The Guardian asked its readers who their “2021 Person of the Year” was. On social media, many rushed to nominate J. K. Rowling for her courageous contributions to the transgender debate. However, the form was soon “deactivated.” A Guardian spokesperson offered the explanation that “contrary to what you may have read on Twitter, there was no poll, and the Guardian does not run a person of the year feature. Nothing has been cancelled. We regularly invite readers to share their views on issues in the news.”
Maybe so. Still, there’s no denying that transgenderism has become a particularly dicey issue for the liberal paper. In 2018, journalists for The Guardian’s U.S. edition attacked members of the U.K. edition for publishing an editorial that they claimed, “only serves to dehumanize and stigmatize trans people.” In fact, the editorial was cautious and balanced, refusing to take either the trans activist or feminist side. Its authors wrote: “The Guardian rejects the idea that one of these positions is the right one — and the other wrong.” In 2020, the feminist columnist Suzanne Moore announced her resignation from the paper after more than 300 Guardian staff signed a letter accusing her of embarrassing the publication by producing “transphobic content.” Moore had merely stated that sex is biological and “not a feeling.”
Could it be that, when it comes to transgenderism, The Guardian’s staff is more woke than its readers?