which you replied to in chamber presented an opportunity for this council to apologise and resolve, henceforth, to demonstrate to female survivors what a trauma-informed approach looks like. My letter to you (now an Open Letter) presented another opportunity. It saddens me that you chose not to take these opportunities and instead continue onwards with the council’s contemptuous, gaslighting response.    
 
Regards,
Allison Hooper.

Notes:

1.  Quote from detailed response from BHCC Head of Communities, Equality and Third Sector, to resident follow-up questions via ward councillor enquiry 587678.

2.  Reply given by Cllr Pumm to public question, June 2023: “We respect everyone’s right to hold their own beliefs and the Council acknowledges that the Courts have deemed gender critical beliefs to be a protected characteristic under the Equality Act. The council recognises that a person holding gender critical beliefs may or may not be transphobic. It is not possible for a public body to know the motivation of a person who holds gender critical beliefs. However, we reserve the right to challenge any expression of beliefs which causes harm or undermines the dignity and safety of others“.

5. [Watch this space – I will provide a footnote summarising what happens in relation to the VAWG strategy and the Toolkit at Cabinet on Jan 23rd and Full Council on Jan 30th (along with any media coverage of the Wall of Silencing vigil).

END.