Equalities watchdog submits formal guidance after UK supreme court transgender ruling

The equalities watchdog has submitted its formal guidance about how institutions should respond to the landmark supreme court ruling on transgender people’s rights, with its chair admitting it would be “difficult” for many to shape workable policies.The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has handed the guidance to Bridget Phillipson, the minister for women and equalities as well as the education secretary, who must now decide whether to accept it.One EHRC source said that while the decision-making on the guidance was restricted to a small group of people around the group’s outgoing chair, Kishwer Falkner, the expectation was that it would closely reflect interim advice released by the watchdog in April.This alarmed transgender groups, who said its guidance that the supreme court’s ruling that the legal definition of a woman was based just on biological sex meant transgender people should not be allowed to use toilets of the gender they live as, and that in some cases they could not use toilets of their birth sex, would effectively exclude transgender people from much of the public realm.It also said that organisations such as sports clubs or hospitals could ask to see someone’s birth certificate if there was “genuine concern” about what biological sex they are

Thousands in England unable to access weight loss jabs via GP, figures reveal

Thousands of patients in England are unable to access weight loss jabs via their GP, figures reveal, as doctors warn that the NHS rollout is “not fit for purpose”.Family doctors got the green light to prescribe the drugs for the first time in June. About 220,000 people with “greatest need” were set to receive Mounjaro, also known as tirzepatide and made by Eli Lilly, on the NHS over the next three years.But two months on, fewer than half (18 out of 42) of the commissioning bodies across England have confirmed they have begun prescribing the drug. Critics said the figures showed there was now a “postcode lottery” of access to weight loss jabs on the NHS

Tackle the sugar lobby to save young teeth | Letter

No one will argue against the benefits of good oral hygiene (The Guardian view on the dental divide: ministers must brush up their policy as well as children’s teeth, 2 September), but teaching toothbrushing at breakfast clubs to prevent dental decay (cavities and fillings) is a waste of time unless it is backed up by dietary advice with regard to unnecessary sugar. Why can’t this simple advice, and ways to apply it, be given to pregnant women and mothers of newborns? It can be given by a variety of healthcare professionals, costs nothing to apply at home and would save the NHS millions in a few years’ time. Children would have less pain and dentists would have a happier job.Extending the sugar tax and challenging the aggressive marketing and lobbying tactics of the food industry, which promotes and profits from high-sugar foods, should also be considered if we are to take the problem seriously. There is “no specific correlation between the number of NHS dentists and young children with tooth decay” because the damage has been done and habits established before most children get to see a dentist

Martha’s rule now in operation at every acute hospital in England

Martha’s rule, which lets NHS patients request a review of their care, is now in operation in every acute hospital in England, health service bosses disclosed on Thursday.The system has helped hundreds of people receive potentially life-saving improvements to their treatment since its introduction began last year. It has led directly to patients being moved to intensive care or receiving drugs they needed, such as antibiotics, or benefiting from other vital interventions.It is named after Martha Mills, who died in 2021 at the age of 13 from sepsis after a bicycle accident. A coroner found she would probably have survived if she had been moved to the intensive care unit at King’s College hospital in London when she began deteriorating

Latte-swilling ‘performative males’: why milky drinks are shorthand for liberal

Another week, another somewhat fictional online buzzword to parse. This time it is the “performative male”, basically the idea that posturing straight men only read books to get laid, outlined in recent trend pieces including the New York Times, Vox, Teen Vogue, Hypebeast, GQ and millions of TikToks.According to the Times, this man “curates his aesthetic in a way that he thinks might render him more likable to progressive women. He is, in short, the antithesis of the toxic man.” Apparently these heterosexual men who read Joan Didion, carry tote bags and listen to Clairo are not in fact human beings who enjoy things but performative jerk-offs who don’t really care about any of that girly stuff and are just trying to impress their feminine opposites

Ministers urged to digitise adoption records to help reunite families

Ministers have been urged to digitise records essential to reuniting families separated by the UK’s unmarried mothers’ home scandal by campaigners who fear they could be lost in Angela Rayner’s local government reorganisation project.Hundreds of thousands of British women were coerced to give up babies at church-linked homes, which worked alongside statutory agencies, between the 1940s and 1980s.This week, ITV’s Long Lost Family: The Mother and Baby Home Scandal will feature the searches of people – including mixed-race and disabled adoptees – affected by forced adoptions, which the UK government has refused to formally apologise for.Away from the cameras, campaigners say digitising records across the UK will help survivors struggling to trace relatives and reveal the risk of inherited health conditions or from anti-lactation drugs used in homes.The Movement for an Adoption Apology (MAA), which fears records could be destroyed in the plans to merge English local authorities , has written to the families minister, Janet Daby, calling for digitised archives