We can’t overstate how important this moment is for a shift in the media approach to covering sex and gender.

Legacy outlets are reviewing how and whether to adjust the language they use in the light of the Supreme Court judgement that ‘sex’ and ‘woman’ in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex and biological women. While they’re doing this, internal and external activists are whispering in their ears.

It’s particularly important for broadcasters, and their regulator Ofcom, who have a mandated duty to be impartial and accurate.

Of these, the BBC is the most important of all. Where the BBC goes, others follow, and if they don’t, their relevance is diminished.

The influence of activists has traditionally been under the radar, and it is still tentacular.

There are the routine external pressure groups such as Stonewall and Trans Media Watch who will be, to put it formally, making submissions in the same way as sex-based campaigners.

But personal contacts, LGBT and women’s staff networks, trans-identified staff members treated as experts, executives and correspondents who have signed up to belief in gender identity, and diversity teams embedded in HR also have an undue impact.

Reality-based campaigners on sex and gender have much more limited access to media decision-makers. There is for example no broadcaster with a staff network based on sex equity principles. At the BBC, networks are occasionally formally consulted but there is a much more informal veinous system of contacts and meetings continually ongoing.

Think of Phil Harrold, the Executive Sponsor of BBC Pride, who is also Tim Davie’s right hand man. Think of Emma Smith, the trans sport reporter who sits in an office with Alex Kay-Jelski. Think of Andrew Young, who’s been promoted to the Head of Diversity and Inclusion, who ‘managed the BBC’s relationship with Stonewall’ and now ‘manages the relationships with the Executive Committee, staff network chairs and Ofcom’ itself.

These contacts are ‘under the radar’. It doesn’t mean they’re all in favour of self-identification of sex, but that’s the point. We don’t know what they’re saying. They’re not writing blogs or going to the papers. They’re just talking to the decision-makers.

But we do know that activists who are seeking to sustain and defend workplace and editorial policies based on ‘gender identity’ rather than sex are now having to see their arguments rehearsed in public, thanks to the Supreme Court. It gives us an insight into the basic tramlines of their shifting strategies. This transparency is helpful. We know that activists started offering misleading advice even as the ink dried on the Equality Act. This time we (all of us) can do our best to counter it. These are their strategies so far.

‘The Supreme Court ruling was unclear’

For two or three days up to the Easter weekend this was the chosen narrative across a number of platforms, reaching its nadir with Evan Davis’ interview with Lord Sumption. Davis was unable to conceal his glee that Lady Falkner of the EHRC had allegedly ‘got it wrong’ on the Today programme the day after the ruling (she hadn’t). This would give permission for policy-makers to kick the can down the road with reviews and consultations, and sustain the status quo ante indefinitely.

This was effectively skewered within the BBC by its declaration that ‘the Supreme Court ruling gives clarity’. Additionally, enough knowledgeable lawyers were interviewed across platforms to make this so obviously and egregiously untrue that it’s had to be dialled down.

‘The Supreme Court ruling didn’t change anything’

It’s not clear where this started but it reached its peak over the Bank Holiday with claims that the judgement now meant that ‘trans women’ could be excluded on a ‘proportionate’ basis. An acceptance of this premise would have justified maintaining editorial policies based on self-identification.

This was skewered by two things:

by Tuesday the BBC corrected its description of the judgement

transgender advocate outrage. Put simply - if nothing changed, why the upset?

‘The definition of sex in the Equality Act as biological is new and therefore represents a rowback of ‘trans rights’’

(see also: ‘why was it up to the Supreme Court to define sex’)

This untrue claim has a ‘nudge’ impact on decision-makers, the idea being to build on the ‘be kind, caring and nice’ narrative (thank you Tim Davie) and leave self-ID in place to support a ‘hard-done-by’ cohort, unless and until there’s a legal challenge.

This ironically could rebound on gender identity advocates. The entirety of UK legacy media has adopted self-identification of gender, and some of them want out. Those parts of it which are looking for an exit can grab onto the Supreme Court judgement as a peg. The justification will be: ‘This is new: now we must change’.

It is not actually true. The Supreme Court said that sex has always meant biological sex, and woman has always meant biological woman.

What happened in the past 15 years was extraordinary overreach, and this is what is being and must now be rolled back.

‘How to implement of the Supreme Court judgement is unclear’

(See also the toilet question: ‘Where on earth should men go to the loo now?’

This is the latest and most popular. For the media, it will mean Ofcom (and IPSO) looking at their complaints policies and guidelines to revisit what constitutes harassment and discrimination.

Some editors have defended self-identification on the grounds that it can’t be known whether a particular person has a GRC: therefore it could be ‘legally’ untrue to describe a trans-identified man with a GRC as a man, and could constitute discrimination or harassment accordingly.

The Supreme Court ruling says the GRC doesn’t matter (though transgender advocates will be claiming as we write that the potential for discrimination and harassment is very real).

All these arguments have been forced into the public theatre, but the pace of public understanding is moving so swiftly that constant readjustments are being made.

The third strategy is the strongest because it’s based on the original and most effective campaigning by gender identity advocates going back to 2010: ‘This is a tiny, marginalised, vulnerable group which needs our support, whatever the law.’

It’s supported by the fourth strategy which is founded on the woolly nature of the balance of harms.

There are senior media executives, including at the BBC, who fully understand the reality of sex, and the harms of child transition and males in female spaces. They do not however understand the primacy importance of self-identification in the language they use. They think pronouns are of trivial importance. ‘Why not? It’s such a little thing.’

It is the job of all of us to help them understand. At Seen in Journalism we believe it causes foundational harm to public understanding to be untruthful about sex. Without truth, impartiality is impossible. For this reason alone, we believe self-identification of sex should be abandoned. It is enough, that it is not true.

Other groups will have different reasons for a campaign position that self-identification is harmful. They must make sure at this crucial moment that the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and GB News know what they are.

Media acceptance and promotion of self-identification drove transgender activism in the 20-teens. Children were socially and medically transitioned on television. Advocates for medical transition were treated as experts and given platforms to claim that children were not too young to decide. It was drummed into the public consciousness in hundreds of articles that some men are women. We were told repeatedly that they are the most vulnerable cohort in society who needed constant validation. Campaigners for sex-based rights were ignored or blacklisted.

All of it was underpinned by the language of self-identification. Legacy media shifted the public mood. We were the giant petri dish in which transgender activism was nurtured and flourished before being released into public policy. It happened once and it can happen again.

Decisions will be made in the next few months that could, could, see a lot of gear-grinding as that course is reversed in the face of dogged gender identity campaigning.

All those groups who understand the importance of fair and accurate media representation should use this key moment to make representations about what they want from future coverage. Ordinary viewers and listeners can complain and send feedback. None of the work that embedded self-ID in the language of public discourse was organic. It has all been the result of top-down activism.

We still don’t have the access that transgender advocates enjoy but we have our voices nonetheless. Let’s use them. If things don’t change now, it’s hard to see when they will, and we could be in exactly the same position again in the future.