Nutmeg's Week: Martine Croxall, Tish Hyman, Helen Belcher

This facial expression ‘broke BBC rules’

Every week we check in on the BBC, and every week trans activism drags it further into chaos.

We may now have reached a turning point, though.

This week, a former member of the BBC’s own standards committee released a 19-page dossier to The Telegraph and government departments. Fed up with being ignored by senior staff, they documented fake news and systemic bias at the corporation. The most damning example: the doctoring of a Donald Trump speech one week before the election, editing it to suggest he was calling for violence when he’d said something entirely different.

The Telegraph began drip-feeding stories from the dossier, exposing misinformation at the BBC and the corporation’s own awareness of its shoddy reporting. Trans coverage featured prominently. The dossier reveals that trans stories are handled exclusively by the BBC’s LGBTQ desk—which refuses to cover “difficult questions about the trans debate”

The BBC’s bias has countless examples. Here’s one that resurfaced this week. When Megha Mohan, the BBC’s ‘global gender and identity correspondent’, started at the corporation, she lied outrageously about the number of intersex people in the world. The BBC quietly corrected her but apparently never disciplined her. She then wrote to colleagues, instructing them not to platform left-wing women who don’t believe men are women.

At the time of writing, the BBC hasn’t given any detailed response to the contents of the dossier. However, just hours after the story broke, it did respond to a complaint about presenter Martine Croxall (pictured above). She read out the term “pregnant people” live on air and added the word “women”, which wasn’t on her autocue. For context, Croxall was quoting a doctor who hadn’t used the phrase; it was in a press release and someone at the BBC had copied and pasted it into Croxall’s script.

Despite this, the BBC upheld the complaint and spoke to Croxall about editorial standards. It added that because she momentarily paused after saying “pregnant people”, and opened her eyes slightly and said “women”, her face had therefore expressed a ‘controversial view about trans people’.

The BBC admitted that adding a contentious phrase, which wrongly implied the doctor had used it, was ‘clumsy’ but not worthy of punishment. The BBC article about this story was then repeatedly edited as people kept noticing errors in it.

If you’re keeping score:

• Doctoring a speech by the US President one week before an election to make it look like he said the opposite to what he actually said: No punishment.

• Lying about the number of intersex people in the world: A correction but no punishment.

• Implying that a doctor used a trans activist term he didn’t say because you want people to believe that men can get pregnant: No punishment.

• Adding the word “women” to the phrase “pregnant people” and opening your eyes slightly at the same time: Complaint upheld and a talking to.

Meanwhile, the BBC’s quiz night on Monday was dominated, as it often is, by cross-dressing men.

Wi Spa 2

The victim is a woman of colour, the villains are all white, the ‘transwoman’ is a sex offender. This is Wi Spa 2.

US singer-songwriter Tish Hyman had her gym membership terminated for complaining about a man using the women’s changing room. The man has since been identified as a violent convicted felon.

Hyman was naked when she first encountered him at Gold’s Gym in Hollywood. Thinking he’d lost his way, she addressed him as ‘sir.’ He swore at her aggressively. When staff said they couldn’t remove him, Hyman—who is a lesbian—confronted him. He told her ‘straight women like dick, and they’re probably looking at me more than you.’ Then he told her to leave if she felt uncomfortable.

Staff asked Hyman to leave the gym. She eventually had her membership revoked for publicly objecting to sharing an intimate space with men. Before she left, she made sure other women knew she was being removed despite being the victim

Hyman is continuing to speak out, despite threats to her career.

Andy Ngo and others have identified the man as Grant Freeman, a convicted domestic abuser and drug trafficker. He now uses the name Alexis—his ex-wife’s name.

‘Alexis’ told TMZ he’s lost his Planet Fitness and Crunch Fitness memberships for being ‘trans’. He insists he’s a woman who possesses ‘self-feminine power.’

Hyman is now pushing lawmakers in every US state to enshrine women’s single-sex spaces in law.

‘Go home, make cakes and get your hair done’

Grassroots women’s groups organised protests across the UK on November 1 to mark 199 days since the Supreme Court ruling affirmed that sex refers to biological sex, not gender identity, in the Equality Act (2010). Events in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff underscored the urgency of obeying the law on the provision of single sex spaces and services.

Thousands of women turned out to urge governments and public bodies to stop dragging their feet about their, now very clear, obligation to protect access to single sex facilities, sports and services. One of the strongest messages of the day concerned women’s prisons and the reminder that men, some of whom are violent offenders and paedophiles, are still being incarcerated with women in ‘special circumstances.’ Other speakers included Eva Comrie, Elaine Miller and Tracy Edwards MBE, who announced that she and Sharron Davies will be pursuing a legal campaign to protect the rights of women and girls in sport due to continued flouting of the law by sporting bodies. As with any ‘terf’ event, iconic images were created.

Predictably, groups of predominantly male ‘counter-protestors’ materialised and attempted to disrupt and drown out women’s voices, particularly in Cardiff. Alan ‘Sarah Jane’ Baker, who is an ever-present figurehead of troon protests despite (or because of) a long and violent criminal history, spoke to Edge of the Matrix at the London protest. He was topless with ACAB (‘All Cops Are Bastards’) scrawled on his chest and, predictably, had no understanding of the law, believing it to be ‘guidance.’ He advised women protesting to ‘go home, make cakes, get their hair done and go and annoy someone else.’ Police were largely praised for their management of the event, although in Cardiff, trans activists were seemingly allowed to overpower women’s speeches, which have now been posted online.

Bash Back strikes again

A ‘transgender protest group’ vandalised the London headquarters of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in the name of ‘total transgender liberation.’ Bash Back is the same group that attacked the venue the night before the female-only conference FiLiA last month. Bash Back targeted the EHRC due to its ‘interim guidance’ after the Supreme Court ruling, which advised that people can and should be excluded from some sports and services on the basis of sex. The criminal damage mostly consisted of pink graffiti and stickers, with some attempts to smash windows. The EHRC released a statement confirming they have reported the attack to the police. Below is Bash Back’s response.

Bash Back is now demanding that the building owner evict the EHRC

Man admits wearing ‘holey’ boxers in women’s changing room

The man who self-identified into the Darlington nurses’ changing room and prompted eight women to take their hospital trust to a tribunal gave evidence this week. He told the tribunal that he had never engaged in ‘exhibitionist’ behaviour in the changing room and that ‘it never occurred to’ him that choosing to use the female changing rooms was a risk to himself or the female nurses because he had the right to do so. He did admit to wearing ‘holey’ boxer shorts which may have exposed his penis while getting changed in the female-only space. He denied staring at colleagues’ breasts.

It was revealed that nurses were pressured to drop concerns about Henderson by management, and several nurses withdrew their complaints for fear of being labelled ‘bigots’. The climate of intimidation may also have been heightened by Henderson’s own behaviour. He was rumoured to have begun to behave in a threatening manner when he learned of the nurses’ objections to his presence. Some nurses reported he had walked around the hospital swinging ‘a 15cm pair of scissors’ in a ‘dangerous and threatening’ manner.

Not only were the nurses’ complaints minimised or ignored, a senior NHS executive who expressed opposition to the ‘politically correct’ changing room policy suddenly announced his retirement a few days later.

The evidence phase of the tribunal is expected to end shortly.

This is what happens when you elect Liberal Democrats

Helen Belcher is a fairly well known trans activist and, these days, he’s a Lib Dem councillor on Wiltshire Council.

Keen to give the people of Wiltshire the services they want, Belcher proposed a council motion supporting ‘LGBTQIA+ people’. Other councillors, perhaps recognising that this motion was a performative waste of time, offered a counter-motion, in which the council would say it supports ‘all people equally’.

While other topics were discussed, the whole council meeting lasted 12 hours. Unfortunately for the Lib Dems, some of their councillors were so tired that they left before the 10-hour mark, when the vote on their own motion took place. This meant that, of the 89 councillors remaining, the ‘all people equally’ motion won by three votes.

And finally

Police have arrested a man for stealing packages from people’s porches in Alabama.

He looked so outrageous and terrifying that they thought he was going to a Halloween party until they found out he’s a ‘transgender woman’ and this is just how he normally looks.

See you next week!