Martine Croxall has just struck a dazzling blow for common sense
A rebellion can take many forms. Sometimes it's an uprising in the streets. Sometimes it's a ballot-box revolt against the status quo. And sometimes – as BBC newsreader Martine Croxall has brilliantly shown – it's just a droll, one-word aside.
Croxall struck a dazzling blow for common sense this week by daring to say the unsayable, by giving voice to a word that's become bizarrely verboten in certain circles. What blasphemous term did she utter? Women.
It was during an item on the heatwave. Croxall was talking about new research on the number of heat-related deaths Britain might see as the temperature rises.
She read the following from her autocue: 'Malcolm Mistry, who was involved in the research, said the aged, pregnant people…'. Then she stopped. Pregnant people? What in the politically correct hell is this? She mutinied against her teleprompter and told the truth. 'WOMEN', she said, with excellent exasperation.
Then she carried on. The elderly, pregnant women and people with pre-existing health conditions 'need to take precautions' in the heat, she said. Post-truth baloney put in its place by a woman who's clearly had enough – you love to see it.
'Pregnant people' is one of those Newspeak phrases that is said to be 'trans-inclusive' but which in truth just erases women. The idea is that if we say 'pregnant people', we won't offend that infinitesimally small chunk of womankind that identifies as male. That 'pregnant people' is offensive to many women – not to mention to science and reason – seems not to matter.
Let's be honest – 'pregnant people' is a lunatic term. Every single human being who has ever fallen pregnant has been a woman. They can call themselves Tom, Dick or Harry if they like and ask their woke pals to refer to them as 'he'. But they're women, and it isn't offensive to say so.
Other 'trans-inclusive' terms include 'chest-feeding' (what we used to call breastfeeding) and 'birthing bodies' – or 'WOMEN!', as Croxall might say, with that righteous irritation shared by many of us.
The memory-holing of the word 'woman' to appease the trans lobby is an outrage. It adds up to a sexist scrubbing from the public record of half of humankind.
This is why Croxall's quiet vexation and gentle eye-roll as she said the W-word has chimed with so many: because we are sick of seeing the rights of women and the very language of womanhood be sacrificed at the altar of a dumb and dangerous fad.
'I have a new favourite BBC presenter', said JK Rowling. Same, Joanne. Croxall's rage against the autocue, her one-woman, one-word insurrection against correct-think, was as refreshing as a breeze in this heatwave.
Some are now worried the BBC might haul her in for a telling-off. They wouldn't dare. Millions of decent folk will seethe if the public broadcaster even thinks about rapping a woman's knuckles for telling the truth.
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