Female Newspaper Journalists Deliberately Breaking IPSO Trans Rules: A thread.

[TheClogLady]

Quick background (to be expanded in a subsequent post): Back in 2016 IPSO issued some ‘guidance’ regarding the reporting of stories involving transgender individuals. This guidance, like transgender guidance introduced elsewhere (eg The Equal Treatment Benchbook for the judiciary) was pretty much entirely written by trans activists and implemented without consulting anyone else or thinking through the inevitable consequences (the road to hell really IS paved with good intentions).

The effect of this guidance has been the weirdly Orwellian news stories featuring unforgettable phrases such as ‘her penis’ and words that say she/her/ladyname and pictures that show obviously manly men.

Clearly, loads of journalists and opinion writers have been doing whatever they can to either highlight the absurdity (via the text/picture juxtaposition) or by skilfully avoiding pronouns/using surnames* as much as possible (much like we’ve done here) but it must be a source of constant frustration for those in the profession who went into it with the intention of speaking truth and have instead found themselves carefully wriggling around as close to the truth as it’s possible to get without their publication being hit with a huge fine.

Yesterday, Janice Turner tweeted that her column in today’s Times would refer to Adam-Isla Graham-Bryson using he/him pronouns.

This is a deliberate breach of the transgender guidelines and this must’ve been discussed and preapproved by Janice’s bosses at the Times.

Today, Amanda Platell’s Mail column also uses correct sex pronouns to refer to Adam Graham.

So that’s two obvious and deliberate IPSO breaches published in one day, both by female columnists, Janice Turner in the Times, Amanda Platell in the Mail.

(I also found this Julie Bindell one from a couple of days ago but it’s likely an online only article, and Mail Online aren’t IPSO compulsory compliant)

I doubt very much that two deliberate IPSO breaches on a single day is pure accident, and I like to imagine that there is some sort of tervern female journos whatsapp group where this has been discussed…

… so, who is next? Suzanne Moore at the Telegraph? Hadley Freeman at Sunday Times? Sarah Vine at The Mail? I bet they’ve all protested this Orwellian madness to their bosses many times. Which newspaper editors will be ready and willing to back their female writers?

Thank God I’ve found this board! I’ve been quietly getting angry about this for so long. And I’m learning so much from the threads here.

Judging from the headline, Hadley’s not writing on this subject this week.

Can anyone supply a share token? I’m sure it’s still worth reading!

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-menopause-law-weve-survived-without-one-8gp3w3xtt

Looking at the previous dates, I think Suzanne Moore’s Telegraph column must go out on Tuesdays? Will be watching out for that one!

Welcome to our terfy terven, cackles and continues stirring cauldron

in this new article we’ve got one he, no shes and a whole load of referring to him by the new name of Bryson.

Plus a deadnaming, and a ‘still has a penis’. To prevent ‘Bryson’ from getting too repetitive, the writer skilfully substitutes in ‘The Prisoner’ and ‘The Rapist’

Sadly this sorry tale of attempting to extort 5 grand from BT for the heinous crime of deadnaming on a phone bill, may be online only and thus not an IPSO case:

Well played, Oliver Price:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11688293/Trans-double-rapist-Isla-Bryson-demanded-5-000-BT-getting-letters-dead-name.html

Thank you Oliver Price and Katherine Lawton.

And Daily Mail for leading the way.

Can someone please remind me of the post listing the Daily Mails on positive campaigns?

Not quite relevant to the thread as it's James Esse but a comment on how papers swoon over DQ despite serious crimes

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-strange-reaction-to-the-death-of-a-child-rapist-drag-queen/

Here you go

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-menopause-law-weve-survived-without-one-8gp3w3xtt?shareToken=27f1a09a2e10db6ad52fcc7bbb16f6ac

Nokes had been pushing hard and very visibly for this but, as campaigns go, this one was as tokenistic as the police daubing their cars with rainbow stripes “to boost LGBT confidence” (sure, the policeman inside might be a rapist or a racist, but take confidence in his pretty rainbows, folks!).

She still squeezes a terfy comment in 😆

And more

In any case, to judge by the response to a webchat she did on Mumsnet last summer, women are a lot more interested in understanding why Nokes, who chairs the women and equalities committee, supports self-ID, which contends that a male can be a woman just by saying so. And look how well that ideology is working out. But hey! Look over there! Menopause!

Wonderful!

I'd had mixed feelings about this - Hadley makes the excellent point that sex is a protected characteristic exactly because women have menopause and a host of other sex related life challenges including needing to be protected from predatory and violent men.

My latest review had "peri menopause disorder" added to the review notes. Better care, awareness and appropriate treatment (not everyone can have hrt) via gps and also OC health should be the approach imo.

Two that are not journalists but are in print. One male, one female.

Miriam Cates in the Sunday Express:

www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/1727483/rapist-women-prison-gender-bill-scotland

"This ideological capture was tragically demonstrated last week when Scottish man Adam Graham was convicted of raping two women.
During his trial, he decided that he would prefer to be a woman, and from then on was referred to as “Isla”, with the pronouns “she” and “her” used in court and by journalists reporting on the case.
Upon conviction, Graham was initially remanded in a women’s prison, although the backlash that followed forced Nicola Sturgeon to intervene."
Calum Steele, General Secretary of the Scottish Police Federation :

At last, people see the reality of gender reform — and don’t like it

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e1e9955e-9f52-11ed-b4bb-1b45ac508ab9?shareToken=36f2894ab349421fdc38a3a7ac84407a

"The heresy of questioning aloud whether a simple declaration made a man into a woman was now mainstream. Adam Graham may now be Isla Bryson, but I don’t consider this person a woman and, in the eyes of many, they never will be. A convicted rapist whose testimony at trial was dismissed for the sham that it was is suddenly to be unquestioningly believed when declaring themselves a woman!"

"The madness of incoherent policy positioning has always been there for those of us prepared to look, but it now has nowhere to hide. We are to believe that a 16-year-old is mature enough to make life-changing decisions, while simultaneously accepting that the brain does not fully mature until the age of 25 if you are in the criminal justice system. We are to believe we have a victim-centred criminal justice system while ignoring the trauma inflicted on victims of sex crimes having to refer to their “penis owning” attackers as “she” or “her”. We are to believe that the Scottish Prison Service can keep women prisoners safe when housed with trans women (with penises), yet can’t do the same for penis-owning trans women in the male estate."

All these things that never happen and Men would never do...all giftwrapped in one! single solitary man with a small cock, and bad clothing decisions.

(Never mind that we know he's nowhere near the worst of what's out there)

The men in prison are never going to forgive him for fucking this up for all of them!

Oh dear never mind.

There were two female academics at UCLAN who published alternative guidelines to the IPSO tripe. I'll see if I can find it.

Sadly UCLan bowed to pressure in July 2022 - very disappointing. Perhaps it will be revisited in light of recent developments in Scotland?

pressgazette.co.uk/news/uclan-transphobic-accusation-guidelines/

Probably cant say the reason without the post going poooof but I may skirt around by saying ummm women look like women, men look like men.

Also a lot of people thought it was a real transwoman on TV and that's how they would all look. Having an obvious man wouldn't garner as much sympathy.

Other reasons that really will make my post disappear if the above doesn't.

Not female journalists but journalists (male one here) not censoring the reported fee speech of others who are female:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/29/transgender-rapist-should-not-considered-woman-says-victim/

"The victim told the Sunday Mail that her first thought about hearing of her attacker's transfer to Cornton Vale was: "What about the ladies in there?"
Her mother, who refused to refer to Bryson using female pronouns, said her daughter thought it "impossible" the 31-year-old was transgender and added: "She can't believe it's the same person."
The mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said she had "every support" for transgender people but said: "He's very manipulative and everybody falls for it. It's an easy way out. I don't believe a word he says.""

And

"A former girlfriend and mother of one of his three children accused Nicola Sturgeon and Scotland's justice system of allowing themselves to be "manipulated by a liar".
The woman, who disclosed that Bryson is the father of her five-year-old child, told the Scottish Mail on Sunday: "I think it was shocking to put Bryson in a women's prison in the first place.
"The man I know as Adam is manipulative when it comes to women and a very real danger to anyone in a vulnerable state, which many female prisoners are in there.
"It could have had terrible consequences. It's a pity it was only after public pressure that Nicola Sturgeon saw sense. Adam needs to be in a male prison, whatever he says he is."
She said she was one of the first people her former partner told "when he decided to transition to a woman and I definitely think it was driven by the fact that he was facing two rape charges as a man".
They had a "healthy sex life" when they were together, she said, and "he never once said he wanted to be a woman." She added: "It's just one big con.""

it is SO good to see that journalists/editors aren’t censoring the women they interview via mealymouthed (or whatever the written form of mealymouthed is!) tactics such as replacing all the ‘he’s’ with [ she ].

Carole Malone also deliberately used correct sex pronouns and birth name in her Express column on Saturday - I tend to forget about the Express related so only noticed after seeing her reading trans prison population facts on GB News yesterday and doing a Google.

www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/1727326/nicola-sturgeon-isla-bryson-womens-rights-ukraine-boris-johnson-met-police-migrant-crisis

I’m now wondering if the newspaper big bosses and their in-house lawyers have some sort of legal strategy in mind that fully utilises the rights of the columnists themselves to hold gender critical beliefs? The news stories are now largely avoiding pronouns (unless printing direct quotes from women who knew Adam George) but the columnists are outright stating that they will not use she/her pronouns as a point of principle.

Presumably they intend to defend against IPSO’s Transgender Guidelines using the Maya Forstater ruling?

I’ve now found a full list of all the local titles under the bigger corps listed at the beginning of the thread.
Too big to copy and past!

www.ipso.co.uk/complain/who-ipso-regulates/

(topical new user name, after being reminded of the acronym SOGI in this fantastic bit of writing!)

Here’s the Carole Malone clip that sent me looking for her column.

I vaguely remember this.
UCLAN should really get that work out of mothballs and apologise to the authors, I suspect it’s going to become very relevant before 2023 is out!

Just a wee bump on this as Janice Turner has commented in her column: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/85ce49c2-a26d-11ed-be83-0b182bac2124?shareToken=14593e8db2f6429a826d74e6c18cd5faa_

In fact, there’s no legal obligation for journalists to call a rapist “she”. The press regulator Ipso offers voluntary guidance. Clause 1 says: “The press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information”. Surely it would be more misleading to pretend Graham was female?

That’s a brilliant article. Spot on. Hadley is a great writer.

Fantastic! Well done Janice!

I wonder if anyone has reported all these breaches or if Trans Media Watch/Trans Actual/ All About Trans are holding their tongues and sitting on their hands because if they push the issue too far, it’ll likely rebound negatively on them?

I suspect that people or organisations who might have complained of ‘misgendering’ have given this case a wide berth. Not a person whose actions bear the weight of scrutiny for TRAs.
And IPSO provides a code rather than statutory guidance

Even the BBC the other day was referring to Bryson as “this person” and carefully avoiding pronouns.