The Trans Agenda: Remembrance Day outrage as papers target queer charity

News you need, the perspective you won't find anywhere else. The trans community's guide to UK news, media and politics and our place in it.

Nov 24, 2024

The Trans Agenda

[24 November 2024]

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UK NEWS

Trans Day of Remembrance outrage in Belfast

For the first time, I got an invite to the Trans Day of Remembrance event held at Belfast City Hall this year.

Overall, the event was superb. So much work had gone into planning it, and it showed.
After listening intently to the first speakers, who moved the entire room, I tuned out somewhat when the Reverend Dr Linda Ballard took to the podium to deliver a short religious sermon before conducting the moment’s silence, something she has done many times before. We all stood, lost in our own thoughts of what the day meant to us. After we sat, I went back to tuning her out but my attention was snapped back when I heard her say “I know what I am about to say will cause a sharp intake of breath”. I whispered to my friend “then don’t fucking say it”.

“I agree with the Cass Report,” she said, as we sat there with our heads filled with the memories of our dead.

The entire room gasped. People started looking round the room for a sign of what to do as Ballard rambled on about why she felt that way. I’m sorry to say I cannot remember too much of what she said after that as adrenaline flooded my body and everything conspired to get me to challenge, to heckle, to storm out. But I couldn’t. My friend had organised the event. Other friends had spoken. They had stood in front of a room of friends and family and strangers and spoke of deep, personal sorrows and joys. Some walked out anyway and it was impossible to blame them as Ballard denied a grieving community a rare moment of collective dignity and healing.

One of the trans speakers from the event told me, “I was honoured to be asked to speak at this year’s Trans Day of Remembrance service at Belfast City Hall. The event was beautifully organised, and I really enjoyed giving my speech. Speeches from the Lord Mayor and the other guest speaker were excellent and struck a good mix of personal experience, support for our community, and mourning and honouring the dead.

”It is therefore all the more upsetting that Rev Ballard decided to use her slot designated as an “Act of remembrance and one minute’s silence” to push an agenda in support of the highly controversial Cass Report. She even acknowledged herself that what she was about to say would be met with an intake of breath, to which my initial thought was “Don’t say it then”.

"For a cis person, no matter how well-meaning, to lecture a room full of trans people on what is best for us, knowing it would not be well-received, is at best patronising and probably a lot worse than that. To use a slot designated as a memorial for those trans people around the world who have lost their lives because of transphobia, to push an agenda which was anathema to most of the people there, was arrogant and crass. Even if one agreed with Rev Ballard’s views this was neither the time nor the place to make such a speech. I note that a number of people left during her address. It was only a sense of respect for the organisers who had invited me to speak that prevented me from walking out at the same time.

"It is a great shame that what should have been a service of both solemnity and hope, has been tarnished by the selfish actions of this one individual. When the service ended, I was approached by one of the organisers to ask if I could go forward for photographs with the other speakers. I refused to appear in any photograph with Rev Ballard, and said clearly that her comments were disgraceful. I understand that post-event photographs were in the end abandoned altogether. Another of the organisers asked me how I felt after the service, and my answer was “angry”. Angry that one cis person had hijacked this event to basically tell trans people that she knows what is best for us better than we know ourselves.”

Mams4TransNI, a fierce ally group that works tirelessly behind the scenes, gave me this statement: As always, Mams4TransNI attended the fantastic Transgender Day of Remembrance event Belfast City Council held in the City Hall. The keynote speakers are personal friends of the Mams and we felt privileged to hear them share their personal stories. Unfortunately, the Reverend Linda Ballard took quite a liberty and expressed her views on the Cass Report at the most inappropriate time imaginable. The anger, upset and distress she has caused is immeasurable. We have made it clear to the council that our conscience will not allow us to attend again if the Reverend is in attendance in the future. We love this very important event and want those who were present to know that we will continue to have your back going forward. We are better together. Love the Mams x.

Some are emailing the Focus Trust, of which Ballard is a chair. In my opinion, although run by trans people, FT are problematic and often ignore concerns raised about their approach. I was involved with them when they first started, designed their first website and came up with the name for the group. I joined as a newly out-trans person when the clinic, which I’d just started attending, recommended them as a support group after the main group had split in two. I was happy to connect with other trans people for the first time but I don’t think I stayed a member for a year.

While I met some truly lovely people there, the leadership suffered a lot from internal transphobia, amongst other things. They would say quite offensive things about the other group, with trans women they viewed as not trying hard enough to pass earning their ire. I despised it, so I left. My last ‘contact’ with them was a year or two ago when I emailed them a few times about their website, which had started posting anti-trans content scraped from other sites. They did not respond. From what I have been told, they have not yet responded to anyone who has emailed them about this, either.

To my understanding, numerous complaints have already been sent to Belfast City Hall about Ballard and action is likely to be taken. If you are of a mind to email them yourselves, you can do so here. I must stress again, this was not the fault of the organisers, who could have had no clue this would happen.

The blame for all of this lies solely at the feet of Rev. Dr. Linda Ballard, whom I did not approach for comment. I am not here to platform excuses from people who think this is an appropriate way to behave. The rest of the media will happily do that. Information I’ve had since leads me to believe this is all I would have received. Should Ballard wish to offer a full and unqualified apology, I will be happy to publish that in a future edition. Anything else has no place here.

Labour ignore Trans Day of Remembrance

The UK governing party, the Labour Party, did not mention Trans Day of Remembrance. The official account did not tweet. Keir Starmer did not tweet. His deputy Angela Rayner did not tweet. They used to, when trans people were worth caring about more than fascists. Not any longer.

SNP defends legal rights of pregnant men

Scottish Government lawyers have argued before the UK Supreme Court that legal protections under the Equality Act 2010, which reference pregnant individuals, apply to trans men who were assigned female at birth. They claim that excluding pregnant men could result in gender reassignment discrimination claims. Additionally, the Scottish Government contends it is unlawful for women-only associations to exclude trans women with Gender Recognition Certificates (GRCs), including those attracted to women. These legal arguments will be discussed in a Supreme Court case brought by For Women Scotland (FWS), which opposes the government's stance on the definition of "woman" within the Equality Act, asserting it should be linked to biological sex.

Children in Need chair quits because charity helped trans kids [Telegraph]

BBC Children in Need chair Rosie Millard has resigned over grants awarded to LGBT Youth Scotland, alleging "institutional failure" in the charity’s handling of historical abuse cases. Millard cited her frustration over Children in Need's continued support of LGBT Youth Scotland.

However, Mhairi Crawford, the current chief executive of LGBT Youth Scotland, defended the organisation, highlighting that Children in Need's own investigations found no wrongdoing in their current operations. Crawford pointed out that repeated attempts to link historic allegations to the present-day work of LGBT Youth Scotland are part of ideologically driven attacks by those seeking to discredit their important support for LGBTQ+ youth. See Paper Review for more ‘coverage’.

Trans people feel increasingly unsafe in the UK, research reveals [Pink News]

A new study by Zoah, a trans-inclusive underwear brand, shows that 72% of transgender and non-binary people in the UK feel unsafe due to their gender identity. Younger people, especially students, report feeling less safe and confident compared to their cisgender peers.

The report highlights significant challenges faced by trans people, including barriers in healthcare and employment, alongside rising transphobic rhetoric in politics and media. Hate crime statistics reveal a sharp increase in transphobic incidents over the past five years, linked to heightened political and media attacks.

Concerns have also grown over the Cass Review’s impact on trans youth healthcare and Wes Streeting’s approach as health secretary, particularly regarding the ban on puberty blockers.

SURVEY

Healthwatch want to hear from trans and non-binary people about their experiences with their GP. This is an important research project and the data will help us to highlight the issues impacting trans people. You can complete the survey, which should take around five minutes, here.

AROUND THE WORLD

Congresswoman McBride announces she will comply with rules declaring her a man [Erin Reed]

The Republican Party is targeting transgender Congresswoman Sarah McBride (D-Delaware), led by Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). Johnson has barred McBride from using women’s facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings, requiring her to use unisex or private restrooms, effectively segregating her. McBride has agreed to comply and emphasised her focus on representing Delaware rather than on the bathroom ‘controversy’.

Her decision has disappointed many LGBTQ+ people, who see it as a surrender that sets a dangerous precedent. McBride's compliance has not stopped the attacks; instead, it may pave the way for additional measures targeting transgender people, including dress code regulations or restrictions on her presentation in Congress.

US Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas introduces bill to deny transgender identity [Advocate]

Kansas Republican Senator Roger Marshall has introduced the Defining Male and Female Act of 2024, seeking to define sex as strictly biological and binary in federal law. The bill mandates facilities and sports teams be divided by sex assigned at birth and rejects the validity of transgender identities.

Introduced on Transgender Day of Remembrance, the legislation aligns with Marshall’s history of anti-LGBTQ+ efforts, including attempts to ban gender-affirming care. While unlikely to pass in the current Senate, it signals where the US is heading fast.

Republicans file 32 anti-trans bills on first day in Texas [Advocate] [Erin Reed]

Texas Republicans introduced 32 anti-transgender bills on the first day of the 2025 legislative session's prefiling period, targeting nearly every aspect of transgender lives. Proposed measures include mandatory chromosome testing for athletes (HB 1123), a bathroom ban similar to Florida’s law (HB 239), and a $5,000 drag performance bounty (HB 1075), which broadly targets transgender individuals.

Other bills aim to restrict queer-inclusive school clubs (SB 86), ban books on LGBTQ+ topics, and strip legal recognition of transgender identities (SB 84).

Trans woman in China wins payout over electroshock treatment [Guardian]

A trans woman in China, Ling'er, has won a landmark legal case against a hospital that subjected her to electroshock conversion practices without her consent. Changli county people's court awarded her 60,000 yuan (£6,552), marking the first such victory for a trans person in China. Ling'er, a 28-year-old performance artist, was admitted to a mental hospital by her parents after coming out as transgender. She was diagnosed with "anxiety disorder and discordant sexual orientation" and underwent electroshock treatment without consent, which caused lasting health issues. LGBTQ+ activists hailed the case as a significant step forward for trans rights in China, where conversion practices still operate in a legal grey area. Ling'er hopes her case will help others in the LGBTQ+ community fight for their rights.

Sympathetic judge rejects Posie Parker protester’s conviction appeal [New Zealand Herald]

A judge in Auckland has rejected transgender refugee Eli Rubashkyn's appeal against her conviction for assault after pouring tomato juice over British anti-trans activist Posie Parker during a rally at Albert Park. High Court Justice David Johnstone showed a degree of sympathy towards Rubashkyn, noting her traumatic past involving serious discrimination-driven assaults, which he suggested made her actions "somewhat more understandable." Despite this understanding and acknowledging her otherwise good character, Justice Johnstone upheld the Auckland District Court's original decision to deny Rubashkyn a discharge without conviction.

He emphasised the importance of maintaining a standard where protests, no matter how justified or impassioned, should not involve physical attacks. Rubashkyn, who was originally charged for assaulting both Parker and event organiser Tania Sturt, had hoped to avoid a criminal record to continue travelling without restrictions, but the judge concluded that overturning the conviction would send the wrong message about acceptable protest behaviour.

The federal government of Nigeria has been urged to enforce the 2013 Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act to deter LGBTQ+ activities, with a focus on rising transgender visibility [Daily Trust, Nigeria]

FG urged to enforce prosecution on same-sex marriage prohibition Act Daily Trust19 Nov 2024From Dotun Omisakin, Lagos The federal government has been urged to implement the same-sex marriage prohibition Act of 2013 to enforce deterrence. The National President, Association of Papal Knights and Medalists in Nigeria, Rt. Hon Commander Steve Adehi stated this on the backdrop of brewing transgender individuals in Nigeria, citing Okuneye Idris popularly known as Bobrisky. The president stressed this during the press conference in commemoration of the 16th Annual National Conference of the Association of Papal Knights and Medalists in Nigeria (APKMN), themed, ‘Living an Authentic Catholic Life: Challenges and Opportunities in Nigeria’. “Well, the position of the Church is very clear. We are against all those forms and those types of living. A man carrying out himself to be like a woman, or a woman living like a man. These are all the things that we are complaining about. “And men trying to be like women and all that. The Church condemns it in its entirety. Which means, we condemn what this young man is doing. And we condemn other people who live, who also live differently from what God has given to them as their sex,” he said. Article Name:FG urged to enforce prosecution on same-sex marriage prohibition Act Publication:Daily Trust Author:From Dotun Omisakin, Lagos Start Page:45 End Page:45

LGBTQ families rush to protect themselves [Washington Post]

LGBTQ families rush to protect themselves The Washington Post19 Nov 2024Petula Dvorak ALLISON ROBBERT/THE WASHINGTON POST Advocates on both sides of the reproductive rights spectrum gather on the two-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision in January. Members of the LGBTQ community — some who’ve been married for years, who’ve adopted children and become grandparents, who are serving in elected offices across the nation — are rushing to law firms to help reinforce their legal status after what happened Nov. 5. And this feels like such a calamitous step back for America. “They’re terrified,” said attorney Stephanie Sauer, who has had a lot of new business since the election. When I began hearing about the rush to scramble for legal protections — seeing the pleas over social media for lawyers who can do this — I remembered Easter in 2006 outside the White House. More than 100 gay and lesbian parents camped overnight outside the Bush White House — which was how you’d get tickets to the beloved White House Easter Egg Roll back then — to be first in line at dawn, when the tickets were handed out. They were staging a quiet protest. No slogans on T-shirts, chants or signs. They simply wore rainbow leis and went about the business of being parents, waiting in line to see the Easter Bunny — packing snacks, calming tantrums, pushing strollers. They just wanted to be seen. That was the same year that then-sen. Joe Biden reaffirmed the Defense of Marriage Act, emphasizing that “marriage is between a man and a woman” on a “Meet the Press” appearance. At that point, samesex marriage was legal in just one state in America: Massachusetts. Most of the families I talked to at the Easter Egg Roll didn’t live in Massachusetts and were legally held together by an array of paperwork: civil unions, medical directives, second-parent adoption papers, legal name changes. It took an entire (costly) legal team and a folder for these families to get what a single marriage certificate granted to heterosexual families. And suddenly, all that paperwork is in demand again. This wasn’t supposed to happen, said Graham Hoffman, a 45-year-old gay man who is calling his attorney because of the changing political climate. Nearly a decade ago, same-sex couples celebrated on the steps of the Supreme Court when their right to love and marry who they want became the law of the nation in 2015. The United States has made huge leaps in support of the LGBTQ community at the ballot box, with gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender officials serving openly and proudly in state legislatures, in the nation’s Congress and the president’s Cabinet. And yet in one election, a fading fear has come roaring back. “Just look at Roe v. Wade,” Hoffman said. “I mean, nobody thought that would be overturned.” So nothing feels safe and permanent anymore. “We won’t sugarcoat this — last night’s election results were incredibly detrimental to the cause of equality,” Lambda Legal CEO Kevin Jennings said in a statement a day after the election. “There is no doubt that many of us feel scared, angry, and perhaps demoralized. And we are not naive: we are entering a seriously dangerous period,” Jennings said. Lambda Legal, the ACLU and dozens of advocates promised they will fight for LGBTQ rights and equality in the coming years. But the folks calling law firms for help aren’t waiting. “People are worried and are looking for help protecting their individual rights and their families,” said Cassidy Stoneback, the LGBTQ+ outreach coordinator for the Geller Law Group, where Sauer also works, and where scores of emails have been pouring in over the past two weeks. The firm is well-known for having an LGBTQ law specialist, and I checked in with them to see what they’re hearing. The numbers of inquiries have been “jarring,” said Rebecca Geller, president and CEO of the firm. “I had another consultation yesterday with a same-sex couple looking to create a power of attorney and medical directive because they are worried about their legal rights,” Geller said. “It is heartbreaking.” The truth is, a lot of protections for the community were only won very recently, Stoneback said, “so they are not as entrenched in our legal systems as people may think.” And this means that changes both nationally and locally can have a big impact on the community, she said. It’s not an overreaction. It was forecast in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that rolled back reproductive rights, that LGBTQ rights would be targeted. In his opinion, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggested revisiting Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case that made same-sex marriage legal across the nation. “The question would remain whether other constitutional provisions guarantee the myriad rights that our substantive due process cases have generated,” he wrote. President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign was studded with transphobic rhetoric. “We remember 2016,” said Cathy Renna, communications director for the National LGBTQ Task Force. “Literally, the day he took office, everything on the White House website that was LGBTQ disappeared.” I met Renna back in 2006, in that line outside the White House for the Easter Egg Roll. She brought her daughter, Rosemary, to the event. Over the years, we’ve been in touch to discuss increasing LGBTQ rights across the nation, as the patchwork of states offering safety and security were slowly stitched together under federal law to cover the entire nation. Most of our conversations were celebratory. And now, we’re back to talking about fear again. This is what Sauer is hearing at her law office every day. She’s hearing from people who are suddenly having to imagine that their whole marriage, their whole family unit, what they “intended to carry forward forever and ever,” ceases to exist. “It’s wildly stressful for people and they are scared,” she said. “They are legitimately scared.” Article Name:LGBTQ families rush to protect themselves Publication:The Washington Post Author:Petula Dvorak Start Page:B1 End Page:B1

SPORT

A statement of support for the ongoing inclusion of trans women in women's football - Let Trans Women Play!

MEDIA

Sarah Vine in the Mail on Sunday calls lesbian Ellen DeGeneres 'Ellen degenerate'

Will Ellen degenerate into a land grabber? The Mail on Sunday24 Nov 2024 ELLEN DeGeneres is reportedly moving to the Cotswolds to escape the Trump presidency. I wonder if the TV star, above right, with her wife Portia, will exploit the plight of farmers by buying land they’re forced to sell to escape Labour’s tax raid? Article Name:Will Ellen degenerate into a land grabber? Publication:The Mail on Sunday Start Page:25 End Page:25

Telegraph suitor loses third backer

Dovid Efune, owner of The New York Sun, lost a third financial backer, Michael Leffell, just a week before the deadline for exclusive deal talks to buy The Telegraph. Earlier, Efune also lost backing from Hudson Bay Capital and Oaktree Capital for the £500 million deal. Questions now arise on whether Efune can still finance the acquisition. RedBird IMI, funded partly by UAE’s Sheikh Mansour, had initially sought to buy the newspaper but faced political backlash and opposition due to concerns over human rights and media independence in the UAE.

Guardian journalists vote to strike over plans to sell The Observer

Guardian journalists have voted to strike over plans to sell The Observer to Tortoise Media, a start-up founded by ex-BBC boss James Harding. Nearly 93% supported a strike, with action likely in early December. The NUJ union claims the Scott Trust is betraying its commitment to The Observer and passed a vote of no confidence in leadership. Staff are pushing for the talks with Tortoise to end or for a compromise to be reached. Harding has promised to invest £25m and retain all Observer staff, but concerns remain about Tortoise's financial sustainability and disentangling The Observer from The Guardian.

Jason Cowley steps down after 16 years as New Statesman editor [Press Gazette]

New film - Cross-dressing peer who went glam a century before Bowie [Observer]

The new film Madfabulous tells the story of Henry Paget, the fifth marquess of Anglesey, a cross-dressing aristocrat from late 19th-century Wales known for his extravagant lifestyle and unorthodox behaviour. The film, directed by Celyn Jones, highlights Paget's flamboyant style, which has been described as ahead of his time—comparable to David Bowie or Marc Bolan. Paget’s influence persists today, with fashion designer Harris Reed acknowledging him as an inspiration. The film features It’s A Sin actor Callum Scott Howells as Paget in his first lead film role. Director Jones views the film as an exploration of various forms of love, portraying Paget as a character who defied class barriers and gender norms but ultimately paid a heavy price, dying penniless in France at 29.

WHAT’S ON IN PARLIAMENT

Select business. Full House business can be viewed here.

Wednesday 27 November

House of Lords, 12pm, Prime Minister’s Questions
Westminster Hall debate, 2.30pm, The matter of tackling violence against women and girls. More here.
Westminster Hall debate, 4.30pm, World Aids Day. More here.

Thursday 28 November

House of Lords, 11am, Oral questions, Impartiality of the BBC as required by its Charter. More here.

Friday 29 November

House of Commons, 9.30am, Private Members’ Bills, including: Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill: Second Reading (more here), Football (Gender Inequality) Bill: Second Reading (more here) , and the infamous Bill that was used to block Liz Truss bring her anti-trans Bill to the floor earlier in the year, the Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill: Second Reading (more here).

ANY OTHER BUSINESS

Wes Streeting faces legal challenge to his election [Leanne Mohamad]

Wes Streeting won his seat in the general election by a little over 500 votes as independent challenger Leanne Mohamad pushed him all the way. It seems she isn’t done. Taking to social media, Mohamad said, “I have sent a letter of complaint this week to the Electoral Commission and Redbridge electoral services outlining serious irregularities on the night of the count on July 5th in Ilford North, raising questions regarding compliance with electoral law and guidance. I have retained Bindmans LLP and specialist King’s Counsel on this issue and have asked the Electoral Commission to examine the activities of Redbridge Council.”

Hancock: ‘Do not resuscitate orders’ were wrongly used

Matt Hancock has admitted that "do not resuscitate" (DNR) orders were wrongly applied during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to some people being denied life-saving treatment without their consent. The former health secretary told the Covid Inquiry that DNR orders had been used inappropriately, especially on vulnerable people without clear agreement. He called for a review of all DNR notices from early 2020 and emphasised the importance of obtaining proper consent. Hancock claimed he acted promptly when he became aware of the misuse, using daily press conferences to address it. In 2021, a care watchdog survey found that DNR orders had been imposed unlawfully and discriminatively on care home residents.

GC financial backers targeting sex and contraception [source]

The Heritage Foundation, who have backed the anti-trans movement financially as they convince large sections of society that they are ‘feminists’, said, “It seems to me that a good place to start would be a feminist movement against the pill & for…returning the consequentiality to sex.”

THIS WEEK

Monday 25 November

Sentencing for polygamous sect leader Sam Bateman

Tuesday 26 November

🚨Supreme Court hears Scottish women’s challenge to gender recognition certificate guidance
NHS Scotland waiting time stats

Wednesday 27 November

Figures on domestic abuse in England and Wales
Marine Le Pen embezzlement trial concludes
General election in Namibia

Thursday 28 November

Sixth form college teachers strike
Statutory homelessness figures
Thanksgiving (USA)
New Zealand COVID-19 inquiry report published

Friday 29 November

Black Friday
Irish parliamentary elections
UK parliament debates assisted dying bill

Saturday 30 November

Iceland holds early parliamentary elections
Professional Women’s Hockey League season begins
Atlantic Hurricane season ends

Sunday 1 December

World AIDS Day
Romania parliamentary elections

THE PAPERS

There were 21 articles about trans people this week in the papers I monitor, a very slight drop on last week’s 22, but hardly anything worth mentioning.

Unusually, it is the Mail and not the Telegraph that leads the way this week. They had eight to the Telegraph’s six. The Times also had six while the Guardian had one which is a straight news report that none of the others covered.

Quoted this week:

After featuring very heavily in last week’s roundup, Maya Forstater and/or Sex Matters were not quoted in a single article, but we did have Julie Bindel taking advantage of the Allison Pearson saga to play victim. JK Rowling also featured in a host of articles.

Spotted or know something you think I should include in the Trans Agenda?

THE PAPERS Monday 18th November - Sunday 24th November

Monday Total: 4

The Guardian [0]

The Times [1]

Woman sues council over gender-neutral lavatories James Beal A woman has sued a council for which she used to work after it replaced female-only lavatories with genderneutral ones. Sarah Holman, 56, a mother of two, claimed that she was hounded out of a job she loved at Bracknell Forest council after she complained to HR. She spent 12 years helping regenerate Bracknell, in Berkshire, but felt forced to hand in her notice, alleging that the council “put trans rights above women’s rights”. Holman said that the council was also excessively promoting gender ideology while not celebrating any other protected characteristic in the same way. She was “outraged” at the council’s suggestion that gender-neutral lavatories were not a risk as women could also be alone in the lifts and during meetings. Holman said: “I don’t think it’s right. For privacy and dignity reasons, I don’t want to share a toilet with a man. “I had a miscarriage in a women’s toilet. The majority of women need to spend more time in toilets based on our biology. “Our dignity wasn’t considered. It was very alienating. You feel disrespected and unwelcome.” Holman claimed that she reported the issue to HR and explained how important single-sex facilities were to women. She also said that she had been sexually assaulted in a lavatory. Despite her complaint, the council leadership was clear that the policy would not be revisited. Holman said that she had to work from home for months until she finally felt her job was untenable. She said: “I really enjoyed my job but now I don’t think I will get another job at a local authority. We need to get this right. We need to protect singlesex spaces.” Holman told Mail Online that by suing the council she hoped to force the authority to consider how it could better protect women’s rights. She has raised thousands of pounds to prepare her employment tribunal case against her previous employer. Susan Halliwell, Bracknell Forest council’s chief executive, said: “We are unable to comment on individual cases. However, the council is committed to creating a safe, inclusive and supportive work environment for all our staff.”

Daily Mail [3]

Thought police came for me over ‘hate crime’ tweet af ter complaint made in Holland, says top feminist Daily Mail18 Nov 2024By Chris Brooke Saturday’s Daily Mail A LEADING feminist writer ‘sent police packing’ when they visited her home to investigate one of her tweets as a ‘hate crime’. Julie Bindel said she was told by two Metropolitan Police officers that a ‘transgender man’ from Holland had reported one of her social media posts. They asked her to voluntarily attend the local police station to make a statement in an incident similar to the case of Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson. She is being investigated by Essex Police over a deleted tweet posted a year ago being treated as a possible offence of ‘inciting racial hatred online’. Ms Bindel – like Ms Pearson – said she was given limited details about the complaint. Police would not reveal which tweet prompted it, the identity of the complainant or what type of hate crime was being investigated, Ms Bindel said. So the author and journalist, a prominent critic of gender ideology, refused to co-operate. Recalling the visit on a Sunday in 2019 in an article for The Sunday Telegraph, Ms Bindel said: ‘I was able to send the two officers packing, without their visit even spoiling my lunch. ‘The officers left looking a little bewildered. I did have a sense that they understood what a ridiculous mission they have been sent on. I advised that they could better use their time investigating rape and domestic violence.’ Ms Bindel, who also occasionally writes for the Mail, said she had a phone call from one of the officers the next day telling her that the investigation had been dropped. Describing the visit as ‘Orwellian’, she said: ‘Police have limited time to investigate actual crime but are instead being tasked with ticking off the likes of me for daring to tweet that “trans women are NOT women” (or whatever the person in Holland had objected to). ‘I know the law on these issues and am well aware they had no chance in getting the Crown Prosecution Service to press charges. ‘Nevertheless, I thought about the women who have lost jobs, been hounded out of college courses, friendship groups and university societies, as well as those who would have found it distressing to be threatened with a hate crime conviction for no good reason. ‘A criminal record is serious and can have a terrible effect on a person’s livelihood, reputation and self-esteem. ‘Police coming after those of us who do nothing more than speak the truth about gender madness and refuse to bend the knee to the crazy cultists are doing a massive public disservice.’ The Metropolitan Police has no information about this incident but a spokesman said: ‘We take all reports of hate crime extremely seriously and are committed to investigating allegations thoroughly and impartially where they are made. ‘Our approach seeks to balance the right to free speech with our duty to protect individuals and our communities.’ ‘A ridiculous mission’ JULIE Bindel, the indomitable feminist campaigner, is the latest prominent figure to tell of having been questioned by police over an alleged hate crime. The allegation related to one of her tweets, but in a Kafka-esque twist, she was not told which one. Equally bizarrely, the complaint was said to have come from a transgender man in Holland. She assumed the accusation was one of ‘transphobia’, because of her often-stated view that trans women shouldn’t be allowed access to female-only spaces – a view held by much of the population. Regardless of its dubious legal merits, it’s hard to see what jurisdiction the Metropolitan Police thought they had in this case. But it’s far from an isolated example of what looks like blatant overreach. Journalist Allison Pearson is being investigated by Essex Police for allegedly inciting racial hatred in a tweet she deleted many months ago. She had re-tweeted a snap of officers standing with flag-carrying Muslims, ostensibly in London. She remarked that police were happy to pose with ‘Jew-haters’ but not the British Friends of Israel. It turned out the picture had been taken in Manchester and that the flag-wavers were protesting about events in Pakistan rather than Gaza, so the tweet does appear to have contained inaccuracies. It may also have been seen by some as offensive. But was it really criminal? And did it merit the setting up of a ‘Gold group’, usually used to deal with major crimes, to investigate it? Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley warned last week that his force faces ‘eye-watering’ cuts because of a funding shortfall. He and other chief constables may find a more sympathetic hearing to their pleas for more cash if they stopped wasting precious resources on hare-brained cases like these. This is a country built on principles of individual liberty and freedom of expression. The police are there to uphold them – not collude with those trying to crush them. Article Name:Thought police came for me over ‘hate crime’ tweet af ter complaint made in Holland, says top feminist Publication:Daily Mail Author:By Chris Brooke Start Page:8 End Page:8

Mother sues council after women-only toilets axed Daily Mail18 Nov 2024By Chris Matthews Picture: MURRY SANDERS A MOTHER-OF-TWO is suing her former bosses after they replaced female-only toilets with gender-neutral facilities. Sarah Holman, 56, claimed she was hounded out of the job she loved after complaining. She spent 12 years helping to regenerate Bracknell at the local authority in Berkshire but felt forced to hand in her notice after it ‘put trans rights above women’s rights’. Yet what left her ‘outraged’ was Bracknell Forest Council’s suggestion that gender-neutral toilets were not a risk as women could also be alone in lifts and during meetings. Mrs Holman said: ‘For privacy and dignity reasons, I don’t want to share a toilet with a man. I had a miscarriage in a women’s toilet. Our dignity wasn’t considered.’ She also told bosses about how she had once been sexually assaulted in a toilet. Mrs Holman worked from home after the loos, which have shared facilities outside cubicles, were installed in 2022 but eventually left. She has raised £6,000 for her tribunal case claiming discrimination and harassment on the grounds of sex. The council said it was ‘committed to creating a safe, inclusive, and supportive work environment for all our staff’. Sacked in pronoun row – A WEEK after Jim Orwin was sacked by East Riding of Yorkshire Council for using the email footer ‘XYchromosomeGuy/AdultHumanMale’, his line manager and his line manager’s manager arrived at his immaculate bungalow near Hull to collect the council’s property, which included a laptop and a chair. One of them drove a Porsche and the other a sporty Mercedes. Neither could fit the chair in their car. ‘Somebody else had to come back for it with a bigger vehicle. When the driver from Accommodation Services arrived eight days later his email instruction was to collect a desk. There was no desk,’ says Jim, 67, with a you-really-couldn’t-make-this-stuff-up look on his face. You couldn’t. Jim, who worked as an information and communications technology project manager for the council, is at his wits’ end after losing, not just his livelihood but his and his wife Julie’s life savings in his stand against, what he calls, the ‘steady creeping evil’ of identity politics. In short, the council’s then chief executive Caroline Lacey sent a global email to all employees twoand-a-half-years ago inviting them ‘to consider adding pronouns to your email signature, should you wish to do so.’ Like many who are gender critical, Jim, who maintains he is neither transphobic or homophobic, believes self-identification – where a person chooses their own identity (male, female, non-binary etc.) without any legal or medical requirements – is ‘garbage’. Clicking on an invitation to choose ‘other’ rather than he/him, Jim entered XYchromosomeGuy/ AdultHumanMale. He was asked to remove it after a trans member of staff saw the footer and ‘queried its acceptability’. Jim refused. A disciplinary hearing followed during which he compared the council’s strapline ‘Your East Riding Where Everyone Matters’ to George Orwell’s dystopian Animal Farm edict: ‘All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others’. He was dismissed. Jim has never been a troublemaker. In fact, he says, he hadn’t ‘had any truck’ with anyone in the workplace ‘before the pronouns email’, but he is a man who inhabits a world where two plus two equals four and, as far as he is concerned, a biological male plus a she/her pronoun absolutely does not equal a woman. ‘The chief executive signed the email off she/her which was like ‘Manipulating language distorts reality’ saying, “I’m doing it so everybody else should do it”. ‘There was a link to a website which said somebody might want to be addressed by a particular pronoun one day but that doesn’t mean it’s fixed. People can change pronouns from meeting to meeting. ‘I thought, “This is self-identification.” I don’t accept self-identification. I think it’s dangerous. It puts children and vulnerable adults at risk to predatory males. I don’t agree with self-identification in sport. I don’t agree with it in changing rooms, in bathrooms and in women’s spaces. ‘A man is not a woman and a woman is not a man, but manipulation of language is encouraging people to accept the distortion of reality,’ he says. ‘We’re introducing this indoctrination into schools,’ adds Jim. ‘You get kids – young kids – identifying as SparkleHorse Unicorn or whatever it is, that’s ridiculous.’ His views are forthright and will no doubt rile trans rights activists. But many agree with him. A few weeks ago, Jim set up a crowd-funding site to help fund a £12,000 legal bill after losing his employment tribunal battle with the council in the summer. Since he appeared on GB News earlier this week it has increased ten-fold to more than £16,000 and is rising faster than East Riding’s council tax bills which soared by 4.9 per cent in February. Jim’s inbox also ‘keeps pinging’ with numerous messages of support from those who, like him, believe self-identification is ‘garbage’. One 86-year-old lady ended her email xx, pointing out these were not kisses but the ‘xx’ chromosomes. Julie, who adores her husband of 48 years, tells me she is ‘overwhelmed’ by the support. ‘When you’re feeling down it lifts you,’ she says. ‘It’s just like strength in numbers that ordinary people have got your back. ‘People, who don’t know the kind of people we are, have put their hands in their pockets and are standing with him. I think it’s humbling.’ Jim and Julie, who have raised a son and a daughter, get by with very little. Indeed, they’ve only been abroad twice in their lives. Jim, who was a self-employed painter and decorator before completing an Open University degree in IT, tells me the £27,000 salary he earned at East Riding council, is ‘the most I’ve ever earned in my life’. He was ‘devastated’ when, on October 1 he was ordered to pay the council’s legal expenses. I wonder if Julie, 67, had a few choice pronouns of her own for her husband when that email arrived. ‘No because if he hadn’t [fought them] he wouldn’t be the man he is,’ she says. ‘I knew what I signed up for. ‘I married him for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health – and we’ve had the whole lot.’ Jim had a stroke in 2011 and Julie suffers with Crohn’s disease. ‘I married a man who would put his family before everything, be faithful to me and to the truth. The shame is he really loved that job.’ She looks at him. He folds his arms. ‘Before the pronouns email there was no sign of any wokeness [at work] or anything like that,’ says Jim. ‘I worked with normal everyday guys and we had normal every-day banter,’ he says. ‘Most people had similar views. Brexit was a good idea, culture wars were nonsense – that type of thing. Sometimes we’d talk about woke stuff like trigger warnings for books, university professors being Left wing and indoctrination. But not all the time. Only if something was in the news. ‘Although we did go to what we called away days where we’d all sit around the table in teams with people you’d never met before. ‘We had to perform certain tasks. One of the things that surprised me was when, for one of the tasks, we had to think of something that would improve the conditions at the council. ‘A young woman who was on the team said, “Wouldn’t it be good if we could have a room where we could go for a half an hour nap in the afternoon?” ‘I thought, ‘“What would you want to do that for?” It seems ‘This has been really hard on both of us’ strange to me because when I was a self-employed painter and decorator I’d work eight hours a day and, even if someone brought me a drink, I’d drink it while I was working.’ Jim was working from home on April 13 2022 when the email to all staff sent from the council’s chief executive dropped. I thought, ‘Oh God,’ he says. ‘I knew about this thing of putting pronouns on emails – but I thought it wasn’t [something that happened] at the council so I didn’t have to be concerned with it.’ He worried himself sick about what to do. Yes, he concedes, some might consider him bloody-minded or, at the very least stubborn, he prefers ‘direct’. ‘If Yorkshire people don’t agree with something or don’t like something, they say they don’t,’ he says. ‘There’s no dressing it up in any way.’ After receiving that email, Jim thought ‘all day and all night’ about what to do. Staff were provided with a drop-down menu offering options including ‘he/him/ his’, ‘she/her/hers’, ‘they/them/ their’, ‘do not show’, or ‘other’ along with the link to mypronouns.org for guidance. ‘The website said there are neopronouns which people can make up,’ he says. Examples of neopronouns include xe, xir, faer, vampself, beepself. ‘I decided to go for XYchromosomeGuy/AdultHumanMale. They serve the same purpose as a pronoun. They refer to me and only me. My logic is if people can put SparkleHorse Unicorn, you’ve got to allow everybody [to put what they want], otherwise don’t allow it all. ‘I said in the disciplinary investigation if they’d said, “These are the options: he/him/his, she/her/hers, they/their/them, ‘none’ or ‘leave it blank’”, I’d have left it blank. ‘My issue was not with pronouns, it was with self-identification.’ The following day he sent his line manager a message saying, ‘I’m pretty sure whoever dreamt up this nonsense isn’t actually interested in equality.’ Explaining that he didn’t want to put his line manager in a difficult position without giving advance warning, Jim said, ‘not adding a pronoun would be accepting this garbage’ and ‘what I will be using is bound to challenge the agenda of those who are implementing it’. The matter was ‘escalated and escalated’ in emails from line manager to line manager to human resources. A week later, when Jim had still heard nothing, he says his line manager told him it was ‘totally fair where you’re coming from’ and that he was ‘happy to refer to me as Adult Male Guy from this point on’. Observing ‘there was a wider issue in play’, his line manager said he was hopeful the HR department would come back to Jim soon. Jim says, ‘I felt I was being stonewalled and that they were delaying it as long as possible in the hope I would change my mind.’ ‘Frustrated’, he decided to circulate an email internally with his preferred pronoun on April 29 and threatened to send it externally if he continued to hear nothing. On May 19 he received a decision that his ‘email footer has been determined to be offensive to transgender persons’. He was asked to remove it, which he refused to do. The following morning Jim was asked to attend a meeting at County Hall at 2pm. Jim says, since his stroke, he needs time to assemble his thoughts, particularly when he feels he is being put on the spot. His employer was fully aware of this. Jim explained that a face-toface meeting would make him feel ‘under pressure and intimidated – to be blunt, bullied’ and said that if the council would put in writing the points it wished to discuss, he would be happy to provide a ‘full response’. Jim received an email advising him he had been suspended before the lunch hour was up. ‘This has been really hard for both of us,’ says Julie, who is close to tears as Jim recounts the legal to-ing and fro-ings of the past two years. He has now set up a website which includes the transcripts, statements, judgments and written representations from the disciplinary hearing, the tribunal and the application for costs. To read them is to find yourself in a Kafkaesque nightmare peopled with bodies like the ‘Equality Diversity and Inclusion Task Force’, ‘People Board’, ‘Legal & Democratic Services’, ‘Overview Management and Scrutiny Committee’, ‘Workforce Wellbeing group’ and ‘Social Value team’. He was accused of being ‘transphobic’ and ‘offensive’ countless times – quite how Jim stood firm ‘It’s like being in a Kaf kaesque nightmare’ in his belief that biological sex is ‘immutable’, goodness knows. Although the tribunal panel dismissed his case and found he was not discriminated against, it did accept his gender-critical beliefs amounted to a protected ‘philosophical belief within the meaning of section 10 of the Equality Act 2010’ which Jim rightly chalks up to at least one small victory for commonsense. Another small victory is the well of support he’s discovered online through setting up the GoFundMe account. ‘My initial idea was to enable people to put in as little as possible to show how many supported what I did. ‘I couldn’t stay silent. ‘Self-identification perpetuates a lie. Those advocating it don’t actually mean ‘self-identification for all’, they mean self-identification for those who share the same ideology as they do. ‘Those who don’t are castigated and discriminated against for refuting the ideology. ‘While purporting to champion equality and freedom of expression, what it actually does is usurp both.’ With that, his mobile phone ‘pings’ yet again from another well-wisher. In the time we’ve spoken, his fund has increased by another £483. Whatever your stance, it’s clear Jim is not alone. Article Name:Mother sues council after women-only toilets axed Publication:Daily Mail Author:By Chris Matthews Start Page:8 End Page:8

This image is a spread from the Daily Mail, dated Monday, November 18, 2024, featuring an exclusive interview. The key headline reads: "I was fired by the council because I put 'AdultMaleHuman' as my pronoun on work emails. Now strangers who agree with my stand are helping me pay my £12,000 legal bill." The story is about Jim Ovran, who was dismissed by East Riding of Yorkshire Council after using 'AdultMaleHuman' in his email signature, which led to his termination. The article focuses on how Ovran is now receiving financial support from strangers who share his views, helping him to pay for his legal costs, which total £12,000. The accompanying image shows Jim Ovran sitting in a thoughtful pose, as well as a smaller picture from his wedding day and another of him outside East Riding Council. The text within the spread includes highlights such as: Jim criticising what he sees as the council's stance on gender identity and his belief that his freedom of speech was infringed. His argument that "manipulating language distorts reality," which appears to be a central theme of his stand. Quotes expressing his frustration about the situation and comments about his beliefs regarding biological sex. One of the highlighted pull quotes reads: "This has been really hard on both of us," suggesting the emotional toll the situation has had on both Jim and his wife. Another small highlighted box mentions Jim's feelings, describing the experience as "It's like being in a Kafkaesque nightmare," underscoring his sense of injustice and frustration with the bureaucracy involved. The spread is styled in typical tabloid fashion, focusing heavily on emotional elements, featuring a large image of Jim and including various quotes to emphasize his personal struggle and viewpoints on gender identity politics.

Telegraph [0]

Tuesday Total: 2

The Guardian [0]

The Times [0]

Daily Mail [1]

Telegraph [1]

Wednesday Total: 1

The Times [0]

Daily Mail [0]

Telegraph [1]

Parents fear daughter will be mistaken as trans after certificate error The Daily Telegraph20 Nov 2024By Daily Telegraph Reporter A COUPLE fear their newborn daughter will be mistaken as transgender after she was recorded as a boy on her birth certificate. Grace Bingham, 20, and her partner, Ewan Murray, 21, had baby Lilah on Oct 8. But when they came to register the birth five weeks later, they were shocked to discover she had been listed as male on her birth certificate. Ms Bingham admitted she reviewed the certificate at the time but overlooked the mistake and signed it, attributing her oversight to a lack of sleep as a firsttime mother. But the couple have so far been unable to amend the error on five-week-old Lilah’s records despite getting in touch with national registration bosses. Ms Bingham, from Kirkby-in-ashfield, Notts, said: “It’s been a nightmare and I’ve not stopped crying since. “As first-time parents, we were very excited and, admittedly, a bit overwhelmed – especially due to the lack of sleep ... We focused on ensuring that all the names were spelt correctly and didn’t expect such a professional error to happen.” The mistake happened when the couple went to register Lilah’s birth at Sutton-in-ashfield Registration Office last week and were informed that to rectify the mistake, they would need to pay £99. Ms Bingham said she was concerned that even after correcting the error, the birth certificate would still list Lilah as male, with a small note indicating the sex was changed to female. She said: “This could cause significant issues for our daughter throughout her life, as it would imply she is transgender when she is biologically female. If she chooses to identify differently later in life, that is her decision. But at just five weeks old, she cannot make that choice. “It’s unfair for her birth certificate to say male, which could negatively impact her in various aspects of life, such as school, jobs, and relationships – due to a mistake that is not her fault.” Mr Murray added: “We don’t want sympathy, we don’t want our 15 minutes of fame, we just want to correct what’s happened ... But it’s actually impossible to get it changed. People seem to think that it’s a really easy correction “But the box can’t change to girl. It will always say boy on it. It will say male on it forever.” The couple have since been trying to contact Nottinghamshire Register Offices and the General Register Office but say they have not had a response. They and have also contacted Lee Anderson, MP for Ashfield, for assistance. Mr Murray said: “We’ve since had another lady called Sarah reach out to us who says exactly the same thing happened to her there... “She has been able to go back and correct this but we haven’t had this option.” Mark Walker, the service director for place and communities at Nottinghamshire county council, said: “We are very sorry for any distress caused by this error and will pay for the correction fee. “We are working with the family to put this right and will continue to support them throughout this process.” Article Name:Parents fear daughter will be mistaken as trans after certificate error Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Daily Telegraph Reporter Start Page:9 End Page:9 — Notice the difference between the quote above and the one in the Guardian, which didn’t frame this as a trans issue. The parents were quoted by the Guardian as saying “Even if people do notice the correction, they’ll assume our daughter is transgender – which isn’t an issue if that’s what she wants to be when she’s older, but it’s not the case now. Lilah might also not believe she was born a girl, but that there was a strange, biological thing that went on when she was born. I just feel so guilty. I’m in tears all the time. I’m completely torn up over it.”

Thursday Total: 6

The Guardian [0]

The Times [3]

Children in Need chair resigns with tirade at boss James Beal - Social Affairs Editor, Janice Turner Rosie Millard has accused Simon Antrobus, head of Children in Need, of failing to take her revelations seriously Next image › The chairwoman of the BBC’s Children in Need charity has quit, alleging “institutional failure” over grants awarded to a youth transgender charity hit by child abuse scandals. Rosie Millard, 59, a writer and broadcaster, resigned after six years at the charity, sending a scathing letter to its board. The letter, seen by The Times, criticised Children in Need’s chief executive, Simon Antrobus, for his response, amid revelations that it awarded £466,000 in grants to LGBT Youth Scotland (LGBTYS). The former chief executive of LGBTYS was convicted in 2009 of child sex assaults. Children in Need started giving grants to the charity seven months later. Another man, who wrote a schools guide for the youth charity, was convicted this year of sharing indecent images of children, including some of newborn babies. Children in Need suspended grants to the charity only in May after Millard says she alerted them to the 2009 case. It withdrew funding three months later after a review. Millard alleged there had been “institutional failure”, suggesting serious questions about due diligence for Children in Need. Millard also accuses Antrobus of failing to respond “with the necessary level of seriousness”. She says that he eventually cut funding to the charity only because of fear of negative publicity. She claimed that on hearing of her discovery of the child abuse, he had complained that it had spoilt his enjoyment of a Bruce Springsteen concert. Millard also alleged that another Children in Need employee had suggested that a victim was “out to get” LGBTYS. She wrote in her resignation letter: “That [they] could write this about the reported rape of a child is astonishing.” In September Children in Need confirmed that it had stopped funding for LGBTYS. In 2009, James Rennie, chief executive of LGBTYS from 2003 to 2008, was jailed after being revealed as a member of one of Britain’s worst paedophile rings. Rennie — also previously an SNP adviser — was sentenced to life in jail for sexually assaulting a three-monthold child and for conspiring to get access to children in order to abuse them. He often accessed a dedicated Hotmail account for the sex abuse ring at work. Rennie, from Edinburgh, was ordered to serve a minimum of 13 years in jail, but that was cut to a minimum of eight and a half years on appeal. The first grant, of £24,000, from Children in Need to LGBTYS, was made seven months after he was convicted. In 2022 two men said that they were groomed at LGBTYS around the time Rennie was chief executive. In response, LGBTYS suspended a staff member and referred itself to the police. Millard’s letter said she first raised concerns with Antrobus, chief executive since 2016, in May this year over grants made to the charity, which supports gay and trans people aged 13 to 25. She accused Antrobus, a veteran of the voluntary sector who has held senior positions at Parkinson’s UK and Scope, of hesitating for months. In September, further questions were raised about Children in Need’s support for LGBTYS after Andrew Easton, who co-authored the charity’s former schools guidance, was convicted of child sex offences. The guide that he wrote, on “coming out” as transgender for children as young as 13, was published in 2010. Cybercrime officers found internet chat logs of discussions between Easton and someone he believed to be a vulnerable 13-year-old, whom he called “baby boy”. He pleaded guilty to communicating online with someone he believed to be a child, downloading indecent images of children and distributing indecent images of children. Some images shared by Easton, 39, featured newborn babies, Aberdeen sheriff court was told. He was sentenced to a community order, ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work, put on the sex offenders register for three years and told to take part in a sex offenders programme. Millard alleged that Antrobus and senior managers “did everything in their power to distract the board from its duty to sever funding” to LGBTYS during its three-month review. This included, she claimed, a “bogus issue of safeguarding”, which was eventually dismissed. Millard described Antrobus as “solipsistic” and alleged he only eventually ordered the withdrawal of funds to the charity “out of fear of publicity”, following “dithering and delay”. The BBC is understood to dispute this characterisation of Antrobus. Tim Davie, BBC director-general, praised Millard yesterday for her “significant impact on countless children”. Children in Need raised more than £39 million in its broadcast on Friday. Millard is still said to be a big supporter of Children in Need. A BBC Children in Need spokesman said last night: “Nothing is more important to us than the safety of all children and young people. When allegations were made in relation to LGBT Youth Scotland their grant was immediately suspended with the full support of the board and a review began. In order to do this thoroughly and fairly the review took three months and culminated in the decision to withdraw funding. “The Children in Need board of trustees are supportive of the actions taken by the CEO and senior leadership team and stand by the decisions made. Rosie at all times retained the board’s support. In the wake of her resignation, in order to ensure any lessons learnt are captured, the trustees have instigated a review of ways of working between the board and executive in which Rosie has kindly agreed to participate.” Mhairi Crawford, chief executive of LGBTYS, said that Millard’s resignation letter “demonstrates the ideologically driven nature of her attacks on our organisation”. Crawford said: “We are pleased to see confirmation that Children in Need’s investigations into the work of LGBT Youth Scotland found nothing to report. Time and time again, those with anti-inclusivity motives point to historic allegations in attempts to destroy our reputation. Allegations that have been investigated and cleared by Police Scotland, and proven to have had no link to our work.”

See No Evil Children in Need has funded a group dogged by serious questions over safeguarding Britain is a nation of charitable givers: in 2023, for example, the public donated £13.9 billion to charity, with people in some of the least affluent areas giving the most as a proportion of household income. Such giving — especially from those who can ill afford it, but are moved by the sight of fellow human beings in distress — comes with a high level of trust. That is why it is such a scandal when donations are squandered, and their potential to do good is insufficiently realised. An even more disturbing scenario, however, is when they are funnelled towards an organisation in which key individuals have caused active harm. On the latter question, it may seem extraordinary to many people that the BBC’s Children in Need gave funding to the organisation entitled LGBT Youth Scotland (LGBTYS) at all. That is not because LGBT young people do not require support: clearly they do, since many still endure bullying, social isolation and other issues linked to their sexuality and identity. But in May 2009, just seven months before Children in Need made a £24,000 grant to LGBTYS, the charity’s former chief executive James Rennie — in post from 2003 until 2008 — was convicted of child sex offences of the most extreme kind, including regularly sexually abusing a baby boy whom he was trusted to babysit between the age of three months and four years: he shared videos of the abuse with other paedophiles. The Scottish government, police and charity regulators showed remarkably little curiosity regarding how Rennie’s predilections may have affected the wider culture and safeguarding within the organisation, and what lessons might be learnt. Nor, it seems, did Children in Need. In December 2022, LGBTYS referred itself to the police over historical allegations from two men. One alleged that when he was 15 and in foster care, in 2010, older charity staff had given him a fake ID and taken him to gay nightclubs where he was assaulted and raped by adult men. The direction of policy in more recent years has also generated concern: the organisation’s “champions scheme” not only makes visits to secondary schools, but also primaries, where it heavily promotes disputed gender ideology. It has continued to campaign for the prescription of puberty-blocking drugs that have been restricted after the report of the distinguished paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass. The chair of BBC Children in Need, Rosie Millard, says that she argued last May for funding to be withdrawn from LGBTYS due to its “ongoing history of child sexual abuse”. That only happened months later, after the conviction of Andrew Easton, co-author of the LGBTYS’s 2010 guidance for schools, for offences including sharing the highest category of indecent images, many involving young children. Ms Millard’s resignation letter now makes clear her fury with the alleged reluctance of Simon Antrobus, the chief executive of Children in Need, to take decisive action earlier. It is possible that, like many organisations, the BBC was fearful of offending a powerful lobby of LGBT activists. But the dark corners of the BBC’s own history, not least the Jimmy Savile scandal, should teach it that nothing is more important than the safeguarding of vulnerable young people — particularly for a charity that so publicly vows to help and protect children in need.

Daily Mail [2]

Daily Mail I argued tat males shouldn't join out breastfeeding support group and was called a bigot and Nazi - IT IS hard to describe the atmosphere in words. When a group of mothers come together with their newborn babies – often just weeks or even days old – you find deep connections are quickly forged. The mutual support they offer feels like a huge maternal hug, something visceral and instinctive and utterly unique. This is what I found when I turned to La Leche League (LLL), one of the oldest and largest charities supporting women in the world. With organisations in more than 80 countries, and 70 branches in the UK, LLL promotes breastfeeding through education and helps women who struggle to feed their babies – as many do – in those magical mother-to-mother meetings. When my first child was born in 2016, I found feeding hard, but felt a surprisingly strong biological urge to persist. Saved by my local La Leche League in Edinburgh, I fell in love with the charity, and in time became what it calls a Leader – a breastfeeding counsellor – myself. Throughout the pandemic and beyond, as I had my second baby and while working as a vet, I ran support groups in my community. Indeed, I believed in the purpose and methods of LLL so much, I became a Trustee and member of the Council of Directors of LLLGB. But no longer. Two weeks ago I resigned, unable to stand by while I feel the objectives of a charity I love are changed beyond all recognition, and utterly fed up with being called a bigot and even a Nazi for raising my concerns. Put simply, LLL is forcing Leaders to allow male people who want to breastfeed babies into meetings that were previously reserved for biological women only. In doing so, not only are they changing that wonderfully intimate atmosphere, they’re also making Leaders support the concept of ‘male lactation’ in ways that many of us find uncomfortable. The truth is, the presence of biological males at LLL meetings will change the dynamic completely and may stop women getting the help they need. I remember feeling a bit miffed that my husband couldn’t stay with me at the first LLL meeting I attended, but it didn’t take long for me to understand why. Women bare all – emotionally and physically. They talk about difficult, even coercive, relationships. They chat about their sex life after having a baby and how they feel about their changing body. They swap stories of perineal tears and prolapses, pressure from others to give a bottle, and so many more things. The women who come to our meetings might be breastfeeding outside the home for the first time. They might have cracked and mangled nipples. They might feel failure, guilt and then elation when feeding begins to work. There are often tears of joy and pain. My objection to male people joining in is not a trans rights issue. I believe everyone should be free to live how they want, be addressed with kindness and respect, and enjoy all the freedoms we have come to expect in 2024. What is happening with La Leche League, and in many other charities and organisations, is an issue of sex – not gender identity. Often, we spy the first signs of a radical shift when language begins to change. About three years ago, in LLL publications and materials, I noticed ‘mother’ being replaced with ‘parent’, ‘breastfeed’ being replaced with ‘chestfeed’, and women constantly being referred to as ‘breastfeeding families’. But these language changes very quickly evolved into what I feel is a total departure from LLL’s philosophy and mission, led by a group of zealots from within the organisation. Leaders who expressed concerns about clarity of language – for example for women for whom English is not their first language – were ridiculed. As an inclusive organisation, we were told, we would have to welcome to our meetings trans-identifying men who wished to breastfeed. But this struck a group of us as wrong for many reasons, not least whether or not it was physically safe for a baby to be breastfed by a biological male. Biological males who want to attempt breastfeeding have to take a cocktail of drugs. The NHS tells biological women to check with their GP before taking so much as an ibuprofen tablet. There were other safeguarding concerns, including the social and physiological safety of a mother separated from her baby so a male can breastfeed, the psychological safety of women in the room where ‘Breastfeed’ was replaced with ‘chestfeed’ a man is present, and the need for privacy for women with certain religious beliefs. When a group of worried Leaders raised these concerns, we were told we were transphobic, and even compared to racists and Nazis. It felt as if language was being deliberately used to confuse us. Were we changing it to include non-binary female people, male people, transmen (biological women who have transitioned and present as men)? It wasn’t clear. And it mattered. Amid the confusion, the Leader body were led to believe nothing untoward was happening and that any questions or concerns were from old, bigoted Leaders who would hopefully shuffle off soon. I remember a post on Facebook which said they hoped all those who disagreed with their view on inclusion would hurry up and die. Eventually, a group of British Trustees articulated our concerns to the LLL International Board in America. This then triggered an email from the Board to all LLLGB Leaders which clearly stated that GB Leaders were obliged to provide breastfeeding support ‘to all nursing parents, regardless of their gender identity or sex’. We found this worrying, and knew it contravened the objects of LLL’s British branch as set out to the Charity Commission, which begin with the words: ‘To promote the physical and psychological health of mothers and children . . .’ Yet the Charity Commission’s reaction, when we raised it with them, was dismissive, condescending and ultimately unhelpful. They did not seem to care that a minority of members were trying to push the charity in a direction that could harm those ‘mothers and children’, and they did not seem to care that a group of ideologues in the US had unreasonable influence over a British charity. If felt as if they were essentially rolling their eyes and telling us to stop bickering like silly little girls. Despite this, the LLLI Board is standing firm and insisting women in the UK must support male lactation and breastfeeding, if we want to be Leaders. Indeed, it has demonstrated its power by removing my Leader accreditation and those of other Trustees who have raised concerns. This is not because of anything we have done as breastfeeding counsellors, but because we performed our legal duty as Trustees by questioning whether we are sticking to our charitable objects. Their actions have left hundreds of women who regularly attend La Leche League meetings bereft of support. The LLLI Board has shown that theoretical male lactation trumps the needs of real women living in the UK. That is why I resigned from the board. Similar concerns have now ‘The charity was dismissive and unhelpful’ forced one of the very founders, 94-year-old Marian Tompson, who set up La Leche League in 1956, to denounce its modern incarnation as ‘a travesty of my original intent’. LLL has shifted, she said in a hard-hitting letter to senior figures within the organisation this week, from a focus on ‘mothering’ to ‘indulging the fantasies of adults’. Many have asked why I stayed for so long or how other Leaders can stand this. It is very hard to describe how life-changing LLL (in its true form) has been, and the emotional ties and responsibility that Leaders feel towards LLL and their local mums. The grief I feel at losing LLL from my life is huge. Until now it has been easier for Leaders to turn a blind eye and carry on running meetings. Many are private women who don’t like making a fuss and are simply trying to help others as they were helped themselves. I stand with them – the shocking truth I am revealing to the public is not of their making. But it is time now for Leaders in the UK to listen to their hearts, and decide what to do next. Their valuable work – and the help hundreds of women and babies receive every day – depends on it. HOW safe is our monarchy? While the late Queen was alive, there was no doubt about the answer: the overwhelming majority of Britons believed the monarchy was the chief factor in our ‘Kingdom’ being ‘United’. After all, we are a deeply divided country. Many Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish people resent the Westminster government as well as the London-based ethos and economic bias of our society. But the King is a wonderful antidote to this. True, Buckingham Palace is in London, but the King is a Welsh speaker. His Prince’s Trust helped to revivify many deprived parts of Britain. And his love of Scotland, the country where he went to school and keeps a house, Birkhall, on the Balmoral estate, is palpably obvious. No politician has such a range nor has met so many different sorts of people. When we heard the choir’s hymn after the King laid a wreath at the Cenotaph this month, many of us must have felt the words, ‘Beneath the shadow of thy throne, thy saints have dwelt secure’, applied not just to our religious hopes but to our political views, too. But now the opposite point of view is gathering strength. During the last Queen’s reign, Republicanism as a serious political discourse did not really exist. In the past few weeks, however, we have seen well-funded and well-organised expressions of Republicanism by clever people intent on abolishing the monarchy. We should take them seriously for, in spite of the strengths of the monarchy, embodied in King Charles, the institution is not nearly as stable as my opening remarks might have implied. Earlier this month, The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches programme investigated the finances of the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster – which provide enormous personal and private income for the King and the Prince of Wales. It found that several beloved institutions are having to pay rent to the royal duchies, among them the NHS. The health service is held to be sacred by many Britons – more so even than the Crown. And yet it is being charged a large sum – £11.4million over 15 years, no less – to rent a warehouse for vital ambulances. Despite being patronised by the King himself, the RNLI is also paying £600 a year to use duchy beaches for six of its lifeboat stations. And that’s to say nothing of the charities – including Macmillan, Comic Relief and Marie Curie – which paid prodigious rents to use an office block in London. This is a huge conflict of interest which cannot easily be resolved and, unfortunately, is a problem of the Royal Family’s own making. BACK in 1837, politicians begged the young Queen Victoria not to pocket the enormous profits from the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster but instead put them towards the public purse. She refused and became the richest woman in the world thanks to the income she received from land including Liverpool Docks and the Yorkshire spa town of Harrogate. She went on to buy the Sandringham estate and build Balmoral Castle, firmly placing her and her family in the ranks of the super-rich. As Prince of Wales, Charles agreed to pay some tax on the duchies but he has always had a blind spot about the disastrous legacy left by Victoria. Until her reign, the monarchs were dependent on Parliament for most of their money, which came through the Civil List. Although they dwelt in palaces and castles, these were no more truly their own than the Vatican is the private fiefdom of the Popes. Reforms introduced by Victoria, however, paved the way for the monarchy to hold on to private wealth. It seems the King has doggedly continued to do this – and William shows no signs of being any different. This single fact makes them seem like little more than what they are (in a private capacity): not representatives of national unity but members of the superrich club, along with big landowners and international billionaires. These things really matter for those of us who treasure the monarchy and feel gratitude to those royals who have kept the show on the road. Just last week, the campaign group Led By Donkeys (whose targets have included the Tory Party and Elon Musk) launched an online protest in response to the Dispatches investigation. After writing ‘Charles stop fleecing Britain’ in the sand on a beach in Cornwall, the group photographed them from the air and sent a picture of the slogan to countless phones. This all happened at a time when Prince William, on a visit to Northern Ireland, found himself being heckled by crowds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Aware that it would be a disaster if either he or the King waded into the inflammatory area of Middle Eastern politics, William has trodden a cautious line – professing deep sorrow for the plight of the refugees and civilian casualties in Gaza. But it is unthinkable that crowds of whatever political persuasion would have shouted at the late Queen, particularly in the ultra-loyalist Northern Ireland. She was held in such awe that when she bravely held out a hand to IRA officer Martin McGuinness, he smiled sheepishly and bowed as if he was a monarchist. But, of course, the whole Republican cause in Northern Ireland is based on the idea that – north and south of the border – the monarchy will be sent packing. The people of Wales, except for the most ardent cottage-burners and Free Wales Army members, warmed to Prince Charles when he tried to learn Welsh at Aberystwyth University. But William has made no such overtures to the principality and it is not hard to imagine Welsh Labour voters, as well as Plaid Cymru, becoming broadly Republican. What of England? One of the things which made the monarch seem part of the English fabric was the Church, of which the King is Supreme Governor. The resignation in disgrace of the Archbishop of Canterbury has left the CofE in tatters and Prince William makes no secret of the fact that he is not especially religious. MEANWHILE, over in Westminster, Keir Starmer is abolishing the right of the few remaining hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords. Apart from the monarchy, there is no area of national or political life where the hereditary principle any longer seems to apply. In such a context, the Republican argument – that it is absurd for a head of state to be the product of an accident of birth – looks stronger than ever. When the King and Queen Camilla went to Australia, they were booed in Parliament by a woman wanting more recognition of aboriginal rights. This sort of thing never happened when the late Queen was still alive. So, we monarchists are feeling nervous. At present, yes, the monarchy could be said to look strong. Three of its key pillars, however – the King, Queen Camilla and the Princess of Wales – have all battled illness over the past year. We cherish them, and wish them well. But . . . no one wants to write these words: imagine a Royal Family with Charles, Camilla and Kate removed from the scene. How strong would it all look then? Article Name:Face of man, 92, accused of 1967 rape and murder Publication:Daily Mail Author:By Andy Dolan Start Page:22 End Page:22

Telegraph [1]

Friday Total: 3

The Guardian [1]

Trans woman in China wins payout over electroshock treatment The Guardian22 Nov 2024Amy Hawkins Senior China correspondent A transgender woman in China has won a record amount of compensation from a hospital that subjected her to several sessions of electroshock conversion practices without her consent. Changli county people’s court in Qinhuangdao, a city in Hebei, approved a 60,000 yuan (£6,552) award to Ling’er, a 28-year-old performance artist who was recorded male at birth but identifies as a woman. LGBTQ+ activists described the award, approved on 31 October, as a victory for trans rights in China. Ling’er, who uses a pseudonym, said she hoped her case, which is the first instance of a trans person winning a legal challenge against the use of electroshock conversion practices in China, could help others in the LGBTQ+ community navigate medical disputes and protect their rights. “In China, the situation for transgender people is not very optimistic,” she said. “There’s a lack of protection for this group.” Ling’er was admitted to Qinhuangdao City Fifth hospital in July 2022, having come out to her parents as transgender the previous year. Her parents were “very opposed” to her gender identity, Ling’er said, and “felt that I wasn’t mentally stable. So they sent me to a mental hospital.” In hospital, she was diagnosed with “anxiety disorder and discordant sexual orientation”, despite the fact that her supposed “disorder” related to her gender identity, not her sexual orientation (she identifies as heterosexual). She was kept there for 97 days and subjected to seven sessions of electroshocks. “It caused serious damage to my body,” Ling’er said. “Every time I underwent the treatment, I would faint … I didn’t agree to it. The hospital tried to ‘correct me’, to make me conform to society’s expectations.” Ling’er filed a lawsuit against the hospital, which was heard by a court in August. She said the electroshocks had caused heart problems that require medication. The law in China says people cannot be forcibly subjected to psychiatric treatment unless they pose a safety threat to themselves or others. Ling’er’s doctor claimed she might pose a risk to the safety of her parents if they killed themselves because of her gender, according to a Chinese report. Conversion practices operate within a legal grey area in China. In 2001, China removed homosexuality from a list of psychiatric disorders, but it retained a diagnosis for distress about one’s sexual orientation. This left the door open for psychiatrists to tout remedies to “cure” a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Article Name:Trans woman in China wins payout over electroshock treatment Publication:The Guardian Author:Amy Hawkins Senior China correspondent Start Page:29 End Page:29

The Times [0]

Daily Mail [1]

Chairwoman of Children in Need resigns over £460,000 for scandal-hit trans charity Daily Mail22 Nov 2024By Tom Cotterill Criticised: Simon Antrobus CHILDREN in Need’s chairwoman Rosie Millard has quit over £460,000 of grants awarded to a controversial transgender youth group hit by a series of child sex abuse scandals. The 59-year-old writer and broadcaster accused the charity of ‘institutional failure’ in an explosive letter announcing her resignation after six years – as she criticised the organisation’s ‘dithering’ chief executive. News of her resignation came just days after Children In Need brought in £39.2million during its fundraiser on Friday – with former Top Gear host Paddy McGuinness drumming up £9million by riding his Chopper bike 300 miles. Ms Millard hit out at Children In Need’s chief executive, Simon Antrobus for his response to revelations that £466,000 was awarded in grants to LGBT Youth Scotland, which supports gay and transgender people aged 13 to 25. Children In Need started giving the charity cash seven months after James Rennie, LGBTYS’s then chief executive, was convicted in 2009 of sexually assaulting a baby boy, having been part of a paedophile ring. This year another man, Andrew Easton – who coauthored a ‘coming out guide’ for LGBTYS, was convicted of sharing indecent images of children including abhorrent pictures of newborn babies. The grants to the youth group were only suspended in May this year after Ms Millard said she alerted Children In Need to the 2009 case and, after a review, funding was withdrawn three months later, ‘Institutional failure’ The Times reported. Ms Millard accused Mr Antrobus of not responding with the ‘necessary level of seriousness’ to the scandal, and claimed he only cut the funding out of fear of negative publicity. She also alleged that upon hearing of the scandal, he had said it ruined his enjoyment of a Bruce Springsteen concert. In her letter, Ms Millard said: ‘That they could write this about the reported rape of a child is astonishing.’ In a statement on Wednesday night, she said: ‘It has been an honour and a privilege to serve as chair of BBC Children In Need. ‘Witnessing the incredible impact of our supporters’ generosity on the lives of children and young people has been truly inspiring. I’m immensely proud of the collective achievements we’ve made together.’ Following her decision, Tim Davie, Director General of the BBC, praised Ms Millard for her leadership during her six years with the charity. ‘She has had a significant impact on countless children and young people and we wish her all the best,’ Mr Davie said. But Mhairi Crawford, chief executive of LGBTYS, told The Times that Ms Millard’s letter ‘demonstrates the ideologically driven nature of her attacks on our organisation’. LBGTYS’s ex-boss James Rennie, from Edinburgh, was jailed for life for child sex assaults after he was unmasked as a member of one of Britain’s worst-ever paedophile rings. Rennie, a former SNP government adviser, sexually assaulted a three-month-old child he was babysitting, a court heard. In a statement, a BBC Children In Need spokesman said: ‘Nothing is more important to us than the safety of all children and young people. ‘When allegations were made in relation to LGBT Youth Scotland their grant was immediately suspended and a review began.’ Article Name:Chairwoman of Children in Need resigns over £460,000 for scandal-hit trans charity Publication:Daily Mail Author:By Tom Cotterill Start Page:19 End Page:19

Telegraph [1]

Use gender-neutral language for pregnant people, says Labour MP Change needed to avoid ‘serious consequences’ for trans men who can carry babies, says Alex Sobel The Daily Telegraph22 Nov 2024By Amy Gibbons A MALE Labour MP has said the NHS should stop using “gendered vocabulary” when treating pregnant women. Alex Sobel, the MP for Leeds Central and Headingley, said doctors should use gender-neutral language when referring to expectant parents to include transgender men. Speaking during a debate on International Men’s Day, he said failing to ask a transgender man if there was a possibility they could be pregnant before hospital treatment could result in “serious consequences”. Trans men, who were born female but identify as male, do not always undergo gender reassignment surgery, meaning that in some circumstances they could still fall pregnant. Mr Sobel told the Commons: “Across the NHS there needs to be a greater awareness of trans men and trans masculine people who have given birth. “For example [if] a trans man is not asked whether he could [be] pregnant before receiving a dose of radiation, there could be serious consequences. “We can begin by removing gendered vocabulary from pregnancy care and parenthood.” He also warned that trans men “face a number of barriers in accessing equal quality healthcare on the NHS”, including long waiting lists to receive top surgery, where a person has their breasts removed. “This leaves a situation where trans men and trans masculine individuals are forced to pay for private care, which not everyone can do, as we know,” he said. “Or to put up with dysphoria and other associated mental health impacts, for which there is a lack of sector-wide support and training. “Top surgery drastically improves wellbeing and saves lives.” Mr Sobel referenced the case of the journalist Freddy Mcconnell, a trans man who gave birth to his son but was “unable to be listed as his child’s father”. He said: “The High Court ruled that even though he was considered [a] man by law and had a gender recognition certificate to prove it, he could not appear on his child’s birth certificate as father or even parent ... The same problems occur in access to cervical cancer treatment, currently a trans man or non-binary person with a male sex mark on their NHS record will not be included in the recall system. “In this area the law is all over the place, there needs to be more input from trans people themselves.” Dame Nia Griffith, the equalities minister, said: “The Government is absolutely committed to ensuring that trans people can receive the care and the support that they need when accessing NHS services, and that we as a Government do frequently engage with a wide range of stakeholders in this area, including the LGBT+ health adviser, Dr Michael Brady.” Article Name:Use gender-neutral language for pregnant people, says Labour MP Publication:The Daily Telegraph Author:By Amy Gibbons Start Page:8 End Page:8

Saturday Total: 4

The Guardian [0]

The Times [2]

Wilful blindness is a blight on organisations From Children in Need to the Tavistock Gids clinic, those who expose malfeasance are rarely thanked and often removed Janice Turner, @victoriapeckham Janice Turner In an authoritarian, violently repressive regime such as Nazi Germany, or Russia and Iran today, would you be brave enough to speak out? This was the question Jemimah Steinfeld, granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, posed to Wednesday’s Index on Censorship awards. Few of us, thankfully, will ever need to put our physical courage to this test — but what about our moral courage? Why are institutions full of people prepared to overlook malpractice, abuse or injustice conducted within their professional field of vision, while just a cussed few speak out? This week we learnt that the broadcaster Rosie Millard resigned as chair of the BBC’s in-house charity Children in Need in angry frustration at its chief executive, Simon Antrobus, for the charity’s slow response to her concerns about grants made to LGBT Youth Scotland (LGBTYS). No British charity other than LGBTYS, as I wrote back in August, has been racked by graver scandals. In 2009, its chief executive, James Rennie, was jailed for leading an eight-man child abuse ring. Not content to share the worst category of dark web images, Rennie violated and videoed his own infant godson, whom he was trusted to babysit. And yet, although police knew Rennie accessed his “kplover” (kiddy porn lover) Hotmail account at work, it failed to investigate the charity’s internal culture, and in 2022 two men revealed how, as vulnerable boys in foster care during Rennie’s tenure, they were groomed and raped. LGBTYS suspended an employee and referred itself to the police. It is still unclear why Children in Need (CiN) approved its first grant to LGBTYS, of £24,000, just seven months after Rennie was jailed. Surely the simplest Google search would set off safeguarding klaxons? Yet for the next 14 years, Britain’s cake-sale bakers and sponsored walkers contributed £466,000 to LGBTYS. No one asked questions; indeed, when Millard told Antrobus she was concerned it was operating in 40 primary schools, breaching its charitable objectives of only working with young people over 13, he had no idea CiN even funded it. At Millard’s instigation a report was commissioned but this dismissed its shocking history and even accused one of the raped boys as “out to get” LGBTYS. Antrobus suggested that instead of defunding it, which might risk trans activist fury, they just quietly pay the organisation its two final grant payments. But then another scandal broke: Andrew Easton, co-author of LGBTYS’s schools guide, was convicted of sharing paedophilic images. Only then did CiN break ties. What enraged Millard was Antrobus’s refusal to acknowledge a problem. Why? Perhaps because then he’d have to deal with it. This would cause political ripples, make his life difficult. Millard says he complained that her concerns had spoilt his weekends and enjoyment of a Bruce Springsteen concert. When she went public in August, her fellow trustees were appalled, not by the scandal itself but because she’d broken protocol in speaking out. Can it be healthy governance for 8 out of 13 of CiN’s trustees to be senior BBC executives, including the head of news gathering, Jonathan Munro, each of whom could be said to have a vested interest in tamping down controversies that might damage their employer? If you ignore evil for long enough, maybe it will just go away? If you ignore evil for long enough, maybe it will just go away. The tactical silence of Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, about how his fellow evangelical John Smyth beat boys so brutally they had to wear adult nappies to absorb the blood began at least in 2013. (He says he “assumed” then that police had been told.) But it could have begun decades earlier. Welby was a dormitory officer at the religious camps where beatings occurred. He knew Smyth well. Surely he heard rumours, saw boys crying or nursing their wounds? In 1982, after one victim attempted suicide, Welby’s ex-flatmate was commissioned to write a report — did he really not call his old friend Justin? Wilful blindness is a curious state of knowing-yet-not-knowing. Its most common cause is self-interest. Those who expose malfeasance in an organisation are rarely thanked and often removed. A decade ago Dr Hilary Cass, now famous for her review of child gender medicine, highlighted inadequate staffing at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital. Her reward was to be demoted and legally gagged. Compare with the Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey who, as post office minister, was bombarded with emails from MPs regarding falsely accused subpostmaster constituents, and even met Alan Bates, who laid out the case against Horizon software. Why did Davey remain incurious, swallowing guff from officials, firing back a letter saying he retained full confidence in the system? Maybe because as a Lib Dem the coalition was his sole chance of being a minister. “Knowing” risks not just career advancement but splitting from your tribe, provoking arguments, kicking colleagues out of their complacency, losing friends, isolation. “Knowing” is hardest when it threatens a whole belief system. the Rev Richard Coles wrote how evangelicals such as Welby “behave like they have the monopoly on truth. They are never wrong. They cannot be wrong, because they are born again in the spirit and because the Bible says so.” The Post Office chief Paula Vennells, a close friend of Welby, was an ordained minister too. The unspoken belief “I am a good person, ergo everything I do must be good” afflicts all organisations that proclaim their own virtue, from religions to progressive campaigns and charities. It is why management at the Tavistock Gids clinic ostracised and thwarted Sonia Appleby, its safeguarding leader, for raising staff’s concerns about prescription of puberty blockers: the righteousness of child transition was beyond all question. Ideology is always the enemy of truth. Blessed are the whistleblowers, not the self-righteous who think they have God’s ear. The Private Eye editor, Ian Hislop, who has been the conduit for many, notes they are often difficult people: prickly, obsessive, annoying. Because speaking out means being unafraid to stand alone.

Daily Mail [1]

We stand by JK in her row with trans activists, say TV chiefs facing boycott Daily Mail23 Nov 2024By Tash Mosheim Showbusiness Reporter JK ROWLING has been defended by TV chiefs after her role in a new Harry Potter series met with a backlash because of her views on transgender issues. The American production company HBO has been inundated with complaints about the author serving as an executive producer on the show. In a statement it said: ‘We are proud to once again tell the story of Harry Potter – the heart-warming books that speak to the power of friendship, resolve and acceptance. JK Rowling has a right to express her personal views. ‘We will remain focused on the development of the new series, which will only benefit from her involvement.’ While some fans seemed unenthused by the prospect of a TV series, deeming a fresh adaptation ‘unnecessary’, others say they will boycott it because of Ms Rowling’s comments on trans people. In 2020 she said she believed women were defined by their biological sex and not their gender identity. A social media user wrote on X, formerly Twitter: ‘This is blatantly stupid. HBO has a track record of producing some of the greatest shows, from The Sopranos to Succession, but for them to appease JK Rowling for her ‘Very involved in the process’ extreme views is only making things worse.’ Another wrote: ‘My fellow anti-Harry Potter activists: please, don’t even hate watch the new version when it comes out.’ In recent years, Ms Rowling has been ostracised by key cast members of the original films for her remarks about the trans community. Her connection with the actors including Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint – as well as with fans, has deteriorated as the debate has grown more divisive. The HBO chief executive Casey Bloys revealed this month that Rowling was ‘very, very involved in the process selecting the writer and the director’. He noted her statements ‘haven’t affected the casting or hiring of writers or productions staff’ for the show. A spokesman for Warner Bros, HBO’s parent company, said: ‘We’ve been working with JK Rowling and in the Harry Potter business for over 20 years and her contribution has been invaluable.’ The new Harry Potter series, set to premiere in 2026, promises a deeper exploration of the wizarding world. Screenwriter Francesca Gardiner, known for her work on Succession, will serve as showrunner, with Mark Mylod directing multiple episodes and also executive producing. ‘This new Max Original series will dive deep into each of the iconic books,’ Mr Bloys said, assuring audiences it will be ‘a faithful adaptation’. While initial reports suggested each season would ‘Deeply value our storytellers’ cover one book, Mr Bloys has hinted the series could run for ‘ten consecutive years’. An open casting call was announced for young actors to portray Harry, Ron, and Hermione, requiring applicants to be aged 9 to 11 by April 2025. Recognisable faces are being touted for the adult roles, including Mark Rylance as Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore. Warner Bros, which made the original eight Harry Potter films and the Fantastic Beasts spin-offs, previously addressed JK Rowling’s statements in 2020, saying: ‘Fostering a diverse and inclusive culture has never been more important to our company and to our audiences around the world. ‘We deeply value the work of our storytellers who give so much of themselves in sharing their creations with us all. ‘We recognise our responsibility to foster empathy and advocate understanding of all communities and all people, particularly those we work with and those we reach through our content.’ Article Name:We stand by JK in her row with trans activists, say TV chiefs facing boycott Publication:Daily Mail Author:By Tash Mosheim Showbusiness Reporter Start Page:7 End Page:7

Telegraph [1]

Sunday Total: 1

The Observer [0]

Sunday Times [0]

Mail on Sunday [0]

Sunday Telegraph [1]

SNP defends legal rights of ‘pregnant men’

TRANSWRITES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

JK Rowling’s latest anti-trans rant is 292 words long but you can debunk it with 2, by Gemma Stone
Mridul Wadhwa quits Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre after sustained anti-trans campaign against her, by Gemma Stone
“Transitions The Unheard Stories” review; A useful resource hampered by an inconcise introduction, by Laura Kate Dale
Enraged industry professionals slam The Bookseller for promoting anti-trans social media accounts, by Gemma Stone
When was the T added to LGBT? A quick history, by Sarah Clarke
Trans people are the greatest assault on women in JK Rowling’s life time, apparently, by Gemma Stone
The 32 things The Cass Review recommends and why they are concerning, by Gemma Stone.
NHS & puberty blockers: Former GIDS patients reflect on long wait times, invasive assessments, by Sasha Baker.
The Cass Review: A government-sanctioned attack on trans lives, by Lee Hurley.

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The Trans Agenda: Remembrance Day outrage as papers target queer charity

News you need, the perspective you won't find anywhere else. The trans community's guide to UK news, media and politics and our place in it.

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THIS WEEK

THE PAPERS

THE PAPERS Monday 18th November - Sunday 24th November

Monday Total: 4

The Guardian [0]

The Times [1]

Daily Mail [3]

Telegraph [0]

Tuesday Total: 2

The Guardian [0]

The Times [0]

Daily Mail [1]

Telegraph [1]

Wednesday Total: 1

The Times [0]

Daily Mail [0]

Telegraph [1]

Thursday Total: 6

The Guardian [0]

The Times [3]

Daily Mail [2]

Telegraph [1]

Friday Total: 3

The Guardian [1]

The Times [0]

Daily Mail [1]

Telegraph [1]

Saturday Total: 4

The Guardian [0]

The Times [2]

Daily Mail [1]

Telegraph [1]

Sunday Total: 1

The Observer [0]

Sunday Times [0]

Mail on Sunday [0]

Sunday Telegraph [1]

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