I’ve been very busy over the past few days and consequently have only commented on this on social media. However, as many of you will know, the NSPCC has cancelled the event. Victory!

The cancellation came for two reasons. Firstly Kellie Malloney withdrew from participation once it became clear that a) the trans community was very unhappy, and b) that Ditum was likely to use Maloney’s history of domestic violence to discredit her, and by implication all trans people, during the debate. Secondly the NSPCC discovered that all those warnings about a huge social media backlash that people had been giving them before they went public were actually correct. The petition only got to a little over 1500 signatures before they got cold feet.

I’m still quite annoyed with the NSPCC who seem to have done no due diligence with regard to this event. Their press office has kept on claiming that the “debate” would focus on “asking what society should be doing for trans children”. However, expecting Ditum to answer that with anything other than “stop them being trans” is rather like inviting Richard Dawkins to a debate on religion and expecting him not to mention atheism.

Doubtless we shall now see a lengthy article by Ditum in the New Statesman explaining how she has been viciously and violently censored by “men” and that she is unable to express her views in public anywhere.

The good folks at Mermaids were busy holding a conference on Friday and haven’t had much time to process this, but I expect them to do so in due course and a formal complain to the Charities Commission should be forthcoming. If nothing else, the NSPCC should mention this debacle in their annual report and explain what steps they will take to prevent anything like it from happening again.