Author: Steph

Avatar photo

Steph Richards (she/her) is a 74-year-old human rights activist, intersectional feminist, and recipient of a 2023 Inspirational Women of Portsmouth Award. Holding a Gender Recognition Certificate and "post op", she is the founder and Chair of Translucent.Org.UK, which was named LGBT Organisation of the Year at the 2022 National Diversity Awards. Steph was also shortlisted as a Positive Role Model for Gender at the 2025 National Diversity Awards. Steph’s leadership spans political, healthcare, and community advocacy. She served as the Women’s and LGBT Officer for the Portsmouth Labour Party (2021–2024), co-founded the Women’s Action Network (Portsmouth), and is a former CEO of a women’s health charity. A passionate champion for women's healthcare, she possesses extensive expertise in baby loss awareness, actively defends UK abortion rights and is a member of "Women Against the Far-Right". Calling out VAWG, Steph has researched and written about 125 women and girls killed by a man. A prominent voice in national media and debate, Steph has been featured live on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, Anti Social, Good Morning Britain, Times Radio, LBC, GB News, and Channel 4 News. In 2023, she debated trans human rights alongside Harvard biologist Dr. Carole Hooven at a prominent US university event.

Poster on pole saying Every Human Has Rights

Jessica North is the Politics Reporter at the Scottish Daily Express (SDE). Her bio at the Scottish Daily Express reads: Jessica is a Scottish Daily Express Politics Reporter. “Starting out her career as a TV journalist, she moved to print and started writing for the Daily Record where she eventually landed with the politics team at the Express. London born but having grown up in the HighlandBased in Glasgow and Holyrood she graduated from Napier University. She has a special interest in shining a light on culture wars”. If you think that bio doesn’t read great – it’s probably down…

Read More
Graphic of Male/Female spaces

Feminism and the gender war. “I talk to Tories, so you don’t have to” was a strapline from a left-leaning former City Councillor I know. Just the same, I talk to some gender-critical (GC) folks, and to my surprise, most of those I have spoken to on a one-to-one basis are decent people. Sure, I have found the odd abhorrent “transphobe”, but they are few and far between. I appreciate that many GC women have been in horrific relationships with men and have often been sexually assaulted or raped. These experiences impact women’s lives forever, and it is reasonable that…

Read More
Photo of people jogging at dawn

Dear Sharron, Mara, Emily and Jon So, they think it’s all over – well, it is now the Commonwealth Games have finished, and I guess you (and others like you) are proud because you helped #SaveWomensSport. People from over seventy nations ran, jumped, threw, swam, punched, flicked, bowled, dived, cycled, fought, kicked, hurdled, batted, and pole vaulted to gold, silver, and bronze medals in some 280 events. And for sure, some are on the way home happy, hurt, or sad. But one person who isn’t going home sad is Emily Bridges – because you (and others like you) campaign…

Read More
Focusing on more important issues

  Gender-critical people and trans people rarely agree – but both “sides” are relieved that Tavi is closing. The crux, though, is not Tavi; it’s puberty blockers. Gender-critical people invariably don’t want them used. Trans people want them used much earlier – to be precise, at Tanner Stage Two. Whatever the rights or wrongs of this debate – I would like to moot a sobering thought. For every child prescribed puberty blockers via the Tavistock – two babies pass away suffering from SIDS. If you are unaware of what SIDS stands for, it’s Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. And with better SIDS…

Read More
CaroleHooven-Testosterone - Book Front Cover

All trans women like me know that “T” (testosterone) is the enemy. We all should know our enemies, and trans women have more than most. Some wish to completely eradicate us from this earth, such as one Republican politician, Robert Foster, who tweeted that a firing squad should execute all transgender people. Others, over thirty thousand worldwide, wish to eradicate trans women, supporting a document known as the “Women’s Declaration”. In short, these people don’t want a trans woman like me visible because I give the name ‘woman’ a bad reputation – allegedly taking away “sex-based rights”. Um. For all its…

Read More