Starmer appoints former trustee of Sex Matters as Exec Director of Communications at No10

Tim Allan, a former trustee of the gender-critical organisation Sex Matters, has been appointed Executive Director of Communications at 10 Downing Street. The move, announced as part of a wider reshuffle by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, has sparked significant backlash from LGBTQ+ rights charity Stonewall, and the Good Law Project.

Allan, who previously served as a special adviser to Tony Blair and later founded the influential PR firm Portland Communications, stepped down from his role at Sex Matters shortly before taking up the government post on 1 September. His appointment comes at a time of heightened sensitivity around LGBTQ+ rights in the UK, particularly concerning trans inclusion.

Sex Matters, the organisation with which Allan was affiliated for nearly a year, has been criticised for promoting policies that exclude trans people from single-sex spaces and for advocating a strict binary definition of sex. The group’s stance aligns with the UK Supreme Court’s April 2025 ruling that the legal definition of “woman” refers exclusively to biological females.

In an open letter to the Prime Minister, Stonewall CEO Simon Blake OBE expressed “grave concerns” over Allan’s appointment, warning that it could undermine the government’s commitment to “remove indignities for trans people who deserve recognition and respect.” The charity urged the government to rebuild trust with the LGBTQ+ community through transparency and dialogue.

We urge the Government to re-build trust with the LGBTQ+ community, from a basis of honesty and transparency.

The Good Law Project echoed these concerns, highlighting Allan’s recent tenure at Sex Matters and Portland’s past PR contracts with controversial foreign governments, including Russia and Qatar. “The government is heading in a dark direction,” the organisation stated in a widely shared social media post.

Allan has defended his previous involvement with Sex Matters, describing it as a “human rights charity which promotes clarity about sex in law, policy and language.” In April, he publicly endorsed a blog post by the group that criticised former Equalities Minister Penny Mordaunt for affirming that “trans women are women,” calling the post an “excellent document” with a “very clear legal history of the issue”.