Mick Hartley

Journalist Hadley Freeman – recently outspoken on the baleful influence of gender ideology – is leaving the Guardian, and will be joining the Sunday Times:

Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner said: “We are sorry to see Hadley Freeman leave.

“She is a wonderful writer and has been a fantastic Guardian colleague for many years. We wish her all the best.” …

In recent years Freeman has argued against trans women sharing women’s single-sex spaces and criticised the NHS service that deals with child gender identity issues.

Tensions between Guardian journalists holding different views on trans issues have repeatedly spilled into public view.

In 2020, 338 members of The Guardian staff signed a letter to editor Viner criticising the paper’s “repeated decision to publish anti-trans views,” which they said had “cemented our reputation as a publication hostile to trans rights and trans employees”.

The latest Private Eye reports on Freeman's "scathing farewell letter" to Viner, where she writes that "you and I have known for some time that I no longer fit at the Guardian."

"The Guardian used to embrace complicated issues, nuance, controversy, debates between writers, alternative views. […] This is the opposite of what has happened about the gender issue." But Viner has been determined to keep any "gender critical" articles – from Freeman or from anyone else – out of the paper. "I have repeatedly suggested to multiple section editors", writes Freeman, that they commission an investigation into the trans children's charity Mermaids. "But to no avail, either because of the editors' ideological beliefs or – more likely – their fear of the reaction in the office."

Mermaids is now being investigated by the Charity Commission. "It is astonishing to me, " Freeman continues, "that the progressive media has handed such an own goal to the right, closing its eyes to concerns about safeguarding out of fear that to do otherwise would lead to accusations of bigotry. You have said that both sides of the debate are equally passionate – but only one side demands censorship. It seems to me that at the Guardian that side has won."

She concludes that "the paper has become internally dysfunctional, with writers and editors alike all terrified of saying the Wrong Take. I saw this coming in the Corbyn era when I was repeatedly warned off writing about Labour from my perspective as a Jew. Then I was told not to write about gender from my perspective as a woman. When I asked what part of my identity would be acceptable to turn into copy, it was suggested that I write about my children."

Ha. Feminism, Guardian-style.

Freeman follows Suzanne Moore, forced out of the Guardian in 2020 for the same thought crime: gender critical views.

You can see the full Eye report here.