How the Guardian became the Pravda of the trans movement

Butler’s central thesis can be boiled down to the idea that no one can escape power structures, and that the best we can hope for is to subvert (or ‘queer’) our allotted gender roles. Under their burqas, women in Afghanistan can rest assured that all they need to do is to ‘queer’ their gendered performance. In the lengthy interview, Butler complains of an ‘anti-gender ideology movement, a global movement, insist[ing] that sex is biological and real’, as if two billion years of evolutionary fact is just a crackpot theory.

Butlerian theories have been fed to generations of gender-studies students. The ideas are laughable, but their social impact has been significant. Ever wondered where the fad for drag performances and the plethora of new genders have come from? Blame Butler.

The interview with Butler was conducted before the news broke that the ‘trans woman’ who was accused of flashing women and children at Wi Spa had been charged with indecent exposure. Previous Guardian articles had implied, as Gleeson’s question had done, that the whole incident was a hoax dreamt up by right-wingers. It later transpired that the accused, Darren Merager, is a registered sex offender with an extensive criminal history.

Merager’s crimes, and the inconvenient existence of his victims, put the Guardian in a tight spot. In its coverage of the Wi Spa incident, Guardian reporters cast doubt on the initial complainant’s claims. They also tried to draw links between the feminists protesting over women’s spaces with the far right and QAnon conspiracy theorists.

Instead of issuing an apology for its misleading articles, the Guardian chose to amend just one article: the Judith Butler interview. It erased Gleeson’s question on the Wi Spa incident and Butler’s response. Now, at the end of the updated article, the Guardian notes: ‘This article was edited on 7 September 2021 to reflect developments which occurred after the interview took place.’