Steph's magnanimously modest reveal can be seen here. Here is my longer response to that article.

5th April. The Story Behind The Story.

"The story that broke Karen White was not trans.

"Well.

-Well. Well indeed. I can't help but picture Steph reclining in a swivel chair, basking in the glory of it all. Stroking a little cat, perhaps. What does 'the story that broke Karen White was not trans' mean? It sounds sort of ominous, as if you have a real scoop. But you don't.

"My "Trans and Crime" story (click HERE if you have not read it) was published on Friday at 9:30 am, and what a response!

I say "my," but that is not really true.

-Steph is modest and deferential, like a lady

"The article was very much a team effort that started some four months ago with a "tip-off" from a gender-crit (called "X" from here on) ...

-Real investigative journalism there, Steph. Four months of research, a shadowy underworld figure blowing the whistle on the gender-critical world. Have you been coached by the renowned truth-finders at PinkNews?

"..that what Stephen Wood, aka Karen White actions in a woman's prison was blown out of proportion by the media and the gender-criticals (GC).

'Blown out of proportion'. Women were sexually assaulted while confined in prison, by a male, convicted, multiple sex offender.

"To virtually everyone - truth matters.

-Oh yeah - Steph's big on 'truth'. It's not like pretty much each single point made is a crock of shit, contradicts itself one line later, is missing key information and / or totally unsubstantiated.

'Blown out of proportion' - us with our damn hysteria, huh?

"Then a few weeks later, the second tip-off came my way from "Y." I was given information about a dedicated sex offenders prison with a separate wing for LGBT+ prisoners. Y said that many inmates housed at this prison were recorded as "trans" by the MOJ - but were not trans. They were sex offenders wanting to get close to trans women or occasional crossdressers.

-What was Y's connection to the trans wing of this sex offender's jail? Don't fancy enlightening us?

"Talking to Y, firstly on the phone and then by Zoom, Y was enlightening. Y was indeed an expert on everything transgender, and more information followed.

-Honey, this has been spoken about for years. You really should have come here, or The Times, or The Spectator, or Inside Times, or anywhere, really.

-This is as revelatory as the 'news' buses can be predicted with a timetable.

"I then wrote the story up but was well aware that I was treading on dangerous ground - so I decided to ask a few close Twitter followers for their opinion of the piece.

-Danger, danger - high voltage! Feeling compelled to seek advice from Twitter followers really does cast this in the most serious light. Sort of grainy, pixelated, with mental images of our stoic reporter, tottering through the dark mean streets, checking for following agents while adjusting lipstick in your compact mirror...

"Most were okay with it or only wanted small changes, but one team member (I will call her "B") came back with a page of suggested changes. One of her several points was, "this article has to be a 110%".

-You bloody tease, Steph.

-And 110% what? Are we talking watertight? Because this was not of a duck's arse calibre.

"She was, of course, absolutely right - the piece needed to be as watertight as possible. Then another - shorter list of comments - from another team member saying the article was too defensive and needed "beefing up."

-I would love to know what earlier editions looked like.

-'Defensive' may pertain to the 'Gender criticals are talking about the problem of rapists identifying as trans in prison, and it makes me feel like I have to build an argument made of wobbly mirrors and trapdoors to show them up as bigots!'

-'Beefing up' probably referred to facts, not hearsay from potential nonces and the wailing of rainbow banshees.

-The fact you feel you have to defend yourself from accusations against Karen White and others, that's for you to work through.

"At that point, I was a tad down, weeks of hard work and not all 100% positive feedback.

-One thing I must add; Steph really takes us on a journey of emotional highs and lows... It's evocative stuff - I felt sick less than a paragraph in.

"But then X, probably thinking I was on Stephen Wood's trail...

-Thought wrong, then..

" ...opened up to me much more, then saying Wood was not trans; "Wood's performance was a charade, a flag of convenience, he was not trans", X said.

I was shocked."

-Here is the whole spurious, fallacious 'point':

Gender critical feminists: "anyone can self identify as female and be moved to the women's estate"

Steph: "this is a lie! Time for me (and my acronym team) to investigate!"

Fair Play for Women: "we have had numerous Freedom of Information requests denied. This is data we have finally collated, showing it's a problem"

Steph: "Karen White wasn't actually trans! Looks like another mystery is solved!"

-(ignoring that well, actually White had identified as trans before jail)

"X's (Vic Parsons, probably) statement went against everything the mainstream press, Fair Play for Women and Woman's Place UK was saying - but there was a gender crit just wanting the world to know different. To know the truth.

-I started to check this out and on Snopes.com - Like what Carol Cadwalledr or Marie Colvin would!

-I'm including Snopes here, only because it's so mundane and unenlightening I think we get an insight into Steph's profoundly substandard... standards.

"...a website dedicated to ascertain if stories in the media are true. I found an article from David Emery dated 30th November 2018 that had subsequently been fact-checked and accredited as accurate. It gave the inside story on Stephen Wood but not everything."

-Translation; it gives a brief overview of what pretty much every media source said

"Emery stated Wood was actually accused of four incidents inside New Hall prison but would only agree to two incidents, to which he subsequently pleaded guilty at his trial. After more research, I found additional evidence in local newspapers - this was the break-through that perhaps made the piece.

-...edge of my seat...

"Stephen Terence Wood - also known as Karen White was not transgender.

Shared by none other than Stonewall

"My story was re-written (incorporating B's requests as much as possible), and the article was re-submitted to the team. All looked good - then P came back with one late point, so again another change which fortunately he did for me. By then, I was well and truly sick of the piece!"

-(Can sympathize! Imagine having to wade through all that depravity, and do an apology?)

-Steph accused Transcrime UK of listing driving offences. My 'scoop', dear reader, was to show that all of them had 'driving offences' as a tag, alonside rape, kidnap, child sexual abuse, murder etc.

-I know, deep in my heart, it wasn't just me. It was only through collaboration with Google search and my source T(ranscrimeUK) that I made the breakthrough. And, of course, God.

"And then D-day.

"Publication - I undertook the launch on Twitter and by my friend Katie Neeves (lol - Katie Neeves) posted details on other social media platforms.

-It's the little things that keeps Steph's pecker up

"And what a great response! Google analytics showed four-figure page hits, and positive comments came in thick and fast.

Robin Moira White a barrister at Old Square Chambers and who recently gave evidence to the Women & Equalities Committee, tweeted "A powerful piece of writing on a difficult subject."

Kirsty Miller, an ex Prison Governor, tweeted, "Spot on."

What The Trans (a former journalist at the New Statesman and PinkNews) messaged me saying "You are a real writer. A real researcher and this is journalism."

And from the lovely Dawn Smith who was on the Andrew Marr show just a week earlier tweeted, "Your passion and knowledge shine Steph, I hope you get published".

-Seriously, if one word of this is true I'm kicking off. It's almost like the work of FPfW, WPUK, Transcrime, even myself and the many other feminists covering this isn't really appreciated. If only I could understand why...

-Oh, I just checked on the 'response' - check it out!

-I knew Parsons would be in there! Along with EIGHT likes!

In my case, I had a far less positive response;

-As a matter of fact, I referred to nonces as nonces. I was sympathetic to Vikki Thompson. It also sounds like Major Julie was a source right under the nose of our intrepid reporter

- It's very sad that Steph's plea for so many media to examine this was left unanswered... But yes, "it wAs ThA JOURNALISM ISM WhAT's FUCkInGG SCaReDED MeH"

(Back to Steph)

"But it wasn't just me, was it.

-No. It was your team, your Twitter followers and 'sources'... An... achievement, for sure.

"There was X, a gender-crit wanting the truth to be told but perhaps not prepared to say to people on the GC side for fear of being ostracised.

-Any accusations Jen Dercritical is potentially Steph in a brunette wig will result in a ban from my article - got it?

"And then "Team Trans" - all the other people that spent hours and hours between them reading drafts - thinking of all the angles to cover.

-Did they get lost in the post, Steph? 'Hours and hours between them - thinking of all the angles to cover' is a bizarre statement considering you've essentially served us a jobby on a plate.

"To everyone that helped - especially X and B - thank you. I take away from the Trans & Crime article that independent trans rights activists really should start working together as a team much more. We need to be more organised.

-I fully agree! Organised, absolutely. Organised, with functioning cognition, maybe even with 'news' that is repeated in full, which hasn't appeared in any national papers in the last, say, five years?

"And so to the next major project.

-It's good, in a way, to have this little project, innit? It's inspired me to spend my days around rivers and the like, saving fish from drowning

" I want to hear from trans folk who have or were prescribed puberty blockers. We hear lots from so-called "experts" (actual experts, mate) and the lawyers in Keira Bell case - but we hear nothing from the thousands of people who have taken puberty blockers. What do they think about PB's? Did PB's help? What happened after taking them? What do the parents of the very young think? Should they not all have a voice?

-To be honest, Steph has a fair point. When will we hear about the positive child transition stories?

"So I tweeted for info and within seconds got three 'likes' - one very surprisingly from Suzanne Moore, who, for whatever her views, has a hypnotic writing style that pulls readers in like no other writer I know. She really does make it look so easy and it is not. In her recent blog letter, she describes herself as an "old bint" - a club (as I am 6 years older than her); I wonder if I could join - or is this a sex-based right club too? Suzanne, please let me know!

-That is painful to read, mate. Painful. I'm reluctant to tell you to get some self respect - in fact I won't - don't! But just stop that...

"Tony McCoy, the twenty times champion jockey, once tweeted, "Sometimes those who challenge us the most teach us the best."

"I will never be able to write like Suzanne, with so much pose.

Do you mean poise? Prose? Much prose?

"But her act of liking my tweet perhaps may suggest she trusts this trans woman writing another difficult story - if so, that is progress.

-Erm, well, you know that Miranda Yardley is trans? Fionne Orlander, Debbie Hayton, Kristina Jayne Harrison, Sian Lacey Taylder, Jenn Smith, Sophie XY, Seven Hex, Nyah Putzo, Claudia McLean are, too?

-It might be the limpet-clasp on bullshit and frequent, deeply un-sisterly rejection of all our concerns we object to, and not the identity you have chosen. After all, many of us may not even share that view of your identity.

-Who knows what Suzanne Moore meant, maybe you could ask her. Or better yet, consult more followers? It's best to relentlessly side with the echo chamber, so much kinder there.

"Will my "Trans and Crime" article prove to some GC that Karen White was not trans? Dispel the myth that trans women are predators?

-Are you really this misinformed? Not sure if I'm being cruel, if your intellect can only be rivalled by garden tools, or if this absurd mischaracterisation of all of the gender critical arguments, Fair Play for Women, Women's Place UK etc is being cynically played under identical blonde bobs, pearl necklaces and the artistic licence of a shredder.

-One way to prove it - why don't you respond?

Sadly, Steph took the invitation to respond as one with a time limit of just a few hours, and, with the pressures of housework like a lady, well...

"Will it help create trust?

"I don't know."

A searing insight into the current debate, Steph. And team and sources. Thank you for this, it's certainly helped me understand that sometimes I am infallible. But I'm not in this case. At all.

Update!