Hadley Freeman on Woman's Hour shortly

[RoyalCorgi]

Talking about why she left the Guardian!

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001fvx6

I've got all the text of a transcript but I'm currently tidying it up.

Oh, fantastic, nauticant! I can drink with both hands!

That's excellent, thanks!

archived version here: archive.ph/mDfzW

All papers enjoy having a dig at the competition

Really enjoyed listening to that after work, thank you for pointing it out.

napody I've noticed that the BBC Sounds search function is often like that! What should be obvious often doesn't come up first.

I’m yet to listen but really like this term

Even more than GC

I’ve just listened. That was EPIC.

Recent GC articles by Janice Turner and Hadley Freeman have mentioned Caitlin Moran and her books/feminism. I wondered if it was their way of saying it's about time Caitlin stood up for women's rights.

Hadley was fucking brilliant. So calm and measured. She handled it beautifully, and it is fucking SHOCKING to hear what we all kind of knew anyway spelled out.

The guardian don't want women talking about women's rights.

Fucking outrageous.

An excellent repost to Sally:

Sally:

There are lots of words a writer could use when talking on national radio about leaving one of the nations main broadsheets to write for another, but silenced and censored aren’t at the top of the list @ BBCWomansHour

Reply:

Say what? A Gender Studies academic now insisting words have meaning?

If a male with a penis can be called a 'lesbian' in your field of study, precise word choice is obviously not important in your corner of the university.

twitter.com/foggytrails/status/1599807088187695107?s=46&t=-DATl2kZIc95Mr8KCfvblQ

I hate the term GC. TRAs have misconstrued it completely.

Reality based feminism is excellent ⭐️

I remember a thread on here trying to come up with a better term

Not sure reality based feminism made it but it’s pretty good

Transcript of the interview of Hadley Freeman (HF) by Emma Barnett (EB) on Woman's Hour on 5 December 2022, starting just after 10am.

1/6

EB: Now six weeks ago my first guest resigned from The Guardian, a newspaper she has loved and worked for for 22 years most of her working life. The reason she claims she was censored about writing on the Labour Party during the Jeremy Corbyn era, from her perspective in part as a jew, and then again about writing about gender and trans issues from her perspective as a woman, both claims The Guardian paper denies. Her resignation has sparked considerable debate in the media world after extracts of her resignation letter to the newspaper's editor Katharine Viner, whom we've also invited onto the programme, were leaked and have appeared in Private Eye. Hadley Freeman is who I'm talking about, she's worked as a staffwriter as I say for a long time 22 years at The Guardian but joins the Sunday Times in January and is also an author, she's finishing a book at the moment on girls in anorexia which comes out next year. Hadley Freeman's just joined me in the studio. Good morning.

HF: Hi Emma.

EB: Why did you resign when you did?

HF: Well as you say I'd been at The Guardian for a long time and it felt like I'd been in a very happy long-term marriage uh for 15 years and then about seven years ago that particular partner started to become a conspiracy theorist to be honest and sort of unrecognizable to me and it just got to a point where I couldn't take any more and this specific conspiracy [I'm] referring to is of course the um gender identity, gender theory idea and the censorship of women writing on it and the thing that finally pushed me over the edge was I'd been asking editors across the paper for over six years if I could write or someone could write a long piece about Mermaids and Susie Green the charity that claims to support what it calls gender non-conforming children and I was always always told "no" but the reasons always changed, it was you know this isn't the right time or we don't see the interest etc etc even when Mermaids was given 500 grand by the National Lottery I was still told no there's there's no news peg and then I pitched again in August to an editor and they said no it's not relevant or something and then in September the Daily Telegraph ran a big expose about Mermaids and it led to the Charity Commission saying they were going to look into it and I asked the news desk you know are you going to follow up on this and they told me no we don't follow other people's stories and I just thought um so you don't you're not going to commission me to do anything or anyone not necessarily me a news reporter it didn't have to be me, and you also won't follow other people's reporting on it like I don't understand and at that point I thought okay it's time to go.

EB: I mean I should say on Friday evening on that point about Mermaids the Charity Commission has escalated its investigations into Mermaids um announcing it's responding to newly identified issues about the governance and management of the transgender children's charity. Hadley to come to your your points, there's a few in there, you are saying that you specifically were not allowed to write about this are you saying others were and you weren't?

HF: No um I was specifically not allowed I was specifically told by upper management um that I wasn't allowed to worry about gender stuff in about 2018 2019 I think um and others weren't either. I know of multiple reporters who asked if they could interview for example Maya Forstater during her case, Allison Bailey, um Jess de Wahls, I asked about interviewing JK Rowling and Martina Navratilova and we were all told no. Meanwhile you know the the paper ran these long-glowing profiles of trans activists such as Munroe Bergdorf and Paris Lees and Fred McConnell and I'm proud to work at a paper that spotlight marginalized people like that I just don't understand, well I do understand, but it infuriated me that feminist campaigners such as Julie Bindel who I also pitched to interview, when her book came out, and JK Rowling were basically shut out from the paper.

EB: When you go on The Guardian's website there are uh interviews with uh those who are described as having so-called, some people don't even agree with this way of describing it, but if we could just use this phrase for a moment, gender critical views such as Kathleen Stock who I remember interviewing here on on the program uh after she was was put in a position as she said she actually had to leave Sussex University, and Maya Forstater who talked about who won that uh particular case, they're on The Guardian website but are they under The Observer?

HF: I believe Maya Forstater was interviewed in The Observer, I'm sure someone can correct me if that's wrong, Kathleen Stock was interviewed in The Guardian which was amazing and we were all you know those of us who had been trying to get interviews with these women you know cheered about it but as far as I know her book was not reviewed by The Guardian and nor was um Abigail Schrier's who wrote about the effect of trans activism on on girls, and nor was Helen Joyce's very you know huge bestseller about uh trans gender ideology but we did review and extract, seems to me, every single trans memoir that came out, so there was always this imbalance and I know that upper management you know say well both sides are equally passionate you know it's very hard to balance both the gender activists and, you know, what people call gender critical feminists, I call reality-based feminists, but the fact is only one side in that argument demands censorship. I have no problem, and never had any problem, with The Guardian interviewing and spotlighting uh you know trans activists trans activist books, but I was not allowed and nor was anyone else allowed to interview gender critical feminists or you know ...

2/6

EB: But there are some, I suppose that's the point ...

HF: One, Kathleen, is Kathleen ...

EB: And I did read an interview with Maya but I think ...

HF: In The Observer.

EB: In The Observer, and we should say just again if you're not familiar with the media world, The Observer is edited by a different editor.

HF: Yeah.

EB: That's right.

HF: It's edited by a different editor.

EB: Okay, so because part of your resignation letter I mentioned was leaked to Private Eye which was to Kath Viner, who having invited on, we didn't get Vine,r the invitation is still open, but we did get this statement from The Guardian which said "The Guardian has always been committed to representing a wide range of views on many topics in our coverage there will always be debate on the issues we cover, the issues around trans people's rights and gender critical feminism are complex and can be polarizing and polarized, as such The Guardian aims to feature a wide range of reporting and multiple perspectives on this topic. All writers work with their editors to decide the topics on which they write. This is a completely standard practice across the media. That is not censorship it is editing.

HF: I I understand what they're saying and I'm you know I'm not an idiot you know I've been I was there for 22 years I had a column for most of those 22 years of course you're not allowed you know you discuss with your editor what you're writing beforehand, but on no other subject had I ever been told you are not allowed to write about this wholesale.

EB: Who said that?

HF: Um it was M--, it was someone quite high up in the paper.

EB: So it was actually said to you ...

HF: Yes. It was said you are not allowed to worry about gender and also they said to me at the same time I don't want any women to be writing about gender because he gets too much of a kickback on social media, it should be done by the male specialist reporters such as the health reporters.

EB: So that was said to you by an individual?

HF: It was said to me in a meeting with three other people who can all back me up on that.

EB: I I I'm asking because I also was interested if it had been said to you by the editor herself as well.

HF: I don't want to be naming and pointing direct fingers it was said by upper management it was clear that was the policy.

EB: Because there are a couple of pieces which I know we also going to come to because of what then happened with those pieces uh where you have written and shared your views ...

HF: Yep.

3/6

EB: Were you saying there was a policy change because they're about four years old those pieces?

HF: Yeah so that was a policy change so I wrote I think two columns in my week my magazine column um which I had at the time uh one was about uh Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about the interview she gave and one was about uh sort of progressive men using gender activism as a sort of guise to be incredibly misogynistic and to shout out women mainly online but also in life and I wrote those and there was a huge backlash online and I also within the office and then I went and went I went into America for work and was there for a bit I think covering the Oscars or something and came back ...

EB: You did have quite a broad range [] people who fashion through to politics.

HF: Yeah, I mean I like to write about most things really um I'm not I'm not myopic in that sense and um came back and that's when I was told that I wasn't to write about gender and actually women shouldn't write about gender, et cetera et cetera, and suddenly things became very very tricky for me and you know I asked if I could interview Martina Navratilova after she wrote a column in the Sunday Times about why she didn't think trans women should compete against female athletes and I was told that my point of view and Navratilova's point of view were mean um you know um I would ...

EB: You were told that your point of view was mean?

HF: Yeah that was the quote, I was told

EB: Sorry.

HF: Yeah and um you know other people Jess de Wahls and you know other women who've had trouble um with gender activists and it was always no no no and then I was told a few months after this began that while I was away a group called All About Trans which is I believe the best way to describe them be a lobby group who go around to different companies and media groups and talk about how trans people should be discussed or written about had come to The Guardian and they'd held up two of my articles as examples of transphobia and this was this had happened when I was told it had happened by eight months previously while I was away and when I went to HR and some of the editors and asked you know could this could they send out some message to my section editors who'd been at this event, and also I should say All About Trans, you know, consisted of people from Mermaids and Mermaids had been at this event too I was told, um so when I said can you can you let my section editors know and my colleagues know that this isn't fair that you know you don't believe this, and I was told they couldn't because it would draw more attention to the claim.

EB: So you found out months after was that while you're away your place of work had had a session on by an external group.

HF: Yeah.

EB: Welcomed by, I believe, The Guardian Pride group which is a group of staffers within within the place and your two articles were held up as transphobic?

HF: Yeah.

EB: And you weren't told about that in advance?

HF: Oh God no! And I wasn't told about it immediately afterwards, I just found out when a friend and colleague happened to mention it to me saying she thought I should know as it was clear no one had told me because I kept saying to I don't understand what's changed um and there's there did suddenly become this atmosphere of real fear in the paper and there were various morning conferences to which all um people who work at The Guardian are invited to at the beginning of the day we don't really have those anymore, but pre-pandemic it would be everybody gathering talking about the news, and there was one of those conferences where the paper had run in editorial defending uh the Gender Recognition Act and why it shouldn't be made easier for people to change gender and I was defending the editorial which had run in the paper and various colleagues and people I considered friends were being quite personally abusive and you know saying it was transphobic, this is like a teacher saying a gay teacher shouldn't, it's like people saying a gay teacher shouldn't teach children, and I got very upset and I've never gotten upset in the office before and I I just walked out and meanwhile you know the top editors were all at the meeting no one said anything, no one intervened, you know I I understand it's a subject that gets very heated but in my memory and as far as I know and I've looked back on all my correspondence because I saved all my emails, I've tried to be very calm and measured and look at you know both sides of it of course I do, and what you get from the other side, if you're just trying to defend what is literally the law in this country, is being told you're killing children, you know you're a bigot you're this, this very you know violent sort of way of talking, and it's not that that upsets me I can take that, what I don't understand is why upper management are scared to deal with it, and it seems to me that it's not just The Guardian I don't want to just be focusing on The Guardian although obviously it's where I worked, this has happened at a lot of progressive places, this feeling of fear that we can't stand up against some of the claims that gender activists made, you know it's happened in the New York Times, it happened at the Washington Post, you know even on Woman's Hour, I'm not like trying to make anything awkward for you Emma, but I remember a few years ago when Jenni Murray was still here and she wrote a piece in the Sunday Times that some people got upset about she then wasn't allowed to talk about this issue as far as I know on the programme, um I remember another time here when there was there was going to be a debate in the studio and Stonewall said they wouldn't come in if the journalist Helen Lewis was here and in the end Woman's Hour capitulated to them and allowed them to do a pre-record which is therefore then not a discussion there ...

EB: You may characterise, (A) I don't know about that particular one, that's not while I was here, I've got a lot of interviews with the CEO of Stonewall, Kathleen Stock, we've done many items on this, nor can I speak to any of the previous decisions before I joined ...

4/6

HF: No no of course I mean I'm not

EB: The issue about what you discussed about Jenni Murray though I think it is fair to say it's quite clear that BBC presenters are not meant to have opinions so we could debate that um but that is your take on it and I think we we can also just talk about processes as well but, again, I wasn't here for that.

HF: Yeah of course, no, I'm not trying to get at Woman's Hour, I'm saying that this is something ...

EB: I'll also interject we're a bastion of left-leaning journalism ...

HF ... absolutely ...

EB: ... at the BBC like The Guardian absolutely wants to be um but your bigger point is that you feel on this that there is on the left side, what?

HF: I think there's a gen well I think what there is is a real feeling of fear because what Stonewall and other organisations like that have very been have been very successful at is saying that gender rights are the same as gay rights and anyone who objects to any element of the gender activism is basically a homophobe and so there's this fear on the left, on a particularly in progressive circles, of getting it wrong because that would be the worst thing to be would be to be a bigot, my personal feeling is if you have fear if you're scared of saying what is literally in front of you if you're scared of voicing doubts because of what people in the office might say, because of what strangers online might say, then you probably shouldn't be a journalist you know a journalist is about ...

EB: Do you think the editor of The Guardian is scared and do you think she shouldn't be in her job?

HF: I'm like I mean I'm not going to ...

EB: Well you're busy saying uh you know various programmes have capitulated without knowing the background, you do know the background of your news I do know that and you're not short of opinions and unlike Jenni Murray when she was at the BBC you're allowed to say them you're paid for them so do you think she should be in her job it's a very serious allegation to say the editor of the biggest left-leaning newspaper in this country is censoring women from writing about gender should she be in the job?

HF: I didn't say that the editor had censored I said ...

EB: All right sorry again she presi- she pres, but but, sorry but management is management and when you say upper management she's ... okay I'll rephrase, she's presiding over management which told you with witnesses on several occasions, and your articles were used within the organisation's hosting of groups, that you're you're not allowed to write about certain things that's a very serious allegation.

HF: Yeah and it's happened at other places too I mean it's it's you know ...

EB: Do you think she's fit to be the editor?

HF: I'm sure she's fit to be the editor, what I'm saying is it's not right for any newspaper to censor on any specific subject.

EB: Why is she them fit to be the editor?

HF: [A big sigh] I'm not going to try to push her out for job Emma.

5/6

EB: No no but it's a question that will oh some of our listeners will read The Guardian they want to know they're being shown a full range of views, some of them may push back, I mean I was just looking at the Mermaids articles from the last few days those articles have been written up as straight news articles on The Guardian ...

HF: ... yeah ...

EB: ... website ...

HF: ... after I left

EB: ... after you left ...

HF: ... yeah ...

EB: Uh you have left already?

HF: Yeah

EB: You've not started yet um but but I suppose uh that some would also say other parts of the paper maybe the sports section. do you think that has been better ...

HF: Yes.

EB: ... uh at writing about some of the issues in trans there?

HF: It has.

EB: Because okay fine because it's interesting to try and compare if there's a difference you and I both in our newspapers work again I'm trying to reveal there's a difference with the news desk, the comment desk, the sports desk, different editors ...

HF: Yeah and this is why I'm not trying to target Kath Viner in particular, I mean there are different section editors all around the paper, and sport has been um good at this there's a columnist Sean Ingle has been very good at writing about the science behind this and, but I do know as well that there have been lobby groups that have come in to talk to the sports desk sort of arguing the case for trans athletes, trans women athletes, to be competing against female athletes as far as I know there hasn't been a group like Fair Play to Women [or maybe Fair Place for Women] you know defending why women's sport needs to be um you know female sex only, um you know and I'm not here I understand why I'm sure people at The Guardian will think I'm just here slamming The Guardian and to be honest that breaks my heart because ...

EB: Yeah you cared

HF: ... Guardian and you know it was my whole life for my entire adult life it's it's The Guardian is representative of so many other progressive spheres, academia, publishing, exactly the same ...

EB: Do you think something is changing?

HF: Well I think this year is going to be this coming year is going to be very interesting because obviously GIDS the clinic run by the Tavistock um Trust is shutting down and uh no longer will children be funneled there, gender non-conforming whatever that even means children, will not be funneled there there will be various regional hubs, Mermaids is under investigation, I think more and more people are looking at what uh this gender ideology actually means in practice rather than theory rather than the be kind theory what does this actually mean for children and for women and for you know gay people I mean I really do see this idea that gender not that the idea that gender non-conforming is problematic which is what gender ideology is based on as a backlash against both feminism and gay rights and I think there are increasing numbers of gay people who are speaking up against it too.

6/6

EB: We will talk again I'm sure about these issues of which there are many and there are different views as you well know and you've said you want the other views there ...

HF: Yeah.

EB: ... you just want your views as well ...

HF: Right.

EB: ... and the ability to have it ...

HF: Of course.

EB: I didn't mention this and I just want to make sure I go back to it the other concern in your resignation letter wasn't just about this, was about your ability or being allowed to write about anti-Semitism in the labor party uh with a jewish background a jewish identity yeah what again I presume within this statement we've got from The Guardian that is also refuted but what what do you say about that?

HF: Well what happened there was I was given the column at the front of the magazine in I believe 2015 and no one said you can't write about any subject in fact when I started at The Guardian and the magazine was edited by Kath Viner who's not the editor of the paper, that column was done by Julie Burchill and certainly no one would ever dare tell Julie Burchill she's not allowed to write about a certain subject and then Corbyn got in and I wanted to look at his uh his you know this feeling that he had a blind spot as they say when it came comes anti-Semitism and I was told that you know that that column was not for politics, it wasn't for, it wasn't a political space, it should be more softer, more cheery-uppy, which no one had told me when I started, and I thought okay you know I'm a grown-up fine I'll do my job okay carry on so and then the gender ideology started to take off a lot and I thought well this seems a more generalised subject you know writing about women you know what does being a woman mean um and then I was told no I couldn't write about that either um that was too you know punchy it was to something and then I mean we saw what happened I'm sure some of your viewers saw or listeners so what happened when Suzanne Moore wrote a column in um The Guardian feature section writing about her experience of being a woman through her biology it then resulted in 330 staff members write, signing a letter objecting to the pattern of transphobic content in the paper none of which was specified um so it's it's not ...

EB: It stemmed you would say from your experience are being told no about Jeremy Corbyn side of things through into this?

HF: Yeah I feel like there was a through line.

EB: Yeah I mean of course Sir Keir Starmer talked a lot about for instance accepting the findings of the report the uh EHRC report which looked into the Labour Party in this saying it had committed unlawful acts saying we've closed the door on a shameful chapter in our history about anti-Semitism for those who also want to respond so that just finally because you mentioned Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, had her on the programme, I've spoken to her a number of times about her and her response around this particular topic around gender um she's just given uh some one of the Reith Lectures here at the BBC and she's talked about self-censorship she worries to society just broadening this right out which I know interests you is suffering from an epidemic of self-censorship young people growing up afraid to ask questions for fear of asking the wrong questions and she's worried about the death of curiosity what would you say to that?

HF: Well I know that's true you know when I stood up for Suzanne Moore in morning conference after this column came out you know I had various staff members not necessarily young people, people my age and older coming up to me you know whispering or sending me an email saying you know you know I back you I just can't speak up it's just too difficult in the office or it's too difficult with my teenagers at home, of course there is we know this you know it's it's very hard to go against what you're told is the mantra for your political tribe and that is what I think is is happening and the fact is as much as The Guardian or the New York Times or whoever would want to make this argument as gender critical women on the right, gender activists on the left, we know it's not that simple it's not that's a lie you know women are just trying to protect their existing rights.

EB: Hadley thank you very much I'm sure you I hope you feel you were not censored in any way during that conversation [a proper laugh from Hadley] uh you got it out and and gave us a window into perhaps uh what people don't really know about newspapers as well as anything else, good luck with the new post at the Sunday Times, and the book, perhaps we'll also talk about that um and I mentioned I read aloud The Guardian statement and I mentioned we've invited the editor of the Guardian, different to the editor of The Observer, onto the programme Kath Viner Katharine Viner so I do hope she'll take us up on that, we shall see.

I keep thinking about the fact a supposedly well regarded national newspaper stated that Women are NOT allowed to write about Women’s’ issues.

I cannot get my head around this and hope it becomes more widely known.

Women should boycott the Guardian.

Wow, big thanks to Nauticant!
I've also posted my first comment to the bbc.
It was a stunning interview.
Hadley smashed it.

I was able to do that Villagetoraiseachild because the recording was uploaded to youtube and from there you can obtain a full transcript text which you can then tidy up by adding speakers, paragraphs, and punctuation, correcting as you go along.

Wonderful thanks Naut!

Also posted comment to BBC. Fantastic interview, very robust on EB's part but HF stood her ground. Heartening to hear her experience and out the Guardian for it. I gave up my sub some years ago to the Guardian, over this issue, but this is dynamite really. It's shocking that a left wing newspaper has just silenced women writing about these important issues. I suspect it's related to the Trustees and dosh. There's a lot of money invested into these movements and organizations, to the detriment of many women and children.

This interview follows hot on the Reith lecture re Freedom of Speech, so it's good to hear the censorship being broken down by Adichie and Freeman.

Amazing Nauticant thank you!
The interview was awesome.
The whole 'BBC presenters aren't allowed an opinion' thing that Emma kept repeating; why does Gary Lineker get to post his opinions ten times a day on twitter? It seems it's only an issue if it's the wrong opinions.

Ta nauticant