Alex Massie and Transphobia

There was a time when journalism was widely regarded as a respected profession, with journalists striving for accuracy and integrity in their reporting. Unfortunately, this commitment appears to be lacking in The Times journalist Alex Massie. One wonders if his father, Allan Massie (also a journalist), ever imparted these values to him.

Writing in The Times (Dec 10th), Mr Massie Jnr, is more than upset with Sandie Peggie’s Employment Tribunal judgment, hitting out at Judge Kemp, who, unlike Alex Massie, took great care at what he wrote. Now, to be clear, the fact that Peggie lost (in football scores) 43 -4 is quite a drubbing, and for gender-critical people, that really must hurt, in particular after their “landmark” ruling at the Supreme Court in April.

So, where exactly did Alex Massie go wrong?

Firstly, Alex Massie writes as if the gender-critical ideologues represent women when they clearly dont. The gender critical represent those with gender-critical beliefs, like Sandie Peggie, who believe that sex is immutable. Most women, of course, have a far more liberal “live and let live” view of trans people. Indeed, some go further, saying they reject transphobia in all its forms, because gender-critical beliefs are transphobic purely because they deny trans people’s identity.

Who says so? TransLucent’s local council (Portsmouth), for one, which adopted a definition of transphobia in 2024.

Secondly, enter NION, a collective of over 70,000 cisgender women who say “no” to transphobia and gender critical beliefs. We are sure Alex Massie didn’t have a clue who the NION women were, or he wouldn’t have written such a distressing article, or would he?

After all, he does write for The Times, a newspaper dedicated to the right-wing culture war against the trans community, likely the most persecuted community in the UK today. Mr Massie gets paid to promote toxicity – writing this about Dr Beth Upton, who saves the lives of people like Alex Massie. “He wears lipstick, he has long hair, and he has adopted “a pitch and tone of voice consistent with that for a female”, and if that doesn’t make him a woman, what could?

Transphobia stinks – let’s hope Alex Massie’s kids (poor them) tell him.

Alex Massie goes further, suggesting that the law is clear and that the Supreme Court ruled definitively on single-sex spaces, implying that trans women are categorically banned from them. In reality, the Supreme Court ruling only clarified that service providers may, under certain conditions, exclude trans women—but it does not require them to do so. As Massie quotes: “the plain intention of these provisions is to allow for the provision of separate or single-sex services for women which exclude all (biological) men (or vice versa).”

To quote back at Massie Jnr, paragraph 248 of the Supreme Court judgment:

Finally, we have concluded that a biological sex interpretation would not have the
effect of disadvantaging or removing important protection under the EA 2010 from trans
people (whether with or without a GRC).

For Alex Massie and the gender-critical, it must be pretty hard to perceive that trans people have human rights. The right to live in any gender, to the binary or not, as the case may be. Moreover, just like there is a right for people to love whoever they please, trans people can legally change sex. He and other gender critical people may disagree. Still, they need to be careful not to cross the threshold of “objectionable manifestation of beliefs”, a situation we are fast approaching, because for the gender-critical, if they are given an inch, they steal a mile, as clearly demonstrated in regard to what the Supreme Court actually said. 

In a legal and human rights context (particularly under UK law and the European Convention on Human Rights), an “objectionable manifestation of belief” refers to the expression or practice of a protected belief that is done in a way that justifies restricting or penalising it. Given the toxicity directed towards trans people by right-wing media such as The Times, Telegraph, and GB News, a campaign to sanction gender-critical activists and media must soon be on the cards.

While gender critical people have an absolute right to hold a belief, they do not have an absolute right to manifest it if it harms others, infringes on their rights, or creates a hostile environment – and that is what it seems Sandie Peggie did – note Sandie Peggie, but “no one else” at the hospital where Peggie and Dr Beth worked.

“No one else” is important, Peggie and Peggie alone complained about Dr Beth Upton, just as she and not Beth Upton made repulsive jokes about some 1600 people who lost their lives in Pakistan.

So our Christmas recommendation to Alex Massie is to buy a decent book about human rights and another about the Equality Act 2010 – because trans people have human rights, are a protected characteristic under the Equality Act and are better at writing reasonable articles than a so-called “journalist” from The Times who likely got his job thanks to Daddy.