Pink News CEO Benjamin Cohen caused quite a stir on the Today Programme this morning, after accusing the BBC of hosting “two different gay people [to talk] about trans issues […] without a single trans voice” following Liz Truss’s call for government departments to leave Stonewall’s Diversity Champions programme – and the charity’s boss suggesting that freedom of speech ‘has limits‘ in the context of LGBT rights. It was possibly the most raucous exchange Guido’s ever heard on Radio 4…

Clearly spoiling for a fight, Cohen also attacked presenter Justin Webb for introducing the issue despite being “cisgender”*, and suggested the coverage of Stonewall’s new “free to be” strategy reflected a “a homophobic and transphobic media frame”. The usually even-measured Webb managed to lose his patience, telling Cohen “you don’t know anything about me”, and insisting he stay on track. All very loud for an early Tuesday morning…

UPDATE:  Listeners heard denials that Stonewall want to allow trans-women into women’s refuges. Stonewall has made repeated calls for exemptions – which allow for female-only services – to be abolished. That is the logic of claiming “trans-women are women”. This is their long-standing position, see the August 2015 Stonewall submission to the Women & Equalities Select Committee:

• A review of the Equality Act 2010 to include ‘gender identity’ rather than ‘gender reassignment’ as a protected characteristic and to remove exemptions, such as access to single-sex spaces

This is just one of the reasons why feminists have had enough and are at loggerheads with Stonewall.

*Normal.