Gender-critical organisation Sex Matters recorded a total income of £1.43m during its first full year as a charity, according to its recently published accounts.
The charity’s accounts for the year ending 30 June 2025 show that it raised £1.22m from donations and legacies, including gift aid.
Its income includes a £205,000 transfer from the similarly named limited company through which its operations were previously carried out, which was dissolved on 23 September 2025.
Sex Matters also received £6,810 from investment income and £1,470 from social media monetisation.
The charity recorded an expenditure of £844,000, 33% of which was spent on campaigns and policy, while over a quarter went on legal action. It spent £53,600 on fundraising.
Its total funds at the end of the financial year under review amounted to £586,000, including £425,000 held as free reserves (representing 5.4 months of its expected operating expenses, shy of its six-month target).
In 2024-25, the charity employed eight people, with the highest-paid individual earning between £100,000 and £110,000, and spent £366,000 on staff costs overall.
Between April 2024 and January 2026, five trustees, including the charity’s first chair Naomi Cunningham, resigned from their roles.
Sex Matters currently has six trustees, including interim chair Emma Hilton, according to its Charity Commission listing.
In January, the commission confirmed it had an ongoing regulatory compliance case into Sex Matters following a complaint made to the regulator by the Good Law Project’s founder Jolyon Maugham.
A spokesperson for the regulator confirmed today that its case remains open.
Intervention in landmark ruling
Founded in October 2020 and registered as a charity in April 2024, Sex Matters defines itself as a human-rights organisation that promotes “clarity about sex in law, policy and language”.
The charity intervened in the landmark For Women Scotland case in the Supreme Court, which last year clarified that references to “women” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex, not gender.
Sex Matters paid £62,500 to For Women Scotland in 2024-25, its accounts show, and co-founder and chief executive Maya Forstater said the court ruling “was a moment of pride and celebration and optimism”.
However, she said in the accounts: “Legal clarity alone doesn’t change practice on the ground.
“Much of our work this year has been about pressing institutions, employers, regulators, schools, sports bodies and public authorities to follow the law.”
Forestater added that the charity would spend the year ahead “building systems, competencies and relationships and making smart use of technology to streamline our workflows so that we can be as effective as we can”.
Earlier this year, commission CEO David Holdsworth told the government that greater clarity was needed on how charities and other organisations navigate the effects of last year’s Supreme Court ruling.
The government is yet to approve an updated code of practice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission watchdog, more than a year on from the judgment.
Some charities have made changes to their operations in the meantime, including Girlguiding and the Women’s Institute.
