Dear Phoebe,
I read your Observer piece this morning on the reported “exodus” from Girlguiding - and I was genuinely shocked.
Not because you presented a different perspective to my recent Telegraph reporting on the problems within Girlguiding. That’s part of journalism.
But because you chose to include the case of a six-year-old little boy who reportedly tried to cut off his own penis - after being told he couldn't be part of Rainbows (the section of Girlguiding for 5–7 year olds). Presenting it as evidence of a problem with Girlguiding’s admissions policy.
It is not.
It is a deeply distressing account involving a very young child - and, on any view, a serious welfare concern. Framing it otherwise is a profound failure of editorial judgement.
You also refer to this male child throughout using female pronouns, including the phrase “her penis”.
I appreciate this may reflect current editorial conventions. But it sits uneasily with the basic duty of a journalist to report clearly and accurately on material facts.
I was already aware of this case through my own reporting for the Sunday Telegraph. I made a conscious decision not to include it at this stage - both because a minor is involved and because of the ethical considerations that arise when reporting on such sensitive situations.
Those considerations are not optional.
You will know, as I do, that journalism is not simply about presenting competing narratives. It is about establishing facts clearly, handling vulnerable subjects with care and exercising judgement about what should - and should not - be used to advance an argument.
I trained as a journalist in the early 2000s - a good 20 years earlier than you did - but to my knowledge nothing has changed.
Good journalism should bring clarity. It should not muddy the facts - in order to promote an ideological position.
In this context, that means being clear about sex - a material fact that is both legally and practically relevant.
I appreciate you may be under pressure from colleagues or editors to frame stories in a particular way - or to use she/her pronouns, or the phrase “her penis”.
But that doesn’t make it right.
Earlier this week, the Manchester Evening News reported a violent murder as being committed by a woman - one of many examples of inaccurate reporting around sex and gender.
In this case, even the Crown Prosecution Service - the public body responsible for prosecuting criminal cases in England and Wales - also reported the crime inaccurately.
So that’s two professions we should be able to trust to tell the truth - providing inaccurate information.
Crime statistics matter. Without accurate data on who is committing serious violence, we cannot properly understand it - let alone prevent it.
I considered raising this privately, or writing to your editor. But this issue is too important to be brushed aside with a “thank you for your feedback”.
I’m happy to discuss it with you privately, or to support a conversation with your editor if that would be helpful. But I hope this gives you - and your colleagues - serious pause for thought.
Because it is very much needed.
Janet
In-house water disaster... only the Strike books were affected - all of them! And a whimpy English spring is no time to try to dry them. Ok Ellacott, what do we do now? @jk_rowling@CormStrikeFan
As Australian politicians emerge from the rock under which they live to celebrate“International Women’s Day” remember that in 🇦🇺 women have no right to women only spaces, men can be lesbians, male r*pists are in women’s prisons & men are breastfeeding babies in broad daylight
🖕
@salltweets So male dignity trumps women's rights? There you go. 2026 and women still have to fight for their rights. The HRC should be renamed the Men's Rights Commission
@thenamesMEmM@FFS_WhatNow@jk_rowling@CormStrikeFan Yes, mostly excellent except that he makes Strike sound like a country yokel Strike has lived all over with long periods in London. The West country accent isn't right
A young detransitioner, Fox Varian, has won $2 million damages in a medical malpractice lawsuit, in which she sued the psychologist and surgeon who approved her for a double mastectomy, aged 16. Varian's mother testified that she'd been against the surgery, but was pressured into agreeing because she'd been told that unless her daughter transitioned she was likely to commit suicide.
As the floodgates open, and more and more detransitioners sue the clinicians who subjected them to an unregulated medical experiment, gender identity activists will almost certainly continue to ignore any evidence that fails to support their preferred narrative. They'll keep insisting that hardly any transitioned people regret their irreversible procedures, that gender clinicians know exactly what they're doing, that surgeries, cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers are of proven benefit and that minors who're denied these treatments will to kill themselves. All of this is a lie.
Speaking at the WPATH conference in 2021, British endocrinology consultant Leighton Seal admitted 'we are doing procedures here where we don’t have outcome data.' A woman from Utah said she felt gender clinicians like her were making it up as they went along: 'Because I feel like we’re all just winging it, you know? And which is okay, you’re winging it too. But maybe we can just, like, wing it together.' (https://t.co/dW4xXKUzOY)
This will go down in history as one of the worst medical scandals of all time. Adults inside and outside the medical profession sold troubled young people like Varian the idea that all of their complex trauma would be resolved by removing healthy body parts.
As more and more detransitioners arrive in court, the public will learn the full extent of the harm done to kids in the name of an ideology. Clinicians performing these 'treatments' will go down in history as barbarous activists who betrayed a sacred oath: to do no harm. But we should never forget how many people outside the medical profession urged these young people on, gleefully assuring them that anyone advising caution was an evil bigot. There are people in elitist professions like publishing and academia, not to mention politicians and celebrities with young fan bases, who did all they could to champion the idea of gender identity, and kept pushing it even as the evidence of harm mounted. They're just as culpable as the clinicians. Too lazy to think more deeply than the fashionable mantras that got them social media likes, too arrogant to look at evidence from anyone outside their political bubble, they've slurred whistleblowers and attacked anyone with valid questions. In doing so, they've created a cultural climate without which this appalling tragedy could not have taken place.
Never forget, because only by learning the lesson can we stop this happening again.
https://t.co/6Z9rV8wI00