Busy week. To start where we left off - the Fox Varian judgment and its fall out, including the position statements from the American Association of Plastic Surgeons and the American Medical Association - global mainstream coverage of which was strikingly sparse outside the US.

As of today, none of the major international wire services - Reuters, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, or BBC - have carried a dedicated dispatch on the Fox Varian case. Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País have published nothing. The story has not trended on global news aggregators in the way Cass Review did - despite this being a historic first.

We’ve written to the BBC Washington Bureau to ask why it’s ignoring the story (and to highlight some of the minor stories they’ve covered instead), and we’ve also contacted the BBC’s Global Women, which was given a big fancy launch last year as the replacement for BBC 100 Women. We’ve suggested Fox as a great subject for a feature. SiJ had a meeting with its editor late last year about problematic World Service content, and were invited to suggest content ideas. Will let you know how this latest initiative progresses.

Reuters’ decision to ignore the story was undoubtedly a huge factor. It’s a quiet, unspoken, mutual agreement between the big players that they don’t like the story, so they won’t bother. Reuters didn’t even mention Fox herself in its two paragraph update on the APS statement.

In the US though, coverage was extensive, all outlets framing it as a legal first and a landmark event. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Post, Fox News, The Free Press (via Ben Ryan’s courtroom reporting), National Review, law journals and LGBT outlets all amplified it. Detransitioners were interviewed and there were predictions of a flood of copycat suits. Ben Ryan is keeping a tally of 28 suits filed across the US. He’s following up on this story every day.

In the UK the Daily Mail was blunt - ‘breasts cut off’ - and ran it as an exclusive. The Economist warned off ‘a gathering storm’ - citing official figures on mastectomies performed on US minors. It was an patchy range of coverage though. Sky News Australia picked it up several times, the Daily Telegraph didn’t cover it at all. GB News ran it, Radio 4 did more than BBC Washington by mentioning it in the papers review.

Canadian outlets are silent - European legacy media haven’t touched it. It’s undoubtedly a victim of selective bias and agency dislike. The Economist, the Times and the Daily Mail however give hope that the media dam could break. Jo Bartosch wrote a powerful piece in Spiked and there was an immensely strong opinion piece in Newsweek from Josh Hammer, editor at large.

Court cases this week: For Women Scotland’s judicial review on trans prisoners complete with SHRC intervention, and Sussex University’s appeal against its half million pound fine over free speech - along with the announcement of the launch of a judicial review by Keira Bell, James Esses and Bayswater Group over the Pathways puberty blocker experiment.

FWS has brought a judicial review over the Scottish Government’s failure to implement the Supreme Court ruling in women’s prisons, and keep putting men in the female estate. It was heard by Lady Ross at the Court of Session in Edinburgh who hasn’t handed down her judgment yet. You can listen to a very decent BBC podcast about it here.

Scottish titles were rigorous about reporting the arguments from Aiden' O’Neill effectively laying out the position of women being used as human shields. Outlets such as The Herald, the Scotsman and STV offered detailed live-blog and explainer coverage. And the ScotExpress - Scottish Prison Service claims policy of housing men in female prisons doesn't badly impact women. Best coverage came from the Times which pulled out the testimony of a female prisoner about her abuse.

BBC reporting on FWS stayed broadly neutral - it gave prominence to government warnings of suicide risk but highlighted the ‘women as pawns’ line and the SHRC intervention. And it made the TV news both locally and nationally with fair updates from Lorna Gordon and Phil Sim.

Line by line coverage came from Tribunal Tweets and Nick Wallis Gender Blogged it.

The Guardian leaned into the government’s position but it was very much a ‘let them speak’ with its ‘Blanket rule would deny trans women’s identity’ headline. Plenty of space for Scotgov, not so much for FWS.

Other outlets like the Telegraph and Daily Mail were much clearer, more focussed on reality and markedly more critical of ScotGov. The tone was openly sceptical of ministers’ motives. Sky News also focussed on FWS evidence but the wooden spoon of the week goes to Channel 4 and Kathryn Samson for their loaded coverage of the Labour leader Anas Sarwar’s sudden conversion to the virtue of single sex spaces. Comment abounded and the week ended with this banger from Alex Massie (share token within).

ITV’s Good Morning Britain did a suprisingly great job, for GMB. Featuring Susan Smith of For Women Scotland, and formidable former prison governor Rhona Hotchkiss. Fell into the trap of interviewing a trans-identified female, however. But Susannah Reid extracted from her the admission that she’d be unsafe in a male jail.

The three-day coverage and the renewed interest in ‘trans prisoners’ ended here in the Scottish Sun, with a list of male prisoners who’ve spent time in female jails, and the crimes they’ve committed. And right on time, a new ‘trans rapist case’ emerged in Scotland. David [Serenity] Johnston was found guilty of horrific sex attacks on schoolgirls. He’s currently in a male jail.

The puberty blocker legal challenge was covered in the Telegraph (by a team of reporters), the Independent and the Daily Mail, which infuriatingly resorted to the outdated phrase ‘transgender children’. Even the Independent had managed to avoid it. Impressed by Nation.Cymru which published this long piece. The Science Media Centre, which had launched the Pathways Trial, published this response.

But in the same week we learned that the debate triggered by the massive response to the petition against the puberty blocker trial will take place on March 8. You’ll be able to watch it here. It will be chaired by Jamie Stone MP, who’s a self-declared ‘trans activist’.

The last big story is Imane Khelif. He admitted having male chromosomes, an SRY gene and treatment to lower his testosterone, but still claims to be a woman. This came out of a CNN interview which was the most excruciatingly poor journalism we’ve seen in a while. It was so very deeply embarrassing. Most other outlets were more rational but the BBC coverage was weak. A flattering picture and she/her throughout.

It was linked with new rumours around what the IOC will do about eligibility for the female category in the Olympic games. There was a frisson of outrage about this post from a women’s group in the US. We emailed the IOC and they said - no decision yet, discussions on going. However the informal deadline for a decision has been pushed back to June.

The Winter Games entry into the women’s competition of trans athlete Ellis Lunhorn disproved all the claims that the row is over a ban on trans athletes from women’s sport.

Mini round up

Fabulous interview with Naomi Cunnigham by Julie Bindel in the Telegraph

Great story from Cornwall Live as a gender critical councillor mounts a legal challenge over the council’s decision to progress complaints against her

The cost of the BBC licence fee is going up to £180

Louise Distras submits a formal complaint to West Yorkshire Police

Ben Ryan reports a new Jama study of suicide in ‘gender diverse youth’

Sex Matters announced a lobby day at Westminster

A local Women’s Institute is closing down because it can’t bear to meet without men

Finally, Olivia Coleman came out as a gay man. Or something.