Mick Hartley

Janet Murray at Spiked on exposing a Girlguiding trans activist, and the reluctance of the media to cover the issue.

Over the weekend, the Mail on Sunday published my investigation into trans activism inside Girlguiding, which raised some uncomfortable safeguarding questions. Specifically, why an individual, who had publicly posted highly sexualised content online, was accepted as a Girlguiding volunteer and later appointed to a 16-member steering committee tasked with advising the organisation on its future. This publicly available material included photographs of the individual engaging in provocative burlesque-style performances while wearing fetish-inspired clothing, as well as a video in which they appeared to simulate sexual acts.

The story has generated considerable attention on social media. But it hasn’t, as you might reasonably expect, been picked up by other national media outlets. To my knowledge, it hasn’t prompted radio phone-ins about safeguarding standards in youth organisations. There have been no outraged newspaper columns demanding answers. No politicians calling for inquiries. I don’t imagine ITV’s Loose Women or BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour will be discussing this story. I was invited on to GB News yesterday evening to discuss the story, but that was about it.

So why is the mainstream media largely ignoring a story that, in almost any other circumstances, would be regarded as an obvious matter of public interest? Because the volunteer in question was a man who identifies as a woman. And too many people in positions of influence now appear more concerned about being labelled ‘transphobic’ than about ensuring that girls and women are properly safeguarded.

As JK Rowling put it on X on Monday: ‘If an actual woman had behaved like this while in a position of authority over underage girls it would have been front page news on every paper. Men like this revel in the fact that people of influence are more frightened of looking illiberal than of endangering schoolgirls.’

She is right. As many have pointed out, had this been a story about a female teacher with an OnlyFans page, there would have been widespread media coverage…

The greatest threat posed by gender ideology to journalism is not that it encourages journalists to write things they know to be false. It is that it teaches them that some truths are simply too dangerous to tell. When journalists become more afraid of being called transphobic than of failing to ask legitimate safeguarding questions about organisations entrusted with our children, journalism itself has a problem. And so do the children those organisations exist to protect.

There’s a long history of Girlguiding pandering to trans activists. See here or here for example. As an organisation dedicated to girls it’s an obvious target for predatory men, yet somehow the idiots who run Girlguiding are blinded to their clear responsibilty to these girls by their obsession with inclusivity. In effect, being nice to men is more important to them than the protection of their vulnerable charges.