When the Berlin wall fell there were cameras to catch it — the moment signalling the end of a regime has been forever captured in our collective memory. But the fall of Stonewall, and the loosening grip of trans ideology on British institutions, has happened brick-by-brick over several years. When you’re living through history it’s hard to spot, but this week an article was published by the BBC that marks a significant cultural shift.

Earlier this month the release of the BBC’s Nolan Report, a podcast investigation into the influence of Stonewall, took a wrecking-ball to the last of the charity’s credibility. Supporters were left covering their ideological nudity with flimsy accusations of bigotry and claims of “institutional transphobia” directed at the BBC.

Unlike in the US, in the UK the mainstream media have been forced to recognise that there is a debate around the push to abolish sex-based rights, and balance has crept into some reporting. As such, the publication this week of a story about the sexual pressure on lesbians to accept males if they identify as women isn’t particularly unusual in itself. But what is notable is that it was the BBC who ran the story.

The story has been swiftly dismissed and derided

Written by Caroline Lowbridge for BBC News, the article gives voice to lesbians who have been shamed for their sexual orientation by transgender activists and men describing themselves as “lesbian transwomen”. One recalled being pressured to have penetrative sex after she’d been drinking; Lowbridge reports the interviewee “does not think she could have given proper consent”. In essence, this is a case of a man raping a lesbian woman. 

In any other situation the stories of those interviewed by Lowbridge would recognised as describing emotional and sexual abuse. But because those accused of wrongdoing identify as transgender, the story has been swiftly dismissed and derided by the dinner party bores of the Guardian set. 

Journalist Ash Sarkar said:

“Nobody should be pressured into sex with anybody, for any reason. I wouldn’t want someone to feel they had to have sex with me out of social pressure, but it’d be fair to ask whether racism plays a part in announcing every 5 minutes that they’d never sleep with a woman of colour!”

The article itself includes quotes from a statement released by Stonewall chief executive Nancy Kelley, in which she says:

“If you find that when dating, you are writing off entire groups of people, like people of colour, fat people, disabled people or trans people, then it’s worth considering how societal prejudices may have shaped your attractions.”

This is more explicit than previous statements. In the past Kelley has claimed that those who recognise the importance of biological sex are as morally reprehensible as those who hate Jewish people. It seems Kelley also believes homosexuality is akin to racism. Given this, one wonders on what basis Stonewall can claim to advocate for homosexuals?

Transgenderism has created many inconvenient victims: the young detransitioners left infertile at the hands of doctors blinded by ideology, the transwidows who are forced to reshape their lives around their partner’s fantasy and those pushed out of jobs and polite society for daring to voice their opinion that sex matters. But such victims are only to be believed by the Twitterati if they fit the fashionable narrative.

Lowbridge’s article referenced the work of the lesbian collective Get the L Out who have conducted research into the impact of transgenderism on lesbians. A grassroots group with none of the funding or establishment backing of Stonewall, they published a report called “Lesbians at Ground Zero”, which documented the experiences of 80 women. The small sample size has been used to discredit the article, though Angela Wild who authored the report has been transparent about the methodology, which comprised a detailed survey with 30 questions.

Journalist Owen Jones complained:

“Most people would recognise that if the BBC ran a story about gay people trying to force themselves on straight people, featuring a Twitter poll of 80 people conducted by a homophobic organisation, that would be homophobia. Some of those same people will see no problem with this.”

Stonewall only found 51 respondents

It’s telling that Owen Jones had no such ethical qualms about repeating the myth that “48 per cent of transgender youth are reported to have attempted suicide at some point in the past”, a figure based on a self-selecting sample of 27 people. Similarly, Owen and his acolytes saw no problem with Stonewall’s research into “Gender Identity Conversion Therapy”. The report informed the government’s announcement that conversion therapy would be banned, despite the fact that for all their funding, Stonewall only found 51 respondents who had undergone the practice.

The BBC has long been at the forefront of the fight to abolish mention of sex — reporting crimes committed by males as by “women” where they identify as such, and championing everything from “drag kids” to the idea that there are over 100 genders. The backlash they are now facing is in part of their own making: after years churning out regurgitated Stonewall media releases, is it any surprise audiences are shocked when confronted with a different perspective?

For a time, the BBC forgot that their first duty is not to Stonewall and nor is it to the 417 members of staff at the corporation who identify as trans. Caroline Lowbridge’s article is a small step back toward what the BBC should’ve been doing all along; serving the public by reporting the truth.