Media Storm - What is a woman? Common sense vs culture wars

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

'What is a woman?' The question that has plagued British media and politicians over the past decade culminated in a Supreme Court ruling that declared ‘womanhood’ was based on biological sex. Now, finally, WE KNOW WHAT A WOMAN IS. Headlines told us this was a historical moment for women and feminism, but with misogyny becoming more and more mainstream and male violence on the rise, what has the ruling actually achieved? Three months on, Media Storm compares the real-life impact of the Supreme Court ruling and the impact promised by the British press - and assesses whether this biological definition has brought clarity or chaos. Bridging the binary divide between cis and trans women presented in mainstream media, Helena and Mathilda are joined by Katy Montgomerie, YouTuber, metalhead, and trans rights activist. What is a woman? Why is this question so dominant in today’s political climate? When did the obsession begin? Who has gained a lot… and who has gained nothing? The episode is hosted and produced by Mathilda Mallinson (⁠⁠⁠⁠@mathildamall⁠⁠⁠⁠) and Helena Wadia (⁠⁠⁠⁠@helenawadia⁠⁠⁠⁠)  Researchers: Lily Erwood and Teagan Gray The music is by⁠⁠⁠⁠ @soundofsamfire⁠⁠⁠⁠ Support us on⁠⁠⁠⁠ Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠! Follow us on⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠, and⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything, like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember, 988, Canada's Suicide Crisis Hubline. It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 Suicide Crisis Helpline is funded by the government in Canada. When I found out my friend got a great deal on a wall,

coat from winners, I started wondering. Is every fabulous item I see from winners? Like that woman over there with the designer jeans. Are those from winners? Ooh, are those beautiful gold earrings? Did she pay full price? Or that leather tote? Or that cashmere sweater? Or those knee-high boots? That dress, that jacket, those shoes. Is anyone paying full price for anything? Stop wondering. Start winning. Winners, find fabulous for less. I want to start with a story about a university swimmer who became the face of the Republican Party's anti-trans march to power. Do you know who Riley Gaines is?

I've heard the name, but I'm not entirely sure. She was at the centre of a media storm just a few weeks ago after getting into a Twitter war with Simone Biles. Okay, now I know who she is. She's an Olympic gymnast. a campaigner against abuse of girls in sport based on her own lived experience. Yeah, she's also the most decorated gymnast in history.

We'll get on to her. But for now, back to Riley. A few years ago, during an inter-unni swimming competition, Riley tied in fifth place with a trans female swimmer. There was only one fifth place trophy available, and it was given to her competitor, while Riley was temporarily given a sixth place trophy, while waiting for a second fifth place trophy to be mailed to her.

She wasn't happy, but she also wasn't hateful. In Riley's first recorded interview about the incident, which came later that week, she said, quote, I am in full support of her, as in her competitor, and full support of her transition and her swimming career, because there's no doubt that she works hard too, but she's just abiding by the rules that the NCAA. put in place, and that's the issue. Since then, however, Riley's position has hardened into not only a rejection of trans female participation in women and girls' sports, nor even just a rejection of transgender identity, but the total equalization of transgender women and predatory men.

Within months of the swimming competition, Riley had dropped out of university altogether, ditched her goal of qualifying as a dentist and become a full-time political commentator. In September that year, she featured in the campaign for Republican U.S. Senator Randy Paul talking about trans participation in sports. She has since campaigned for multiple Republican politicians, and on the 5th of February this year, she stood beside President Donald Trump as he signed his executive order banning transgender athletes from women's sports. He made a speech about Riley's experience.

Wow. So she stood next to a man who's been accused by dozens of women of sexual misconduct. Okay, cool. And this entire career change is off the back of coming joint fifth in a university swimming race. Yeah. Riley is now out to get inclusive sports.

I'm talking multiple tweets every day. Oh, wow. And on June the 6th, just a few weeks ago, she put out yet another anti-trans tweet targeting a high school softball team, which is when Simone Biles steps in. She calls Riley Gaines a sore loser and says, quote, you should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive

or creating a new avenue where trans feels safe in sports, maybe a transgender category in all sports. So the debate spirals, both get personal. But while Simone apologises for her personal insults, Riley and her now sizable following continue hurling abuse at Simone and lobby her sponsor brands to drop the Olympic athlete. Simone ultimately deletes her ex account,

which had over 2 million followers. The culmination point for me is when Riley Gaines posts two images, side by side. One shows Simone Biles weeping in court as she testified against her abuser

Larry Nasser, who thanks in part to this testimony of Simone has been sentenced to 175 years in prison for the sexual abuse of hundreds of athletes. The second image Riley Gaines posts is of Simone Biles' original tweet

in which she calls Riley a saw loser. Riley captions this, Simone Biles when she had to endure a predatory man, versus Simone Biles when other girls have to endure predatory men. What the hell? In Riley's worldview, basically, you can equate being sexually abused as a child by a serial adult male offender and competing in a swimming race with a transgender athlete. That is a point. That is a point. to put trans people simply existing side by side with a prolific child abuser. And Simone Biles, the actual victim of abuse here, well, she's the one that gets pushed offline. It's a sickening story, but I bring it up because the story of Riley Gaines is a common story.

It's a story of radicalisation, rapid radicalisation, on questions about transgender identity. In Media Storm's Series 1 investigation about far-right radicalisation, we spoke to Dr Rajan Basra, an academic specialist on extremism at King's College London. Listen to how he characterises extremists. They want to destroy the nuance, the moderate views, the understanding that could maybe bridge divides. They want us to think in us versus them, black and white. There's no grey, there's no nuance.

extremists see the world in black and white you must either be with them or else you are against them where Riley Gaines starts from a point of accepting trans identity and trans rights but questioning their participation in certain sports categories like lots of people she ends up equating them with child molesters this progression this radicalisation is not far off what we have seen in our mainstream politics and media. Extremism is entering the mainstream.

It's absolutely a story of radicalisation, yes. And it's also a story of monetisation. Yeah, you are completely right, because Riley Gaines's career off the back of this has been extremely lucrative. She's now the anchor of a Fox News-funded podcast and the author of a book called Swimming Against the Current, fighting for common sense in a world that's lost its mind.

Why am I talking about this? Today's Media Storm topic is about the definition of a woman. It's a question that has dominated media and politics for years. But rather than simply debating this question like everyone else, Media Storm will ask why this question has become so dominant and who it actually benefits. And radicalization and monetization, for me, will be core themes.

We record this episode three months on from the UK's Supreme Court ruling about exactly this topic, the definition of a woman. Five judges ruled that the definition of a woman as used in the Equality Act 2010 is based on biological sex and therefore does not include

transgender women with gender recognition certificates. Why did this ruling happen in the first place? The case against the Scottish government was brought by the judge, Gender Critical Campaign Group for Women Scotland, after judges in Edinburgh ruled that ministers were right to say that trans women could sit on public boards in posts reserved for women. Gender critical activists often say that this is because women as a sex carries protected status under the Equality Act and so it's important that we define it because gender fluidity

and transitioning has apparently muddied what it means. Yes, but it should be noted that while the name of the group that filed the lawsuit is called Four Women's Scotland, their sole aim is to exclude transgender women from women's spaces, i.e., they don't do any other advocacy work. Four Women's Scotland is partly funded by J.K. Rowling, once beloved children's author, now obsessive over Twitter. This ruling was made possible by J.K. Rowling, who donated £70,000 to Four Women Scotland. rolling, another good story of radicalisation and monetisation. It also raises the question as to whether this is really about women. During Media Storm's live show, a few weeks after the ruling, I pitched this topic as the most unhinged headline of 2025 so far. One of the reasons was that the headlines reported

this ruling as if it was specifically about trans women. The Telegraph wrote, Transwomen are not women in definition ruling. And yet, if it was about trans women, trans women, the crucial context that most media missed out, was that the court refused to allow trans women to take part in the hearings. Two trans women, an academic and a judge, tried to make submissions, but they were refused. Yet lots of gender-critical organisations were permitted to make submissions. So in this way, it's not surprising that the result of this ruling is impractical and in many ways nonsensical, but we'll come on to that in the episode. It's also as if they had decided the definition of a woman before the hearing even began.

Yeah. So yeah, we want to discover what this debate is really about. We also want to do that in a way that doesn't pit cis and trans women against each other. To consider where the real threats are, the fights we have in common, and the ways in which we are stronger together. Now, the UK Supreme Court has ruled that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex. Does the Prime Minister now accept that when he said trans women were women, he was wrong. You stood up here and said trans women are women.

We've got to share our single-sex spaces with any man who simply utters the magical words, I identify as a woman. Welcome to MediaStorm, the news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Helena Wadia. And I'm Matilda Mallinson. This week's Media Storm. What is a Woman? Common Sense or Culture War.

Welcome to the Media Storm Studio. Our guest today is a feminist and trans rights activist who has spent the last 10 years combating the rising anti-trans movement. She's known for her work on various YouTube shows, from the Atheist Experience and the Transatlantic Call-in Show to her own show, Turf Wars. She's also a guitarist, mezzled head and insect enthusiast. Welcome to the studio, our extremely varied guest, Katie McConnery. Hi, thanks for having me. Let's start with what the media often calls a simple question. What is a woman?

Does anyone have an answer to that? Katie, do you have an answer to that question? Yeah, I think the reason why people keep saying this. I mean, it's a piece of propaganda, really. The implication is that trans people are coming along and saying everything you know is wrong and science is wrong. And everyone thinks, I know what a woman is. They assume that somewhere there is a definitive. answer. And so you feel like, oh, this is just ridiculous. This whole argument's ridiculous.

We shouldn't be listening to trans people. But actually, in reality, even ignoring trans women, there isn't a definitive answer. You'll think something like, oh, well, it's people with XX chromosomes. Oh, it's people who can give birth. But actually, there's always an example of a woman who doesn't fit into what you think might define all women. And we often hear this answer from anti-trans activists. They say, well, I know what a woman is. It's an adult human female, like here, Starming. recently said this, but there isn't a biological definition of female, which includes all cis women and as what transphobes want trans men and excludes all trans women. There's nothing that you can point at and say, oh, it's someone who's born with ovaries, because there are some

cis women who are born without ovaries or born without a vagina even. So it's actually kind of complicated. It ends up being like a philosophy problem. So my answer, to round it back, My answer to this question is the kind of feeling of, well, I know what a woman is, is actually the right answer. You do know what a woman is because you interact with women all the time and you could point in one and say that is a woman and you could point to something else and say that isn't a woman. And that's kind of how all definitions work in human language. Generally, if you think, well, that's a woman, then that's probably right. I don't know. I wonder, Matilda, how do you, how would you answer that question, what is a woman?

If someone was to just ask me what is a woman and it wasn't something I'd put any thought into, I would be quite taken aback by having to like even contemplate that. An intuitive response like the one you just described, Katie, has always been good enough for me. And if I then sit down and think, okay, well, what is a woman to me? I find myself not liking any set definition that I can come up with. And I think that it's important to me that womanhood,

is not prescriptive and defined. And I sort of feel like the whole point of feminism has been to reject any prescriptive definition of what a woman should be because that has never worked in women's favour. Right, it's like, isn't that what we've been fighting against for so many years? Yeah. A good example of that is with Eman Khalif, who's the boxer in the Olympics,

she was born a girl and grew up as a girl and then suddenly this anti-trans, anti-intersex hate movement has decided that she isn't a woman without any evidence at all and that has the consequences in their world of her no longer having access to the sport that she does but would also mean that she doesn't have any rights as a woman. That would turn her entire life upside down and she experiences sexism and suddenly it's saying oh well because we think maybe you have this one biological characteristic

that you can't actually see, suddenly you're no longer the thing you know you are. And you're no longer protected. That's sort of what this discussion comes down to. People who have argued we need to have this discussion. We need to define a woman and we need to define a woman in the law. Base that argument in equality law and the need to have legal protections. So this is a question that has plagued politicians and media as of late. And today we want to ask whether all of this attention and all of this attention and all of the resources these establishments have dedicated to this question have actually achieved anything for wider society and in particular for women.

First, we'll start with politics. Now, when Kirstama was first elected Labour leader in 2020, his position on trans rights was pretty firm. Labor was committed to introducing self-ID for trans people, i.e. making it easier for trans people to change their sex legally. At the LGBT plus Labour leadership hustings in 2020, Kirstama said, Trans rights are human rights and I support the right to self-identification. At the Pink News Awards three months later, Stama described himself as a proud ally. Apart from that, he stayed relatively quiet on the topic,

aside from expressing that he does not think heated debate about trans rights is helpful. Well, 2020, Kirstama, I agreed with you there. But this is British politics. And in British politics, the phrase, what is a woman, has made its way into questions for political leaders as if it's on par with queries about the economy and defence policies. In 2021, then Labour MP Rosie Duffield, who is known for expressing strong gender-critical and transphobic views, had said that only women have a cervix. After online backlash, Rosie Duffield said she wasn't safe to attend that year's Labour conference and called on Kirstama to clarify his. his position on trans women in single-sex spaces. Cue a media round, where instead of being asked about any labour policies,

Starma was asked whether Rosie Duffield was right or wrong to say only women have a cervix. Now, he declined to call her remarks transphobic, but he did say, it is something that shouldn't be said, it is not right. He once again called for temperance, saying, we need to have a mature, respectful debate about trans rights and we need to bear in that the trans community are among the most marginalized and abused communities. Fast forward one more year to 2022. Replace cervix for penis.

During an LBC interview, Starma is asked repeatedly whether a woman can have a penis. Once again, he says, I don't think that discussing this issue in this way helps anyone in the long run. Yet this topic of what genitalia a woman can or can't have has almost dominated Labour Party headlines for a year now. And it's not just Stama. Then Labour Party chairman Annalise Dodds is interviewed in circles on BBC's Women's Hour in March 2022

about the definition of a woman. And then again in May 2022 on Sky News, multiple op-eds by gender-critical writers are published about how Labour can't answer a simple question. Fast forward one more year to 2023. The media are still talking about penises. Stama, in response this time, says 99.9% of women haven't got a penis.

And then, the clincher, he says, a woman is an adult, human, female. Annalie Stodds writes an op-ed to say that sex and gender are different. And then, Labour announced, after a policy forum, that they will not go ahead with making the self-identification process for trans people easier. One more year later, in 2024, just weeks before he became health secretary, Labor MP Wes Streeting said he no longer stood by the statement

that trans men are men and trans women are women. In an interview with Good Morning Britain, Kirstarmer backtracks on the initial catalyst that set all of this off, Rosie Duffield's comments three years prior, and he says, biologically, Rosie Duffield is of course right, that only women have a cervix. Come to the present day,

and Stama says, I welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court, which has given us much needed clarity. When asked by ITV if he believed trans women were women, he replied, I think the Supreme Court has answered that question. A woman is an adult female. The court has made that absolutely clear. To start, Katie, do you personally, or the wider trans community, how do they feel about this labour you turn?

do they feel betrayed by Kirstarmer and by Labour? Yeah, I think there is a sense of betrayal because certainly when I was growing up, the idea of how British politics worked was the Conservatives were like the Anti-Human Rights Party and Labour were the Human Rights Party generally. But then, obviously, the Conservatives passed gay marriage and now the current Labour government

is like the most anti-LGB government of my lifetime. So yeah, it definitely feels like a betrayal and it's quite terrifying, to be honest. And when we look at this, like, Kirstama and other labour figures have faced five years, essentially, of this relentless media questioning on what is a woman. And then when they try and give a temperate answer, they're repeatedly told, well, you can't answer a simple question. Now, it's certainly spineless, but is it also hard not to relent? Like, is it hard not to give in in the face of such a relentless media backlash? I mean, it is difficult to be at the centre of any media storm.

It's horrible when it happens. But when you're a politician, you kind of sign up for that. And it's not like they're that difficult a questions. They could easily just say trans women are women. And then what is the host going to respond with? You can't be a woman if you've got a Y chromosome. And then they could just be like, well, actually, that's not true. There are ciswomen who have given birth, who have X, Y chromosomes.

And like, I could get my secretary or something to provide you the paper. something like that. I think part of the problem is they just didn't have like an official position and they obviously weren't listening to trans and intersex organisations which do provide politicians with little booklets explaining things and that's why it's just made this mess. They've set themselves up for this situation where they don't know what to say. They want it to go away and then they get more and more pressure and the more they give in the more the pressure ramps up because the right wing sees like a weakness in the party and like you know, go to the kill really. I agree with you, Katie, that it is, like, completely pathetic and spineless and unacceptable from leadership.

I feel this all the time when I see, like, Labour's U-turn on immigration. However, I do find your research, Helena, the way you laid out that chronology is really interesting and really telling. And I definitely think it shows how the media has driven this transphobic turn in policymaking. A recent example occurred a couple of weeks ago when BBC newsreader Martin Croxel was reporting on recommended health precautions that people should know ahead of the heat wave and she changed her auto-cue mid-sentence.

Have a listen. Mystery, who was involved in the research, says that the aged, pregnant people, women, and those with pre-existing health conditions need to take precautions. The auto-cue was directly quoted. the author of a study, Malcolm Mystery, is his name, and the study is designed to protect vulnerable people during hot weather.

Maxine Croxel, the BBC reporter, altered the advice given to pregnant people, which is a term that might include trans men or non-binary people who don't identify as women, but can still be pregnant, and she altered it to exclude them from the advice. It is Croxel who has chosen to rewrite what is a public health. Health Report. Now, unsurprisingly, J.K. Rowling immediately retweets this. She's got a new favorite BBC presenter, apparently. But it also rapidly made the mainstream media rounds, and their reporting was even more leaning than Croxels. The Times wrote, quote, in what has been welcomed as a rejection of gender neutral language, welcomed by who? The telegraph, J.K. Rowling. The Telegraph quoted

an insider saying Croxel's on-air correction signals a move towards the use of more honest language and that the Supreme Court ruling in April is said to have encouraged staff to speak up for women. The Daily Mail went for a stereotypically scandalous headline, revealed how pregnant people ended up in Martin Croxel's AutoCue. The big reveal, it turned out to be, quote, an innocent mistake about which the BBC sees no need for a probe arguably a bit of an anti-climax

revealed there's no reveal that's like every daily male so I think this specific example with pregnant people versus women has like two aspects to it because there absolutely is the aspect of we need to recognise

that some trans men and non-binary people can get pregnant and advice should include them too but I do also think there's another aspect to this, which is that women are often depersonified and removed from conversation and just treated as statistics, when you hear things like, oh, one in three people are sexually assaulted. It's like, yeah, but which people? This isn't actually affecting men, is it? The problem of sexual harassment and sexual assault is really specifically targeted towards women. And if you

don't call that out, if you don't point that out, then it kind of hides the issue. So I think this kind of thing has two sides to it. If you're someone who isn't thinking about trans people at all, it's just not on your mind. And then you encounter this phrase pregnant people. You might think, are they trying to hide who is affected by discrimination against pregnancy and difficulties in childbirth and all this kind of thing? Obviously, it's mainly women, but it does also affect trans men and non-binary people too. And I think that's kind of why on this one thing it might be better to just say

this affects pregnant women and trans men and non-binary people like that is a bit more of a mouthful but it explicitly says what the issue is here I actually think that if the BBC Newsreader had to read out on this report advice for pregnant women

trans men and non-binary people I think the media backlash would have been worse but it would have been more revealing because it would would have at least signalled what exactly people had a problem with. Their problem is not erasing women in favour of pregnant people. Their problem is the key concept that a trans man or a non-binary person exists or can get pregnant. Yeah, it's just much easier to defend because

there's no fake argument they can bind. They have to just go in on saying, we don't think trans people should be included. Right. Katie, you also recently posted on Blue Sky that every article you read in The Independent now basically equates biological sex and birth sex. And you asked your followers why that might be. Did you learn or did you have any of your own theories about why you saw this? Yeah. So I think it is important to point out how biological sex should mean sex in terms of all your different sex characteristics and that includes like chromosomes, gonads, genitals, hormone levels. and then secondary sex characteristics like facial hair, breasts, etc.

Like, that's what sex actually is in terms of biology. But the Supreme Court and the Gender Critical Movement are trying to reuse the term biological sex to actually just mean the sex you were legally assigned at birth. And this can sound kind of complicated because for most people, they're just the same thing. But obviously for trans people, that can change. And I'm not talking about whether you think trans women are really women

philosophically or what. like in actual reality, as part of medical transition, it changes your sex characteristics. Basically all parts of your sex can change apart from your chromosomes, which are the least important part. But your actual sex changes and this can have real effect on your life in terms of medicine, for example. Some medical treatments affect women more than men. They have different symptoms. And if you give the wrong treatment to the wrong person, it can like make their life worse or stop you know it from working. So it's important when we're saying biological to accurately use that term and not just use it as some like code word for what someone used to be because it is

it's like scientifically wrong. And I think the reason this comes up in the media is probably a mix of things. One is the anti-trans movement really want to say trans women are men like that's their entire core premise. And they want that to be as authoritative as possible. And if you say, oh, well, it's true in science. It's true in biology. Then a lot of people will stop pushing back. They'll stop listening because they'll be like, oh, that's just a fact. But scientifically they are wrong. That is untrue. That isn't how biology works. And I think that is an editorial decision in order to sort of push this idea, scientifically false idea that sex can't change, that it's binary and immutable. The Hulu original series Murdoch Death and the Family

dives into secrets, deception, murder, and the fall of a powerful dynasty. Inspired by shocking actual events and drawing from the hit podcast, this series brings the drama to the screen like never before. Starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark. Watch the Hulu original series Murdoch Death in the Family, streaming October 15th on Disney Plus. Next up, let's talk about when this became such a hot topic because it hasn't always been the case. Most research has shown that disproportionate coverage of the transgender community began around 2018

when the British press published roughly three and a half times as many articles as they did in the year 2012. These stories are also increasingly negative. Analysis shows trans people were described in connection with conflict or aggression 586 times in 2018 compared to eight times in 2012. Eight. Wow. They were described as being demanding or aggressive, 334 times compared to five. And they were described in the context of crime, 608 times as opposed to three. Wow.

Multiple polls have shown the majority of the primary of the problem. British public do still support trans rights, although it is not as high as it once was, which is unsurprisingly in line with an increase in negative press coverage. Because if you read our press, you get the impression that trans people, especially trans women, are a problem and they are a direct threat to cis women. Research carried out by Sean Faye in her book, The Transgender Issue, showed that in 2020, the Times and the Sunday Times, published over 300 articles, almost. one a day about transgender people, and they were almost all negative. This is a group,

by the way, estimated at about 0.1% of the population. Also, by the way, the year of a global pandemic, so you'd think there was something slightly more important to write about. What has also been researched is that as the negative articles about trans people grow, so does hate crime against trans people. Since the start of 2018, when we saw this spike in negative coverage, anti-trans hate crime has increased by 280% from 1,700 cases recorded in a year to nearly 5,000. There are very rational questions about policy at stake here, but our press does not often allow for reasoned conversation and nuance. The press creates hyper-polarisation and sadly often hate. If people are confused, if people genuinely don't understand, that's okay. But

headlines and negative coverage like this will not help people to understand. Katie, as someone with lived experience of the anti-trans agenda, have you noticed an intensification in recent years or since a particular year? And what do you attribute this to? Yeah, I mean, obviously people are talking about trans people a lot more. There was this thing in the USA in 2014 called the transgender tipping point where they put LeVern Cox on the front of Time magazine or something. Levin Cox, by the way, for people don't know, is an American trans female actress.

Yes. She's in Orange is the New Black, which is good. But yeah, obviously as soon as a new group of people who are slightly different, raise their heads and say, we exist too, then there's going to be a backlash against them. And it's what we've seen with like every civil rights movement ever. But it's certainly got worse in the UK around 2018, as you highlighted, when the government announced that it was going to reform the Gender Recognition Act.

Act, and I think that gave the media and the anti-trans movement like a focus point. You might have heard of the Gender Recognition Act. It's actually really minor, but it would have allowed trans people to update some documents. We could already update a passports, driving licences, etc. It would just allow you to update some things like your birth certificate and your marriage certificate. It was very minor, but it became this like frenzy of if they changed this law, then they will be put in rapists in school with your daughter and all this, you know, kind of extreme stuff. people start clicking on things and getting outrage and creating little groups and it did again

get worse in the pandemic. A lot of people were trapped inside with nothing to do. A lot of people turned to conspiracy theories. It's when like Q and on in the USA kicked off COVID conspiracy stuff in the UK too. And I think gender critical really benefited from that. It gave people a lot of sort of meaning in their lives to have this group that they hate. And obviously J.K. Rowland came out in 2020 as anti-trans, and that was like a huge publicity moment for them. Yeah, in terms of like articles and hate crimes and stuff, those numbers you read out were true, but they were also for like 2020, and it's now five years on. And it's been exponential.

Like they were publishing one negative article a day in 2020, and now it's more like five. It's unbelievable. I genuinely think we're probably reaching the point where there are more negative articles about trans people in the last decade than there are trans people. Lots of these media organizations will completely, and I mean entirely, fabricate a story and then they'll just backtrack on it. Like there was one I often point out where the Times announced that there were 300 or something trans women rapists in women's prisons in the UK. Where they got the idea from was there was 300 women in the UK who were in prison for rape and they just assumed they were all trans. This was headline like, you know, J.K. Rowling is talking about it.

Everyone's talking about it. It's suddenly now a fact. There's hundreds of trans women in the UK who are in prison for rape. And then, like a week later, they just announced a correction saying, oh, actually, there's no evidence for that at all. It's entirely false. And let me guess the correction was buried somewhere in the back pages. A single paragraph on their website.

And they actually had to retract another story the same week. They also claimed that the NHS was demanding nurses and doctors refer to breastfeeding as chest feeding. which kicked off and there was this whole media campaign there was one headline that I always remember which was don't make me sacrifice my breasts to the altar of transgenderism

which was just like amazing a headline but it's just completely crazy this story the basis of it like if you could even call it that was in Brighton a single hospital had said when talking to trans men be aware that they might not like the term breastfeeding and you might get a better response

if you use different terms for example, chest feeding. And it's just like these are the two, at the time, they were the two main news stories about trans people. Every single news organisation was doing an article about them, and they were both totally fabricated. And this happens all the time, like constantly. We just don't have a voice.

Like trans people don't have any way of pushing back against this, because in the UK, the entire media left to right is anti-trans or gender critical. Getting a positive story out is basically impossible. And countering the misinformation is impossible. to do at like the media level anyway. We actually started this podcast in response to the fact that reporting on minorities so often excludes minority voices, which goes against all the rules of journalism. And one of our first ever episodes was on trans rights because of how stark that exclusion is.

Has it become kind of a vicious circle where trans people are fearful of the media and therefore don't want to get involved in. mainstream media don't want to give interviews because they know what the reaction might be. As an example, you know, the Good Law Project wrote that some trans organizations didn't want to give written or oral arguments during the Supreme Court hearing and that the probable reason for this is because they know from bitter experience what legal proceedings mean for them that it means punishment beatings in the press. Yeah, I think it is a vicious circle.

as a just a random trans person on the street, they are calling up random trans people to come on the news. It is scary because you think, can I handle this abuse? Sometimes you can be at the center of these things for weeks and like, you know, big names can jump onto it and really target you and people are scared of it. But also, it is unfortunately kind of a strategic decision sometimes when you're offered this position to go on like the BBC or something

And they say, we want you to come on talk about trans rights. Like, I'd love to do that. But then they say, oh, the question is going to be, are trans women a danger to society? And we will also be interviewing, like, Doctor, I hate trans people or something at the same time. And we're not going to fact check any of it. And we're going to tone police you the entire time. You will be given equal time. And the other person is going to constantly imply that you're like a degenerate pedophile or something.

and you have to keep completely cool, calm and collected, what you're signing up to actually itself does more damage than you could ever achieve. Like, if I go onto a media thing and I say, actually this person I'm discussing with is wrong about the science, they're wrong about the law, everything they've said about trans people is wrong, here are the reasons why I can provide sources. People might listen to that, but the takeaway will be, oh, trans people versus women.

and it's not trans people versus women but they've created this narrative and that's the only opportunities were ever given I mean apart from this that's why I'd like jump to come on this podcast it's people who aren't trying to create this fake divide that dichotomy, that divide you point out

that this is always framed as like trans people versus women I think that points to the other missing voice here right? Because this topic is framed in the media as if it's about womanhood even when it's about actually just being transphobic. But I don't think women are fairly represented. I mean, I don't think cis women are fairly represented in this debate.

The media will seek out anti-trans female voices and act as if they speak for all women. And then they silence cis women who don't see any difference between themselves and trans women. An example of this was in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision, there was a huge protest on the 19th of April. and there were many cis women at the protest coming out in solidarity with the trans community following the judgment. But much of the reporting of the protest overlooked that. The Guardian wrote, one hell of a turnout, trans activists rally in London against gender ruling.

The second paragraph reads, thousands of trans and non-binary people thronged Parliament Square. The judgment was celebrated by groups including four women Scotland, a gender-critical campaign backed by J.K. Rowling, which says that women's safety is threatened by allowing transgender women into single-sex spaces. The article acts as if cis women can be entirely represented by this four-women Scotland, such a misleading name, and it doesn't represent the many rejecting the Supreme Court ruling. We saw the same reporting this weekend when there was a follow-up protest outside Parliament. If this question is over whether cis women feel comfortable or uncomfortable with trans women sharing their bathrooms, then the breadth of our views should be reported.

I went to that protest, right, on April 19th. I went to that protest and a big part of the reason that I did was because I felt so angered that the only cis women who were given a voice in all the reporting were for Women's Scotland and J.K. Rowling. And I just felt like, how dare you speak for me? You know, like how dare you try and lump me in with your group? Because I don't feel that way. And that's like a huge part of the reason that I wanted to make that known because it was just so frustrating. And I guess maybe the question that follows this is, what can we do then? What can we do to elevate allies and to make our allyship count as well? Yeah, this is really difficult because.

the UK media. It's so insular and if you say, you know, I'm a cis woman and I stand out against this. They're like, yeah, yeah, we're not interested in platforming this. So, you know, trans people and cis women together have to create our own media spaces and our own narratives. And it is very difficult. I mean, there's lots of ways of doing it. There is things like direct action protests which attract headlines whether these media organizations want to do that or not. I know that there's like a big petition at the moment called Not in Our Name. There's nearly like 40,000 signatures on that, which is all cis women saying we oppose this narrative. And like 40,000, I guess is quite a big number. But whenever you see it from the

gender criticals, they always have like 13 signatures. They've never once got even close to like tens of thousands of signatures on any of their petitions. But I think we just need to have solidarity with each other because these issues do affect like, sorry, I'm not trying to speak for you. But like as they draw these like closed boxes around what a woman is, is that only going to affect trans people? No, of course not. There are loads of women who have already been targeted for not looking like a woman enough, whatever the hell that means, by these transphobes. So this is directly affecting cis women too in lots of ways. I think we really wanted to have this discussion on womanhood that didn't pit cis and trans women against each other, but brings us

into discussion with each other because we do have a shared struggle and the real dangers that women face often feel like a low social priority. As of March this year, nearly eight in ten women said that they thought the government should be doing more to tackle violence against women and girls. If we take the Supreme Court ruling, it doesn't introduce any new rights or protections for cis women, but all it does is narrow the legal definition of women under the Equality Act to mean biological female. And a mere two weeks after the Supreme Court ruling in Scotland, the Scottish government announced that they were not going to bring forward a planned law

to criminalise misogyny because there was not enough time to draw up a law which reflected the recent Supreme Court judgment on the definition of a woman. So literally while we're all sitting around arguing about what is a woman, Laws that actually could help women are being shelved. As you said Katie and Matilda, the Supreme Court ruling doesn't actually do anything to help cis women. And I truly believe that the only winner is the patriarchy. So let's talk about the real dangers that face all women. A lot of this was based off a fear of attacks in public toilets.

There is a lack of evidence of attacks by trans people in public toilets. We set our intern this week the task of finding them. We knew that if they were out there, they would be all over the media. She found one case dating back six years. Meanwhile, 68% of trans people report experiencing verbal harassment in public spaces. Just four days ago, trans actor Jalen Yee posted that she was violently attacked by two people near Ballam Station in London, warning this is upsetting. She said that one male and one female pulled her hair, pushed her to the, the ground, dragged her by her hair and kicked her repeatedly while one of them screamed slurs at

her. She was left covered in blood and bruises and called on people to make sure trans friends get home okay because the streets are really not safe for them. Meanwhile, rape and sexual assaults in public toilets are happening while they appear to have nothing to do with transgender identity claims. F-O-I attempts to retrieve this data have been almost flatly denied by police, We managed to locate one data set provided by Gwent Police, which covers 600 square miles of rural whales, and they still counted 134 reported incidents of rape and assault in public toilets over five years. Women are being violated in toilets, but not by trans women. And trans people in all gender minorities face regular violence.

We do not demonise cis men at large, but still. Statistically, there is no hiding from the fact that male violence is a threat all gender minorities share. Men also face this danger. The attempt to shift focus and pit targeted groups against each other will not distract us from our shared struggle. So our final question, Katie, do you feel like the issue of male violence is being adequately addressed? And if not, what is the first thing that you think should be done to address it? No, it's not being adequately addressed at all. I mean, what's the statistic for the amount of rapes in the UK that end up in a prosecution?

It's like 1% or something. Like, that absolutely diabolical. So, yeah, I mean, what is being done at all? You will gain nothing if I am banned from the toilets. You will gain nothing if they take away my passport or whatever, which is what they've done in other countries like Hungary and stuff, who are a bit further ahead in the attack on trans people. cis women really do gain absolutely nothing from this at all

but it's not just that and it's more than just a distraction like it is a way of attacking women's rights too lots of the rights that trans people have today are there because they just applied human rights to everyone like we have a right to privacy for example which is applied to everyone and if they want to attack trans people's privacy then they're going to have to attack everyone's privacy

And that is what we're seeing with the push to leave the European Court of Human Rights. But in terms of like what should the government be doing to combat this stuff? I mean, the first thing they should be doing is ending this pointless culture war against trans people. Like how much money was just spent on this Supreme Court case and how much money is going to be spent in the fallout of it trying to deal with this now confusing nonsense ruling and there's going to be loads of court case and stuff? All of that money could have been spent on the government funding

women's services better, which the government is cutting back on doing. And there are so many people who are experts on this, feminist academics who have spent their entire careers studying and understanding what governments around the world could be doing better to help women and trans people. And the government isn't interested in them. Instead, they're getting on these ridiculous culture warriors to basically make their policies for them. Katie Montgomery, thank you so much for joining us on Media Store. Just tell people where they can follow you and let us know if you've got anything to plug.

If you want to follow me, probably the best place is either Blue Sky or YouTube. It's just my name, Katie Montgomery. Katie with a Y of Montgomery with an IE, just to be extra confusing. I do a weekly live stream on Wednesday nights at 8pm. Yeah, I think that's my main things. Thank you for listening.

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MediaStorm is an award-winning podcast produced by Helen Awaddea and Matilda Mallinson. Additional research by Lily Irwood and Teigen Gray. The music is by Samphire.