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Hadley Freeman: ‘Atmosphere of fear’ governs Guardian trans coverage

Hadley Freeman - Awakening/Getty Images Europe
Hadley Freeman - Awakening/Getty Images Europe

A former Guardian journalist has accused the newspaper of censoring her views on women’s rights, claiming an “atmosphere of fear” governs its coverage of trans issues.

Hadley Freeman claimed she was barred from interviewing JK Rowling and Martina Navratilova, both of whom have expressed gender-critical views.

Meanwhile, the newspaper ran “glowing profiles of trans activists” such as Munroe Bergdorf, Paris Lees and Freddy McConnell, Freeman said.

She quit The Guardian earlier this year after editors said she could not follow up the The Telegraph’s investigation into Mermaids, a trans charity.

Freeman said she had also learned that a group named All About Trans visited the Guardian and, in her absence, held up some of her writing as examples of transphobia.

“I was told I wasn’t to write about gender, and that actually women shouldn’t write about gender, and suddenly things became very tricky for me,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.

The journalist said she was “specifically told by upper management that I wasn’t allowed to write about gender stuff, and others weren’t either”.

She added: “I know of multiple reporters who asked if they could interview [gender-critical campaigners] Maya Forstater and Allison Bailey … I asked about interviewing JK Rowling and Martina Navratilova, and we were all told ‘no’.”

Maya Forstater - Eddie Mulholland
Maya Forstater - Eddie Mulholland

Freeman said managers told her women should not write about gender “because it gets too much of a kickback on social media [and] it should be done by the male specialist reporters, such as health reporters”.

She added that she had been in “a very happy long-term marriage” with The Guardian for her first 15 years there, but “about seven years ago that particular partner started to become a conspiracy theorist, unrecognisable to me, and it just got to a point where I couldn’t take any more”.

Freeman said: “There did suddenly become this atmosphere of real fear at the paper,” recalling one meeting in which staff discussed a Guardian editorial stating that feminists were entitled to express doubts about gender self-identification.

“I was defending the editorial and various people, whom I considered friends, were being quite personally abusive and saying it was transphobic, like people saying a gay teacher shouldn’t teach children,” she claimed.

“I understand it’s a subject that gets very heated. I’ve tried to be very calm and measured and look at both sides of it. And what you get from the other side, if you’re just trying to defend what is literally the law in this country, is to be told you’re killing children, you’re a bigot – this very violent way of talking.

“I can take that – what I don’t understand is why upper management is scared to deal with that. It’s not just The Guardian. This has happened at a lot of progressive places, this feeling of fear that we can’t stand up against some of the claims that gender activists make.”

A Guardian spokesman said: “The Guardian has always been committed to representing a wide range of views on many topics in our coverage, and there will always be debate on the issues we cover.

“The issues around trans people’s rights and gender critical feminism are complex and can be polarised. As such, The Guardian aims to feature a wide range of reporting and multiple perspectives on this topic.

“All writers work with their editors to decide the topics on which they write. This is a completely standard practice across the media.  That is not censorship, it’s editing.”