Trans people in the UK could be banned from single-sex spaces based on their appearance, according to a leaked document.
On 19 November, The Times reported that the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) drafted new guidance for ministers nearly three months ago, aimed at “preserv[ing] the dignity and safety of women.” The guidance has not yet been published by Bridget Phillipson, the Minister for Women and Equalities.
A copy obtained by The Times revealed that “places such as hospital wards, gyms and leisure centres” may question trans women over their use of single-sex services based on “how they look, their behaviour or concerns raised by others.”
If there is uncertainty about an individual’s gender identity, they could be prohibited from accessing these services once those in charge have taken into account “relevant factors.”
In response to the leak, Trans+Solidarity Alliance founder Jude Guaitamacchi called on the government to reject the guidance.
“These leaks reveal that not only does the EHRC’s proposed code of practice seek to require trans exclusion, it instructs service providers to police this based on appearance and gender stereotypes,” Guaitamacchi said, per The Independent.
“This is a misogynist’s charter, plain and simple, and the government must reject it.”
A spokesperson for the TransActual organisation echoed similar sentiments in a separate statement.
“Astonishingly, the UK’s ‘human rights watchdog’ is attempting to mandate that staff at cinemas, hospitals, bars and cafes must try and judge whether users are trans or not based on appearance alone. This is a license to discriminate based on looks, plain and simple,” they said.
“We’ve seen this before – people trying to make our society into a place that is only safe for ‘normal’ ladies. Not just loos. But sports centres, changing rooms and more.
“We offer our solidarity to the many cis women who have been targeted and harassed for their appearance by ‘gender critical activists’ who believed they were trans, and who would be put even further at risk by these rules.”
Children’s Minister Josh MacAlister also addressed the “big implications” the new guidance can have on individuals during an interview with Times Radio.
“These are massive issues and I think that the public, now looking at the draft guidance from the EHRC, will recognise that when you drill down into examples of how this might be applied, it has big implications for individuals, it has big implications and public services,” he said.
The leaked guidance follows an April 2025 Supreme Court ruling that defined “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act as referring to biological sex, a decision that allows organisations to restrict trans women’s access to single-sex services.
As of this writing, theUK government has not announced when the new guidance will be published.
However, on 20 November, Phillipson told reporters that she was going through it “thoroughly and carefully.”
“I have responsibilities to make sure that’s done properly, and we’re taking the time to get this right,” she added, per The Guardian.
Netflix has announced a brand-new thriller led by Gangs of London star Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù, adapted from a hit crime novel, after others have enjoyed another thriller and some have watched a 10/10 series.
All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby will be getting the small-screen treatment by Netflix.
The story set in the Deep South follows Titus Crown (paled by Dìrísù), the county’s first black sheriff, who is being taunted by taunted by a serial killer.
Crown is haunted by his deeply religious mother’s sudden death as he tries to track down the murderer, who has been quietly targeting the African American community of Charon County, Virginia for years, supposedly in the name of god. Can Crown track the killer down before they strike again?
Netflix has confirmed the forthcoming show will consist of nine episodes and features an all-star cast, including Disclaimer’s Leila George, All American’s Daniel Ezra, John Douglas Thompson from The Gilded Age, The White Lotus’ Murray Bartlett, Nicole Beharie from The Morning Show, and On My Block’s Andrea Cortés.
Black Panther and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s screenwriter Joe Robert Cole has written the series.
Cole said about signing onto All the Sinners Bleed: “The specificity of the world S.A. Cosby created truly swept me away, and Titus Crown seized my heart.”
The show is being executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company Higher Ground Productions, alongside Amblin Television and author Cosby.
In fact, All the Sinnners Bleed was originally on former American president Obama’s summer reading list.
All the Sinners Bleed came out in 2023 and was named by the Guardian as one of the best crime and thrillers of the year, while The Times declared it thriller of the month and the Financial Times heralded it one of the Best New Crime Books.
Readers have left their book reviews for All the Sinners Bleed on Amazon, with one person saying in their five-star review: “I was gripped from the first chapter” and added: “Very refreshing to read a thriller from an African American perspective. I see a powerful Netflix series in the future!”
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A second five-star review was titled: “Hoping it’s first of a series, more please.” The reader stated: “Excellent thriller, for fans of John Connolly and James Lee Burke; hope Netflix do it justice with the forthcoming series.”
A third top-tier review declared: “Simply exquisite. So brilliantly written. I cannot stress highly enough just how great SA Cosby’s prose is.
“The characters are multi layered and I deeply cared about their well being. That’s so rare in a thriller where normally plot overtakes any kind of character development. Titus is a gem and I won’t easily forget him.”
While a fourth person said: “Boy that was an intense read. Cosby is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. His books are bleak, gritty, disturbing but splattered with memorable characters and great story telling and at the heart of them the worst and best of human nature.”
All the Sinners Bleed is in development with Netflix
NBC’s new primetime comedy “Stumble” is a love letter to cheer. Or should that be “Cheer,” the hit Netflix docuseries that catapulted a sport with high-flying stunts, squad drama, bedazzled uniforms and lots of makeup, into the cultural zeitgeist?
For “Stumble” showrunners Liz and Jeff Astrof, it’s both. Like much of America, the siblings say they became obsessed with the champion cheerleaders of Navarro College and their no-nonsense coach Monica Aldama, whose exploits were captured in Greg Whiteley’s two-season series that premiered in 2020. The show broke the notion that cheerleading was simply made up of pony-tailed girls waving pompoms on the sidelines, showcasing the athleticism of the sport, its competitiveness and its diversity — the cheerleaders, male and female, came from varying social, economic and racial backgrounds.
Jeff watched the documentary at the insistence of his sister and was quickly hooked.
“I said, ‘You know what we should do? We should do a show where Monica goes down to the worst college in America. We’ll call it ‘Stumble,’” he recalls during a recent video call with Liz.
The idea tumbled in their heads for a time, but it took a while for it to lift off the ground. Both siblings were busy working on different TV projects — Liz on her Fox sitcom “Pivoting,” and Jeff on his Starz horror comedy “Shining Vale” — when the 2023 Hollywood strikes hit. But the timing allowed them to think about “Stumble” again.
“That’s when I really dug in,” Liz says.
“And we got to call Monica,” Jeff adds. “She’s our best friend. We even put that in the pitch, that she’s our best friend now.”
When I relay the sentiment to Aldama over a separate video call from New York, where the show is being filmed, she smiles and laughs. “Oh my goodness, they are the absolute best,” she says in her soft Texan twang.
The former Navarro coach serves as an executive producer on “Stumble” and also as its cheer consultant, bringing her decades of experience as one of America’s top collegiate cheer coaches. And while the show, premiering Friday and streaming next day on Peacock, takes some elements from the docuseries — it’s a mockumentary — it’s important to note that “Stumble” isn’t a one-to-one adaptation of “Cheer.”
The series follows Courteney Potter, played by Jenn Lyon (“Justified,” “Dead Boy Detectives”), a champion cheer coach at the fictional Sammy Davis Sr. Junior College, who is fired after a problematic video surfaces. Tammy Istiny, played by Kristin Chenoweth, takes over as interim coach — though she’s not as heartbroken about Courteney’s departure as she initially lets on. Courteney isn’t deterred, however, and she finds another coaching job at Headltston State Junior College in Oklahoma (the team mascot is a candy button, the town’s main industry), where she works to build a squad from the ground up. The character is very loosely based on Aldama, sporting the same flowy blouses, skinny jeans, heeled boots and all-business attitude.
Courteney Potter, center, played by Jenn Lyon, is very loosely based on Monica Aldama.
(Matt Miller / NBC)
“She is incredible,” said Aldama about Lyon. “I can tell she has put so much time into studying me [and] cheerleading coaches. She asks very thoughtful questions when it comes to how to deliver a line, or if the wording is correct. We never actually sat down and spent a long time with questions. And it’s fascinating to me because it’s body language, it’s delivery, it’s everything — she really did a great job.”
Meanwhile, the squad is composed of misfits, hotheads, third-year “seniors” and even a narcoleptic tumbler with a solid split. Some of the characters feel familiar — they’re an amalgamation of personalities from “Cheer.” Krystal (Anissa Borrego) might remind you of Gabi Butler, the cheer influencer, and Dimarcus (Jarrett Austin Brown) has a fiery spirit similar to La’Darius Marshall, whose combative relationship with Aldama came to a head in Season 2 of “Cheer.” But otherwise, the similarities are fleeting.
For Aldama, working on the series marks yet another shift in her life and career, much of it spent in Corsicana, Texas, where Navarro is located and where she still calls home. After serving as head cheer coach for nearly three decades, she retired in 2023.
“You know, it’s scary to have change,” she said. “What I have learned about being in the spotlight is that there are going to be a lot of things said about you. … I view things a lot differently now.”
Her retirement came after a series of events: First, Jerry Harris, one of the breakout stars of “Cheer,” was charged with sex crimes involving minors in 2020. Season 2 showed how the team grappled with his arrest; Harris pleaded guilty in 2022 and is currently serving a 12-year sentence. Then in early 2023, a civil lawsuit was filed by a former Navarro cheerleader, who accused Aldama of attempting to keep a sexual assault claim quiet. Aldama steadfastly denied the accusations, and her name was later dropped from the suit.
The Astrofs’ goal was to lean into the good things that “Cheer” showcased, emphasizing how much “Stumble” is a loose adaptation. “There’s darkness in everything, and we don’t go there,” said Jeff in reference to Harris. “For me and for Liz, the music is fun, the underdog nature of these kids and … seeing these actors do cheer and some of them … hadn’t even been in TV shows before. It’s like that excitement — it’s contagious. That’s what we’re looking at.”
Ultimately, the events of the past haven’t deterred Aldama from trying new pursuits. After all, her path was already curving toward Hollywood. After “Cheer” became a hit in 2020, she was cast in Season 29 of ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars,” giving her a taste of the limelight outside of her world. She also released a memoir in 2022. Now, she’s trying her hand at scripted television with “Stumble.”
“It’s obviously very different because I am learning a lot. I ask a lot of questions,” she said. “They [Liz and Jeff] asked me many times, ‘How deep do you want to go?’ I want to be in every meeting. I want to learn. I want to hear every conversation … but I do a lot more listening than anything at this moment.”
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1.Showrunners Jeff and Liz Astrof on the set of “Stumble.”(Matt Miller / NBC)2.The cast on set with Monica Aldama, who is the show’s cheer consultant.(Danielle Mathias / NBC)3.Aldama on set.(Matt Miller / NBC)
The Astrofs have been in the industry as writers and producers for more than two decades, each creating their own projects for television. Though they’ve worked together before — Liz on Jeff’s series “Trial & Error” and on Season 2 of “Shining Vale” — it’s the first time the pair have joined forces as showrunners.
Working on “Stumble” and coming up with a pilot together was easy for the siblings (Jeff: “We wrote the whole thing on Post-it notes”). It’s evident they are close, often completing each other’s sentences in the course of the interview. And they agreed that having Aldama was essential to making the series, particularly when it came to depicting the cheer routines and getting the nomenclature right.
“We needed to have authenticity to cheer, because we didn’t know anything about [the] cheer world,” Jeff said.
“We had to have Monica,” Liz said. “I really just wanted to meet her. I wanted her to be involved in every single thing, just so I could see her every day.”
Her expertise was important to them as was getting the world of cheerleading right. To help with that, Aldama enlisted Dahlston Delgado, who was featured on “Cheer,” to work as a choreographer on the show. Together they recruited extras with cheer experience via social media and through their many contacts in the cheer world. The cast did many of the routines, but stunt doubles were used in some instances, and real cheerleaders were used as part of the Buttons, Headltston’s squad.
Aldama and Delgado were given freedom to decide what routines would look like, while the Astrofs would focus on writing the dialogue for the show. “In a script, we’ll just write, ‘The team does an incredible cheer,’” Jeff says. “We’ll be in a production meeting, and Monica and Dahlston will be like, can you explain what you mean by ‘incredible cheer’?”
They ran with the limited guidance, however, putting together routines quickly, rehearsing in a couple of hours and taping them. “I think everybody not in our world just could not believe how quickly they learned a routine, with most of them not knowing each other and not ever working together,” Aldama said of the cheer squad. “They were just talented.”
“She’s magical,” Liz said.
“Monica is, even from the pilot, she’s so good at what she does, I would let her do toe surgery on me,” Jeff said.
Kristin Chenoweth as Tammy Istiny, left, and Monica Aldama as herself in the “Stumble” pilot.
(Matt Miller / NBC)
Aldama even makes a cameo in the first episode, comforting Chenoweth’s Tammy when the Sammy Davis squad learns Courteney has been let go. While she may be used to being in front of the camera nowadays, Aldama considers what more she’d like to do behind the scenes.
“I think everybody has their strengths,” she said. “And writing … I like where I’m at right now, where I can read the script and say, ‘Well, maybe this,’ and add a little bit to it. I would definitely be open to producing other shows in the future.”
For the showrunners, the compressed timeline between when the show was picked up by NBC in July to production to air meant that they had to make some compromises, including where the show was filmed. The pilot was shot in Georgia, but they wanted to shoot the series in L.A., where the writers’ room is based, but it eventually landed in New York because of the financial incentives and it’s where much of the cast is located. (The Astrofs wouldn’t mind if it ended up in L.A. at some point.)
Nonetheless, they’re optimistic about how the show will be received and having Aldama on board to add credibility from a cheer perspective was the ultimate goal for them because they love the sport.
“We just want to be funny with heart and, like, just people root for it,” Jeff said.
MOST childhoods for Brits were made up of reading books like The BFG, Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Next year, you’ll be able to experience some true nostalgia as a new museum showcasing the work of famed illustrators, like Sir Quentin Blake, will open in the UK.
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The new House of Illustration will be in ClerkenwellCredit: Tim Ronalds ArchitectsSome of Quentin Blake’s own work will be shown in the museumCredit: Sean Dempsey/PA Wire
Sir Quentin Blake is well-known for illustrating lots of Roald Dahl’s books, as well as his own like the Mrs Armitage series.
Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration will open in May 2026, and it’s an attraction that has been 20 years in the making.
On the project, Sir Quentin said: “I have long dreamt of a permanent place with ‘illustration’ above the door, and now the amazing reality is that we have it.
“I am proud to think the centre has my name on it – illustration is a wonderful universal and varied language.
“Here we shall celebrate its traditions and welcome the astonishing diversity of visual language from across the world. Hurrah!”
Once open, the museum will have exhibitions that will feature rarely-seen works from all over the world.
Original illustrations from leading and emerging illustrators, including work loaned from Quentin Blake’s own archive, will be on show.
There will be open spaces and a cafe for visitors to grab a bite to eatCredit: Tim Ronalds ArchitectsOn-site will also be a gift shop full of illustrated goodiesCredit: Tim Ronalds Architects
Also on the site will be free spaces, including public gardens, displays and an illustration library.
You can take a seat at the café which will serve up fresh food and drinks, and there will be a shop stocked with illustration gifts.
There will be illustrator residencies in London‘s oldest surviving windmill which is also on the old waterworks site in Clerkenwell.
Other events at the museum will be illustration workshops and learning programs.
Previously, the House of Illustration was in Granary Square from 2014 to 2020.
