Nutmeg's week: Joanna Scanlan, Robin Ince, Bridget Phillipson

This man is a school teacher

John Naples Campbell is a drag queen called Miss Lossie Mouth. He was also the deputy head of a school, where he reported a pupil's mother, a psychologist, to her regulator, because she shared ‘gender critical tweets’. The posts contained shocking statements such as “normalising sexualised behaviour around children is grooming” and “you cannot be born in the wrong body”. At the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service hearing, he gave evid­ence from behind a screen. Fortunately, the case against her (Dr Anne Woodhouse) was dismissed.

Despite this being a high profile news story about a drag queen and BBC News having a drag queen section for stories, it still wasn’t reported anywhere on the BBC. Let’s look at what did make the cut this week though...

The BBC’s downfall drags on

An ‘adult pantomime’ is to take place in Dorking next year, and one of the people performing in it will be a drag queen. That is the whole story. This wasn’t just a BBC News article, the drag queen was profiled by and interviewed for BBC Radio as well. Note that his interviewer was trans activist Kathy Caton - you may remember her as the BBC journalist who deleted her X account after Stephen Ireland was jailed for child rape earlier this year. This was because several people asked her why she’d helped give him a platform on the BBC to spread his messaging about Pride.

Here’s episode one of Julie Bindel’s new podcast about the scandal.

PRIDE AND PREDATOR EPISODE ONE

Sticking with drag queens, this was one day on BBC One this week.

The weekday morning magazine programme, Morning Live, was presented by a drag queen.

That was followed by a celebrity edition of quiz show The Finish Line, in which one of the contestants was … a drag queen.

That contestant, Tia Kofi, won and the BBC donated £5,000 - nearly 30 people’s annual licence fee - to his ‘charity’, Rainbow Migrants. That’s an organisation that tries to help cross-dressing men in foreign countries come and live in the UK.

And that was followed by the final of Celebrity MasterChef.

You may also recall that a couple of weeks ago, the BBC ran, and then swiftly deleted, an advert for a drag show in Somerset, following a news story about the poster promoting it being vandalised. It does seem that the BBC allows some advertising, provided the product promotes gender ideology. This week, the BBC provided a free advertisement for a theatre that's recruiting for ‘cis, trans, nb or gender fluid performers or writers’ to help ‘end violence against cis and trans women, those who hold fluid identities, nonbinary people, girls and the planet’.

This is part of the BBC’s Writers’ Opportunities section, in which organisations that have nothing to do with the BBC are allowed to advertise for free for certain roles, including writing and acting. The section is tiny and is dominated by identity politics roles, including even an advert in which ‘women’ are spelt ‘womxn’.

Other stories that made it onto BBC News this week included:

• A LGBT bakery in Manchester is celebrating its 13th anniversary.

• A ‘trans-inclusive’ rugby club in Brighton is celebrating its 10th anniversary

• A transvestite says he experienced corporal punishment when he went to school in China.

• Giving ketamine to cross-dressing men will help them ‘see themselves more positively’ says someone.

There was also a massacre of Jews in Australia, so BBC Radio 4 had an academic and Guardian contributor on to respond - by saying ‘trans people have their stories’ that need to be heard as well.

BBC Sport presenters Mark Chapman and Gabby Logan fawned over a cross-dressing cyclist.

While actress Joanna Scanlan, fresh from appearing in ‘feminist BBC drama’ Riot Women, in which one of the ‘women’ was a cross-dressing man, was asked by the BBC what her highlight of 2025 was. She said it was listening to a transvestite talk about 'kindness ... as things are not as binary as they seem’.

Hedwig and the Angry Ince

Perhaps some of these presenters, journalists and actors are hoping to fill what is now a vacancy for chief trans advocate at the BBC, after Robin Ince revealed he has quit the corporation.

Ince was a relatively unknown comedian who built up a degree of fame first by befriending Ricky Gervais and then supporting him on two of his comedy tours. Gervais made some videos featuring Ince, typically in which the joke was that Ince was childishly annoying to him. He also gave Ince a brief role in The Office. Then, in 2009, the BBC launched a science and comedy programme, The Infinite Monkey Cage, presented by Brian Cox, in which Ince (who has since quit comedy) was brought in as the ‘comedy’ presenter.

In recent years, Ince has become an advocate of transgender ideology. He has made videos about pronouns and promoted the idea of men in women’s spaces.

This week, he revealed he has quit the BBC because he was told that he was saying that men can become women too much.

It then emerged that Gia Milanovich, who is beloved of Brian Cox, had a few days earlier posted:

…suggesting that Ince might not be especially popular as a colleague. Notice who responded positively (in recent years, Ince accused Gervais of ‘bullying’ him, and said they fell out over Gervais’ views on the trans issue). (Ed’s note: Gervais believes that there are two sexes; Ince believes there are eighty-seven, or none, or a few, because… intersex, anyway, it’s complicated.)

Others in the entertainment industry suggested that Ince’s version of events surrounding his departure might not be completely true. One anonymous BBC insider said he was actually ‘axed’ as he was ‘horrible’ to work with. The BBC then released a brief statement saying he “made the decision to leave”, but added: “All BBC freelancers are required to respect civility in public discourse and not to bring the BBC into disrepute”.

What is worse? A gay man betraying gay people or a woman betraying women?

The Worst

Despite admitting that children cannot consent to his puberty blocker trial, and stating that the trial makes him “deeply uncomfortable”, health secretary Wes Streeting has rejected calls to put a halt to it. This will see well over 100 boys and girls given hormone-suppressing drugs that will arrest their puberty.

Not to be outdone, women and equalities secretary Bridget Phillipson has said she is ‘blocking EHRC guidance’ on single sex spaces. She’s given a statement to the High Court describing the guidance as ‘trans-exclusive’.

In 2024 a former prisoner at the women's prison in Chowchilla, California was charged with raping fellow female inmates: Bridget Phillipson is fighting with every ounce of her strength for men like this.

‘Transphobic' video ends magistrate's career

A magistrate who shared a video about single sex provision in a parish council WhatsApp group, after councillors requested information on it, has been reprimanded for misconduct.

One councillor considered the video to be ‘transphobic’ and complained. The investigation found that Jane Taylor was guilty of serious misconduct because she associated herself with views expressed in the clip ‘which may be considered transphobic and could cast doubt on her integrity and impartiality.’ Taylor says the accusations against her are ‘politically motivated and intended to suppress debate’.

Why is this allowed?

An LGBT shop has opened in York in which the front window is covered in sexually explicit messaging.

One child repeatedly asked her mother what was meant by ‘hot gay men come inside me’ after they walked past it. The owner of the shop says parents who don’t like it are bigots.

And finally

Jonathan Yaniv, who now calls himself ‘Jessica Serenity Simpson’, has been barred from contacting a Canadian police service due to what they describe as a ‘disruptive volume of contacts.’

Yaniv had been pursuing charges against a member of the public for criminal harassment and continued to call Calgary police, which is not even his local service, multiple times a day, even after they had finished their investigation. The letter sent to Yaniv informed him that police staff have been advised to terminate all calls from him due to their ‘vexatious’ nature. They recommend he seeks ‘counselling or therapy’ and that he may face criminal charges if his behaviour continues.

Yaniv is the man who once took legal action against 15 beauty salons for refusing to pretend he was a woman and wax his male genitalia, Brazilian-style. He has also been barred from calling his local fire department for ‘lift assistance’ due to ‘inappropriate and lewd’ behaviour towards staff who attended to extract him from his bathtub on multiple occasions.

Alongside relentless lawsuits and an ongoing eviction saga, Yaniv still finds time to flood the internet with AI-generated music under the name Serenity Rose. One of his latest tracks is called ‘Poop Don’t Lie’. It takes place in a courtroom and includes what appear to be self-referential lyrics such as, ‘They call me vexatious, a fraud, a fluke. But … even God can’t outrun the poop!’

Merry Christmas everyone!