July 21 2026 - 7:00am
What do gender-critical feminists believe? This should not be a difficult question. Those given the designation have explained their views in multiple books, articles and speeches. While they may not agree on everything, their core beliefs can be found in Jenny Lindsay’s Hounded:“1) Women are materially definable as a class of human being. […] 2) Women (as adult human females) are culturally, legislatively and politically important, with their own sets of needs, rights and concerns […] 3) Where social, cultural or legislative trends are underway […] then women have a right to meet and discuss that which affects their lives profoundly.”
If you are against gender-critical feminism, those are the beliefs you oppose. Ideally, you should have an honest reason for doing so. Yet over the last few years, false and misleading information about these straightforward beliefs has been widespread. One might therefore expect a report into false information, produced by the Government Office for Science, to mention this specific problem. The report provides recommendations on addressing the individual, societal and organizational harms caused by the spread of fake news. But nowhere does it mention the spreading of lies about gender-critical feminists, despite the severe impact this has had on the fight for women’s rights.
Where the report mentions debates over sex and gender, it is to complain of “’gender ideology’ claims targeting schools and public institutions, Pride event misrepresentation, and transgender athlete controversies”. Given the degree to which any criticism of gender identity ideology in schools or the involvement of male athletes in female sports tends to be recast as “hate”, it is hard to know how seriously to take such concerns. Are we dealing with genuine misinformation about the issues themselves? Or is the report spreading misinformation about those casting a critical eye over a cherished “progressive” cause?
A list of examples that accompanies the report includes the boxer Imane Khelif, who won gold in the women’s boxing competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics but has since confirmed the possession of the SRY gene, associated with the male sex. Many who criticized Khelif’s presence in the female category did so on the basis that female boxers should not be competing against male ones. This criticism was subject to widespread “false and misleading” reinterpretations. Gender-critical feminists thought Khelif was trans (we didn’t); we were judging Khelif not for being male, but for being unfeminine (we weren’t); as an extension of this, we found Khelif unfeminine because our feminine beauty standards were racist (where to even start?).
Ironically, the “false and misleading information” report does not challenge any of these claims. There’s no mention of the “misinformation” that led to female competitors being punched in the face by someone who claimed to be female but had male biology on their side. Instead, there is an endorsement of the slurs that made it harder for these boxers to speak out.
I do not disagree with the report’s central claim that the way in which information is shared today makes it easier for dangerous distortions to flourish. Nonetheless, measuring the problem by favoring certain political positions — as though the other side lies and yours never does — is no way to get to the truth. You end up creating a list of people who shouldn’t be trusted simply because they hold a different position to you. Instead of encouraging critical thinking, it provides an excuse for people not to believe anything that inconveniences them. The “misinformation debunkers” rarely see their own bias.
This is why I would not ask for a revised report that includes the extent to which gender-critical feminists are misrepresented. What I’d want is some neutral encouragement for people to read what others are actually writing and listen to what they’re actually saying. Conflating the spread of untruths with that of things you’d like to be untruths does nothing to promote media literacy. In the end, all it shows is that you’ve found another way to lie.
