Can we talk about Pink News? Collecting examples of their propaganda.

[R0wantrees]

Today's article about the Fairplay for women advert repeats a non-attributable quote,
"Critics have accused the newspaper of taking money from the group to publish “anti-trans propaganda.”

www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/10/10/metro-newspaper-full-page-ad-attacking-transgender-reforms

It has struck me given the apparent regualarity with which MPs stand between the PN banners and the number of pro-trans-propaganda pieces that some consideration needs to be given to the influence the business and its owners and editors have.

thoughts? examples?

LLoyds Bank Group have a key involvement with Mermaids I think (Trustee level?)

www.thememo.com/2016/01/14/how-to-boss-it-like-benjamin-cohen-founder-of-pinknews/

When Parliament is in session and I’m in the country, I’d probably be at the Commons or Lords once a week.

“So, between twins of the same-sex, where there are no grey areas regarding consent or abuse, and there’s absolutely no chance that either will conceive, why not?

We wouldn’t like to say – but it’s an interesting theory.”
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/03/22/why-cant-gay-or-lesbian-twins-have-sex-with-or-marry-each-other-why-is-incest-wrong-between-same-sex-siblings/amp/

Pink News gave India Willoughby the opportunity to describe Mumsnet as akin 'hounding trans women in the same way Hitler went about stigmatising Jewish people', 'the stuff of pitchforks and lanterns', 'very similar to the way the National Front used to operate'. 'more like a Nuremberg Rally' and compared Justine Roberts to Cruella de Vil.

www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/04/24/india-willoughby-transphobia-opinion-worried-for-my-life-mumsnet/

current thread:
OP WatchThePotatoesBoil wrote:
"Here we go again...

Following in the wake of "Penguin Tales", this one is a bit more specific - the subtext being that if you don't like dresses, fairies, or long hair, then you're a boy.

It's aimed at 4-8yr olds.

There's more info at Pink News"

'Incredible new children’s book tells story of transgender boy'
www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/10/10/new-childrens-book-transgender-boy/

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3390706-Were-not-targetting-children-honest

It's interesting to read Ben Cohen's nuanced thoughts on the politics of marriage equality and how winning people over without pressure was a positive thing.

Pretty much the exact opposite of how he, PN and Stonewall have advocated for riding roughshod over women's rights and concerns in the self ID debate.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/16/gay-marriage-legal-pinknews-stonewall

It was only then that our largest gay rights charity said it would campaign for something all three party leaders had already said they would introduce. However, far from being a negative, I feel Stonewall's slowness to move was a positive thing. By remaining silent on this issue, Stonewall ensured that Cameron and Clegg adopted the cause of equal marriage because they wanted to, not because they were placed under any pressure to do so. It was a real demonstration of the power of the internet to bring the electorate and the political elite together. I believe that's why we'll never need candlelit vigils for gay rights in this country. We have a way of reaching out to politicians that they can't ignore. The cause of gay rights is immeasurably better off for it.

it was a real demonstration of the power of the internet

Whereas here lies the source of TRA pressure.

"Statement from Woman’s Place UK on a meeting with Dawn Butler on 28 March

Some representatives from Woman’s Place UK attended a short initial meeting with Dawn Butler, the shadow minister for women and equalities, with some other feminists on 28 March, to discuss the concerns of women about the status of women in the Labour Party and the proposals to ‘self-identify’ one’s sex.

We are extremely alarmed to see that details of this meeting, including the names of attendees, have been leaked to Pink News, a news website that has been hostile for some time to women campaigning for their rights to be upheld. One of the concerns raised at the meeting with Dawn Butler was the intimidation, threats, physical violence and harassment that women face when campaigning on this issue.

The leaking of the names of women to Pink News is an act of gross irresponsibility, and a huge breach of trust.

This was a tentative start of a dialogue with women about legislation that affects women, which has now been misrepresented by Pink News as an ‘anti-trans’ meeting. We believe the leaking of the details of the meeting, and the names of attendees, is an attempt to wreck this dialogue.

There must be an investigation into the source of this leak, and an immediate apology to the women who participated in good faith."

womansplaceuk.org/statement-on-meeting-with-dawn-butler/

Further example of Pink News agenda published today and targetting Fairplay for Women, by Nick Duffy
"Group behind Metro newspaper ad sent ‘chilling’ tweets about trans women getting ‘1,000 cancers’"
(extract)
A group campaigning against transgender rights reforms sent tweets laughing about transgender women being overwhelmed by a virus “like 1,000 cancers.”

Fair Play For Women has become one of the largest and best-funded campaign groups working to oppose reforms to the Gender Recognition Act. The government is currently consulting the public on changes to the law that would permit trans people to change their legal gender more easily.

Ahead of the consultation’s deadline on October 19, Fair Play gained media attention this week when it took out a full-page advert in the London edition of Wednesday’s Metro newspaper calling on people to oppose the trans reforms. At the time, Metro told PinkNews: “We believe the purpose of this ad is to raise awareness of the government consultation, not to be transphobic.”

However, Fair Play For Women has now come under scrutiny after tweets posted on the group’s Twitter account in November last year resurfaced. The tweets respond to a news story on scientific advances that could allow transgender women to give birth." (continues)

"Campaigners say that the tweets reflect a more sinister intention behind Fair Play For Women’s recent Metro ad, which the newspaper said was not meant “to be transphobic.”

Dr Adrian Harrop, a GP registrar and LGBT+ rights campaigner, told PinkNews: “It has been clear to many of those involved in working with and advocating for the trans and non-binary community that ‘Fair Play For Women’ and other similar groups are motivated entirely by transphobia — a hatred for and a desire to erase trans people from our society.

“These screenshots are truly chilling, and I’m sure that any trans person viewing them, would find them really quite horrifying and distressing.”

Harrop added: “The fact that any group would see any humour in, or be led to grin, or laugh over the idea of a trans person’s body being overwhelmed by cancer, is frankly reprehensible.

“Giving groups like this a platform of any size, or publishing their propaganda only makes you or your organisation complicit in the spread of hatred.

“The print and broadcast media in the United Kingdom ought to acknowledge that allowing transphobic hate groups to broadcast their messages compromises the safety and endangers the lives of trans people in their own communities. This is unacceptable and wrong, and mustn’t be allowed to continue.”

The director of Fair Play For Women, Nicola Williams, denied knowledge of the messages.

Nicola Williams of Fair Play for Women (ITV)
She told PinkNews: “I know nothing about this tweet. It pre-dates my time and that of anyone currently involved in Fair Play For Women.

“We utterly reject transphobia, homophobia, misogeny [sic], racism and bigotry of any kind.” (continues)

www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/10/12/fair-play-for-women-tweets-1000-cancers/

relevent threads:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3354331-Dr-Adrian-Harrop-thread-the-third-yes-weve-edited-the-title

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3248676-dr-adrian-harrop-dr-misogyny-is-pursuing-another-woman

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3244781-dr-adrian-harrop-who-the-funk-does-he-think-he-is

R0, thank you for reading and keeping an eye on PinkNews for us. I honestly find their coverage of these issues so distorted, and their tacit support for women's erasure so reprehensible, that I can't even read stories on there that I think I might actually enjoy.

I don't follow PN!
It's interesting to see who does though.

twitter thread response to PN with exampes of distressing tweets to women from TRAs:

mobile.twitter.com/PinkNews/status/1050858650640748544

Pink News: 'LGBT Leaders: Lawmakers reject radical feminist transphobia'
(extract)
LGBT+ people should be supporting the trans community in the reform of the Gender Recognition Act (GRA), a panel of LGBT+ politicians said on Friday (October 12).

With only a week to go before the public consultation on the GRA reform closes, support for transgender rights dominated a discussion on the future of LGBT+ rights in the UK at opening evening of the LGBT Leaders conference, presented by PinkNews and hosted by Freshfields.

“Within the [LGBT] community, the four initials right now, there is no excuse to do anything other than supporting one another,” said Baroness Liz Barker, a Liberal Democrat peer who publicly came out during the passage of the Marriage Act in 2013. (continues)

That delay, according to Baroness Barker, allowed “self-identified radical feminists” to organise and “put together a whole series of assumptions and generalisations.” She compared the strategies adopted by these groups to those historically adopted by people “to foster hatred agains minorities” and called for people to “reclaim feminism.”

Stephen Doughty, Labour and Co-operative Parliamentary MP for Cardiff South and Penarth, also tapped on the viciousness of the debate surrounding the consultation and compared some of the headlines published with relations to trans issues to those that a few decades ago would be directed at LGB people.

“For the vast majority of trans people who want to get on with their lives this is incredibly damaging,” Doughty said." (continues)
www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/10/12/lgbt-leaders-lawmakers-reject-radical-feminist-transphobia/

Wiki
pictured centre Benjamin Cohen (born 14 August 1982) is a British web developer, entrepreneur, and journalist. He became known for his dot.com enterprises as a teenager, his dispute with Apple computers over the domain "itunes.co.uk", and as the founder of LGBT news site pinknews.com. From 2006 until 2012 he was technology correspondent for Channel 4 News in the UK. Cohen has a diagnosis of MS. He campaigns on gay and disabled rights and is now the Chief Executive of PinkNews, and regularly writes for the London Evening Standard."

Liz Barker session chair of influential policy forum:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3268237-Westminster-Social-Policy-forum-today-Next-steps-for-transgender-Equality-WSPFEvents

Stephen Doughty MP's role during Home Affairs Committee on Hate Crime critiqued by James Kirkup Spectator (May 2018), 'Why are some MPs trying to shut down the transgender debate?'
(extract)
"Doughty, meanwhile, describes as “extreme” and “hate material” an article which observes that some people lobbying for changes in the name of transgender people are advocating things that might not be in the best interests of children. I have never met Doughty but have generally heard good things about him from colleagues: bright, committed, thoughtful and so on. So I must assume that he was having an off day when the committee met last week. It happens to us all, after all.

Surely a bright, thoughtful chap like him didn’t mean to imply that it was his job as Member of Parliament to tell newspapers what they can and cannot write? Surely he had no intention of acting as if it is in any way appropriate for a politician to decide what is and is not acceptable for journalists to say, and how they say it? And I can only hope that it was by a simple accident that he singled out by name a female journalist and suggested that her employers stop her saying the things that she thinks – because Doughty happens not to like her saying those things?

As I say, I must assume that he meant none of these things, that he had no such moronic and bullying intent when he spoke and acted as he did. I assume that Doughty is an honourable politician determined to do his job in a democracy and ensure that matters of public policy are debated fully and honestly, whether or not some people find such debate offensive. Because, as I am sure Doughty knows, there is no right not be offended and if we ever let hurt feelings stop us discussing matters of public interest on the basis of the facts, everyone loses."
blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/why-are-some-mps-trying-to-shut-down-the-transgender-debate/

(tweet by Helen from Mermaids Charity)

PinkNews is a lost cause unless something drastic changes in the ownership. AfterEllen was full of trash for a long time as well but recently re-bought by actual lesbians and is treading the line of being GC. Autostraddle is nuts and even more lost than Pink News.

Pink News, its role and influence needs investigation.

Just they other day, they referred to women as "the females". So dismissive, they're not even trying to hide their contempt.

www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/10/02/birmingham-billboard-standing-for-women-anti-trans/

Janice Turner (Times)
twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1052238356002656257

Pink News article: 'Trans campaigner quits comment awards over ‘anti-trans writer’ being nominated'
(extract)
"Helen Belcher, co-founder of charity Trans Media Watch, has resigned from the Comment Awards’ judging panel in protest of writers who have “written pieces positioning trans people as threats or a mob” being shortlisted.

Belcher released a statement on October 13, explaining that she has requested to be removed from the awards’ website particularly over the shortlisting of Janice Turner, a columnist for The Times, in the Commentator of the Year category.

She told PinkNews that the Comment Awards has refused to remove her name from its website.

Turner has written a number of articles that are critical of transgender issues for The Times.

Belcher said that Turner had been praised by the Comment Awards’ judging panel for “changing the debate” on trans issues in her articles.

“By this they meant her articles raising fears over government’s review of the Gender Recognition Act, continually positioning trans people as dangerous sex offenders, and incorrectly alleging that women’s spaces would be at risk when the Act has no bearing on this,” Belcher said in her statement.

Belcher was on the judging panel for the Comment Awards’ Society and Diversity Commentator of the Year prize." (continues)

Speaking to PinkNews, Belcher said: “The issue is really not about free speech. It’s about owning the consequences of free speech.”

She added: “The relentlessness of the regularity of which anti-trans pieces are being published in papers like The Times, The Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, is having a detrimental effect on the mental of every trans person I know, including me.”

www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/10/15/helen-belcher-trans-media-watch-comment-awards-janice-turner/

What PN do not report is the specific allegations made by Belcher in screen shot which suggests a causation of teenage suicide

Anti-transgender hate crime reports up by a third in one year
Nick Duffy
(extract)
"Reports of anti-transgender hate crimes have surged by more than a third in the past 12 months.

Annual figures released by the government on Tuesday (October 16) show a surge in all categories of hate crime reports in England and Wales.

Officials say that much of the overall trend can be explained by improvements to the system of reporting. However, the data indicates a 32.1 percentage surge in anti-transgender hate crime that outstrips the percentage increase for other categories, with the exception of religious hate crimes, which rose by 40.12 percent." (continues)

www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/10/16/anti-transgender-hate-crime-reports-up-third-year/

of course we must be aware that some of these include billboards stating 'women=adult human female' & stickers which say 'women don't have penises'

again, one does have to recognise the importance of language, number of reports

Andrew Gilligan (Times)

I saw that tweet about the rise in TG hate crime and immediately thought it's no surprise given literally everything is transphobic and hate speech including the dictionary definition of woman.

Interestingly in another tweet PN were reporting a homophobic attack on a gay man at Pride who couldn't get the Police to take him seriously.

Funny how invested the Police are in one particular demographic.

PN celebrate the end of women's sport.

LOL! That Andrew Gilligan tweet! Perfect.

This thread has pulled together various bits of evidence to show that Pink News employs someone who is trans black. He's white but took a black lgbt place as a delegate. Said he self defined as black because his dad had a relationship with a black woman. (!)

twitter.com/msjenniferjames/status/980095075324710914

This is Bejamin Cohen of Pink News demonstrating the contemt he holds for ulnerable female prisoners and women's sports;

Pink News reporting on the Twitter policy (which has resulted in many women being targetted by TRAs, including Feminist Current editor Meghan Murphy) managed to include a couple of accounts which seem to be likely part of the mass targetting and reporting as well as one suggesting how best to do it:

'Twitter bans misgendering and deadnaming in pro-trans move
byJosh Jackman 23rd November 2018,

(extract)
"Twitter has prohibited misgendering and deadnaming on its platform in an effort to curtail anti-trans abuse.

The social media company has changed its rules to ban the practices and has warned that any user who deliberately targets a trans person in these ways may face permanent suspension.

These offensive techniques—which involve using the wrong gender to refer to a trans person or a trans person’s old name—are often used on Twitter to insult and erase trans people’s identities and right to exist

“Research has shown that some groups of people are disproportionately targeted with abuse online.

“This includes; women, people of colour, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual individuals, marginalised and historically underrepresented communities,” it continues.

“For those who identity [sic] with multiple underrepresented groups, abuse may be more common, more severe in nature and have a higher impact on those targeted.”

One tweeted: “nb deadnaming and misgendering are now prohibited on Twitter. which is very good news!”

Another said: “Excellent news everyone: Twitter has finally updated their TOS such that misgendering/deadnaming a trans person is against the site’s rules. Happy hunting.”

www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/11/23/twitter-misgendering-deadnaming-trans/

Is the terfblocker account associated with the sprouty ones?