Baroness Falkner: Trans activists threatened me and my family

[IwantToRetire]

The former EHRC chairman on facing online abuse, her recovery from cancer and why society must not be afraid of calling out wrongdoing

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/12/baroness-falkner-trans-activists-threatened-me-my-family/

and https://t.co/OLDbQW4ipO

This is a good article and well worth reading.
About the only statement she makes that I would take issue with is this one:

She says her five years at the head of the EHRC convinced her that Britain needs to acknowledge that the rights of some minority groups conflict with each other, whether that be the rights of trans women versus biological women, or the right of Muslims to protest versus the right of Jews to live in peace.

I cannot speak about the Jews vs Muslim situation but I would question her statement about the rights of transwomen vs biological women. What rights have transwomen lost? The bleating about changing rooms and toilets narks me - there are more and more unisex facilities now for both of these. The only 'right' they lost, is the right to cheat and to be pandered to.

...she endured an avalanche of abuse from trans-rights campaigners, overcame a spurious investigation into bullying and harassment, and survived the heartache of a cancer diagnosis.
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And at the worst points, some of the messages she received were so extreme that she became concerned about the safety of not just herself, but her family
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She was forced to vary her daily route to work ...
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But she adds that she could not be “deterred by fear from doing what is right
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While the online attacks were continuing, in February 2023, Falkner was accused by 12 current or former staff members of bullying and harassment,
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By Christmas 2022, it had become very evident that EHRC’s lawyers and some senior people in policy were either wilfully taking the law in a certain direction or unable to explain to the board why all these contradictions were happening that were being contested in the courts,”

Dear God. The EHRC themselves, her colleagues, their lawyers, even fucking former employees!

All trying to stop her upholding women's rights.

Falkner received a “full apology” and eventually the board agreed to pay most of her legal fees.

Fucking big of them.

Five years later, she talks of her contempt of what she describes as the “cowardice” of ministers, some of whom she believes are “entirely captured by the activist misinterpretation of the law” over trans issues. She says they are frightened of the large number of Labour backbench MPs from “activist backgrounds”.
And she believes the rot goes right to the top, to Keir Starmer: “You have a Government led by a lawyer, yet he’s unable to uphold the law in its most visible form, which is statutory guidance produced by a regulator – an independent regulator – of that law.”

These bloody people. They should be prosecuted. It's unforgivable.

Spineless and power crazed. Not even ideologues.

And she said that if activists believed they could intimidate her into submitting to their views, “then I’m afraid they picked on the wrong person”.

There should be a statue to Baroness Falkner.

What a woman.

In some ways there was nothing new in the article.

But I am glad they have given her a voice.

I am sure the Labour Government just wishes she would stay quiet.

As said up thread it isn't just about the issue / clarification about the word sex meaning biology, it is a really frightening example of how a Government institution can be captured.

Who knows what may have gone on in the past.

But it is good that people are reminded that this did happen.

And what is not happening now is effectively a continuation of the attempt to warp the purpose of the institution.

How do trans women's rights conflict with women's rights?

Perhaps the article has misquoted her on that point

I wonder if she is talking about the people who stick their head in the sand and say there aren’t problems, the kind that say “rights aren’t pie”. When actually protected characteristics do conflict in reality. If they think “trans rights” means the right of a trans person to use the loo of their choice, then this conflicts with women’s dignity and safety. When really trans rights just means right to employment, housing, no discrimination for being trans etc. I’m thinking of the employment tribunal where the woman wanted to be called her or was it they? And another woman struggled, because she was autistic and she was discriminated against. They place one protected characteristic over another, because either they can’t conceive of issues or because if women are in one and men are in another, obviously the men take priority.

How do trans women's rights conflict with women's rights?

They don't. The problem is that the men who are transwomen claim to have changed sex & now want to be be seen as women. This is where the conflict arises from a delusion & attempted land grab of female single sex spaces.

My granddaughter has been accused of being a man multiple times. In fact, I saw when she and her best friend went to the ladies' together, only my daughter was told to go to the men's! She may have short hair, so what! She told me her best friend is trans. The person policing the toilet was a man! In fact, there was something unsettling about how he was ogling my granddaughter's friend.

And now I hear from this forum that the friend should go to the men's room?

I never had any problems with trans women in toilets. In fact, I wouldn't have even known, but my granddaughter told me as she knows some from the Uni. I'm not afraid of trans women, but I am afraid of the blokes that police ladies' rooms. I've seen one burst in to accuse someone random that she was a man and dragged her out of the cubicle. By her hair! She had a tampon in her hand and was on period, but the bloke didn't notice the blood.

Luckily my daughter knows self defence. Her best friend who is trans, on the other hand, never seems to get questioned.

Now tell me how mine and my granddaughter's rights are protected because they police toilets in my local pub and tell us that we should fear trans women! I'm too scared to go there on my own, never was before this nonsense started.

Supposing that this did actually happen and you honestly do have any real anxiety - what is your proposed solution?

That women just submit to men in their spaces - this includes strip searches by men performing womanhood, no right to same sex hcps, men sexually assaulting women in women's prisons as case in the papers this week, it's a whole lot bigger than 'toilets' - suffer the consequences of those men's behaviour, and the women who cannot access mixed sex spaces just lose all access to society?

How many women should be scared and about what for you to be happy?

Gosh, what a lot of unfortunate incidents!

I've been challenged in the women's toilets because I am gender-non-conforming, but because women are really quite good at telling men from women, a second glance and a pleasant 'No I'm in the right place' sorted it out immediately.

I've never been dragged out of the ladies by the hair with a bloody tampon in my hand. I have short hair, so they couldn't get a good grip on it anyways😏

I agree with you that it was better before all this trans nonsense started.
Men used the men's toilet, women used the women's toilet.
'The good men stayed out, so the bad men stood out' - any man in a women's toilet was obviously up to no good, why else would he be there?

Now, because of this 'nonsense' as you rightly call it, we have men who claim to be women insisting on using the women's toilets, and turning nasty if challenged and asked to leave.

Some of them make a whole big thing about it, marching on the women's toilet in a group, taking photos or videos of themselves using the women's, leaving graffiti... as if they had some kind of right to use women-only spaces.

The promoters of this nonsense have a lot to answer for, haven't they?

is your granddaughters friend Albert Einstein? Did everybody clap?

It's always been perfectly legal to exclude 'women who look like men' from women-only facilities. It's got nothing to do with trans.

It's a pragmatic solution to the 'genital inspections' problem: and, of course, before the GRA nonsense, any woman affected could always whip out her ID.

Also, the Supreme Court, the High Court, and the EHRC all agree, trans people should not be forced to use the facilities for their own sex.

Oh mate, give it a bloody rest.

Out of a couple, in your head, the woman looks like a bloke because of short hair, but the man gets flirted with because everyone thinks he's a woman. 😆

And then! A woman gets dragged out by her hair holding a bloodied tampon - hahaha!!

Honestly, you clearly don't know a single woman.

She’s amazing. The abuse women get for speaking up is so bad. You even see some ok with that on mn.

I think everybody got rather, let's call it, over excited

I don't believe a single word (or is this a joke?).

Let's pick just one claim apart:
a man drags a woman out of a toilet by the hair while she is holding a bloodied tampon

How did this exactly happen? Women change tampons in locked cubicles and put them in bins in those cubicles usually while still sitting on said toilet in a state of undress.

• How did the man manage to a pull the woman out of a cubicle before she had disposed of her tampon? Amazing timing...
• Was she still undressed?
• How did the man get into that cubicle? That must have taken some time...
• How come nobody interfered since this was clearly assault?

Please elaborate.

No, please don’t.

I second this. There is not enough antibac in the world for that posters keyboard, and the wrist brace is straining…

I was just wondering what the hell any of this nonsense had to do with Baroness Falkner being threatened by trans activists..?

'In fact, I wouldn't have even known, but my granddaughter told me as she knows some from the Uni. I'm not afraid of trans women, but I am afraid of the blokes that police ladies' rooms. I've seen one burst in to accuse someone random that she was a man and dragged her out of the cubicle. By her hair! She had a tampon in her hand and was on period, but the bloke didn't notice the blood.'

Blimey. How traumatising. I hope you and that person dragged out by their hair got mental health support. And I hope that the person referred the incident to the police as that would be an offense surely?

I am glad that the Baroness has continued to speak up about the issues and that she will continue to keep the pressure on to get that guidance through.

A woman gets dragged out by her hair holding a bloodied tampon

Obvious sexual fantasy is obvious.

Geez, the TRAs don't even try to make their stories plausible anymore?
How do you get a good enough grip on short hair to drag them out of a cubicle by it?

And how did the man manage to break in the locked cubicle and drag the woman out and no one noticed.

I think we need an in situ re-enactment of this story.