I Can't Believe It's Not Satire

An endometriosis charity has appointed a 71 year old male as its CEO

Portsmouth-based Endometriosis South Coast has announced the appointment of Steph Richards, a 71-year-old trans-identified male, as its new CEO.

Endometriosis affects roughly 10% of women and girls globally. Tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows in other places, such as the ovaries and fallopian tubes which leads to inflammation and the forming of scar tissue in the pelvic region and very occasionally, elsewhere in the body. The cause of endometriosis is unknown and there is no known way to prevent it. Treatment is aimed at trying to control the symptoms rather than curing the disease.

It is a chronic condition which can cause severe, life-impacting pain, nausea, abdominal bloating, fatigue, and sometimes depression, anxiety, and infertility. Its sufferers need support, advice and representation from organisations with experienced and empathetic staff. It is, therefore, beyond insulting that Endometriosis South Coast (ESC) has appointed a 71-year-old trans-identified male as its new CEO.

Steph (formerly Stephen) Richards is a heterosexual male who has fathered three children and did not begin his ‘transition’ until he was 58 years old. He was a cross-dresser from an early age, however. On his own website, he describes stealing his sister’s clothes and envying her Girlguiding uniform when he was a child. Later in life, he says, he went on shopping sprees with his first wife while ‘dressing femme’. He also details how he and his first wife provided a ‘safe haven’ for other transvestites to indulge their fetish ‘away from their families’ in the flat the couple owned above their business. “Some wanted to be schoolgirls and brides…” . Ugh.

Richards has no medical qualifications or background. He trained as a hairdresser and went on to work in the beauty industry. He and his first wife then ran a retail business. He now describes himself as a journalist and ‘human rights activist’. He founded the website, Steph’s Place UK (now Translucent) “To advocate for and promote the UK’s Transgender, Non-Binary and Gender Diverse community in order to advance visibility, acceptance, legal recognition and healthcare”.

Richards claims to advocate for women rights, but his activism is frequently in direct conflict with them. For example, he campaigns for self-ID legislation, for the accommodating of self-declaring trans-identified males on female hospital wards and for trans-identified males to be included in female sports categories.

In October 2021, Richards organised a protest group when feminist collective, FiLiA, held a conference in Portsmouth. He described as ‘hate’ women gathering together in sisterhood to discuss issues such as femicide, rape and FGM.

(This is the same event at which trans activists displayed placards threatening sexual violence and chalked vile misogynistic graffiti on the pavement.)

Apparently, Richards knows better than the women of FiLiA how to do feminism. He frequently presumes to dictate to women, not only about feminism, but about their own lives, bodies and experiences. Milli Hill is a pregnancy and birth specialist, journalist, author, psychotherapist, founder of The Positive Birth Movement and mother. She is a tireless campaigner for women’s reproductive rights. Richards tried to tell her how she can improve her books on maternity and birth. (Milli refutes that she refused to meet with Richards as he claims. She writes about this comment and Richards’ persistent private messages to her in her excellent article on his recent appointment.)

Richards thinks that Milli Hill, the much-published and vastly experienced pregnancy and birth expert, should listen to a male transvestite on the subject of women’s issues! As Milli says, “Just goes to show that there is unfortunately no way to surgically remove male arrogance and entitlement.”

Richards apparently has no qualms about confronting women on the street so that he can talk at them and he is so annoyed when they don’t want to hear his opinions that he berates them on social media. (Amusingly, it has been reported that the woman he confronted on this occasion was none other than feminist legend, Dr Julia Long!)

According to his LinkedIn profile, Richards has made a career out of speaking for and over women and feels entitled to take their accolades and opportunities. Not only does he speak and write on women’s issues, he took up a role as Women’s Officer in the Portsmouth Labour Party and he has accepted an award intended for women.

Richards believes (or claims to) that human beings can change sex ‘to some degree’ by taking hormones and having surgery. He also claims to have a ‘female brain’ caused by a lack of exposure to testosterone in the womb.

It is unclear how he will advocate for women with endometriosis when he appears to believe that women are merely ‘social constructs’. He seems to think that children are also ‘social constructs’.

Of course, Richards advocates for medicalising gender distressed children. As recently as August 2023, long after the publication of Hannah Barnes’ book, Time to Think, long after the release of The Cass Review, long after the documenting of the harm caused to children by hormone treatment - infertility, reduced growth in height and bone density etc - and long after numerous European countries abandoned their use over concerns they are dangerous and experimental, Richards was shilling for the use of puberty blockers, claiming they are ‘safe and reversible’.

In April this year, months after the unfolding scandal was documented in the press and The Charity Commission opened its statutory inquiry, Richards was still recommending Mermaids. Worse still, he was even advocating use of GenderGP, an offshore private gender clinic of very dubious reputation which has been caught out supplying hormones to minors without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

Yet this is the person Endometriosis South Coast (ESC) has deemed appropriate to be its CEO. Not a woman who actually has experience of the condition or a female clinician, but a trans-identified male who colonises womanhood.

Jodie Hughes is ESC’s founder and its Chair of Trustees. As documented by Nutmeg on X (Twitter), Hughes has a specific interest in transgenderism and lists it as one of her areas of expertise.

In September Hughes attended the 2023 National Diversity Award ceremony having been shortlisted for ‘inspirational role model for gender’ by none other than Steph Richards.

Richards, of course, has dismissed women’s concerns about and criticism of his appointment as ‘transphobia’.

One may ponder why a 71-year-old trans-identified male would accept or even want the role of CEO at a charity which focuses on a female-specific condition. As Milli Hill writes, “There is a specific interest among trans identifying males in women’s biological functions - menstruation, lactation, pregnancy etc - which can be a sexual fetish… Even if the trans woman concerned does not have any such sexual fetishes, it is still extremely likely that being involved in a women’s health group will serve to validate their desire to be seen as a woman. But women’s health groups do not exist to validate men’s desires”.

Perhaps it just goes to show that there is absolutely nothing women have, not even a severe, debilitating and incurable disease, which men will not appropriate.