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WATCH: Nichi Hodgson questions the 'logic' behind trans protesters defacing London statues
Apr 20, 2025
Trans rights activists have been accused of "sheer theatre" after defacing several statues in London on Saturday, during an "emergency demonstration" against the Supreme Court's ruling on biological women.Following a challenge by the For Women Scotland campaign group, the Supreme Court ruled that women are determined by "biological sex", not those who are transgender and simply identify as women.FULL STORY HERE.
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0:00
I have strong feelings on this issue, so I'm going to come to you first on this one
0:03
Obviously, you're a woman as well, if I can say that without offending anyone. Now, in my head, right, explain this to me, right
0:11
Trans activists claim to be women. They want to be women. They are women, right
0:16
OK. So why are they defacing the statue of a feminist icon if they think they're women
0:23
Can you make that make sense for me? Well, I can't, Dawn, and I was about to say that to you. You know how I feel
0:27
You know how I feel because I've spoken quite strongly this week. about the issue of biological sex and in favour of trans women
0:34
but I don't understand the defacing the statue. Now, what I would say is, having been on many a protest in my life
0:40
either reporting or as a campaigner, if people deface things, they don't always tend to be with the main cohort of protesters
0:49
So, now, I understand that we're being told that these are trans activists, but I would like that clarified first
0:53
because it sounds quite like it could just be somebody who's randomly hopped on this to have a go
0:58
Are you seeing someone that was hijacking it? This often happens at protests
1:02
Now, if that's not the case, and it is somebody who is a trans activist, then my question is why
1:07
Because, you know, I mean, Millicent Fawcett has given women the right to vote
1:11
If you're a trans woman, you have the right to vote, and that is tied to Millicent Fawcett's campaigning
1:15
So I don't really understand the logic, unless it's for sheer theatre that it's done
1:21
You know, a bit like the Just Stop Oil Press protesters. It's not winning friends and influencers
1:25
No, it isn't. And it doesn't win it for me, even though I'm in favour of what they're protesting. And we did see some pretty horrific..
1:31
I'm coming to you on credit. I know it's difficult for a man to talk about this. It's not really my argument to have
1:38
No, absolutely. But we did see... I mean, it was a protest and we did see some pretty horrific banners there as well
1:43
And I don't believe all these people were just hijacking it for theatre
1:47
I think they actually mean some of these things. It like you know burn the witches referring to people like J Rowling and sort of like you know the only TERF trans you know feminist basically The only good TERF is a dead TERF with a picture of a noose Now these are really really offensive banners
2:03
And seeing as we are meant to be cracking down on hate speech protesters, we saw it with the Southport riots, remember
2:08
We saw people putting words on social media, jailed for 31 months
2:12
So we saw some pretty hateful banners. So what do you think is going on? Well, I think the problem for the trans movement
2:19
is that so often those that are trans and those with the loudest voices in the community
2:26
are their own worst enemies. And I think what it comes from is that very often
2:32
being transgender comes hand in hand with quite a radical extremism. A lot of them spend a lot of time online
2:44
They whip themselves up into a hysteria. online you can say things like
2:50
burn turfs as the trans exclusionary radical feminist that's their term for people like JK Rowling
2:58
who believe in women's rights and women's only spaces and then they actually leave their homes
3:03
which I think is quite rare for some of them and they encounter the real world hate speech laws
3:08
now I will give the police the sort of initial benefit of the doubt and presume
3:14
that they are going to chase up on these There are clear photographs of a lot of the people's faces who are holding these banners
3:21
I'm a bit less sympathetic on the statue point. I think a lot of the protests were happening around those statues
3:29
And I saw very pro-trans graffiti on the base of the Lloyd George statue in Parliament Square as well
3:37
I suppose, ironically, of course, the Supreme Court ruling would mean that, you know
3:44
counter to what you were saying, trans women were not reliant on the feminist movement to get the vote
3:50
They'd have had the vote from birth as biological men
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