Ofcom will hold TalkTV’s transphobic hate to account

Content warning: transphobic hate

Ofcom has opened an investigation into transphobic hate on TalkTV, after Good Law Project revealed the channel was broadcasting a torrent of toxic views with no-one in the studio to push back.

Last summer, an investigation into a month of TalkTV’s output showed that four hosts and 11 guests had attacked trans identities and healthcare, but the rightwing broadcaster didn’t invite a single person to respond.

More than 21,000 people complained to Ofcom, asking them to take action and stop TalkTV airing attacks on trans people.

Now the media regulator has opened an investigation into the rightwing channel’s transphobic hate.

Ofcom will examine a discussion between Ian Collins and Sex Matters’s Helen Joyce on 23 June 2025, when the host suggested that “non-binary is just an invented thing” and Joyce claimed it is an “actual fact” that “One hundred per cent of everyone who’s ever been pregnant is a woman whether they like it or not.”

But the regulator refused to look into a broadcast on 21 June, where Alex Phillips suggested that trans rights groups know that “giving children puberty blockers was evil”. They also declined to examine a segment ten days later, when Kevin O’Sullivan accused a trans woman of wanting to “pretend that he’s a female”. And Ofcom have decided that on 9 July – when Julia Hartley-Brewer asserted without any challenge that “by definition, if you’ve had to get a piece of paper to say that you are a woman, you must accept then that you are a man” – the transmission “did not raise any potentially substantive issues” under the Broadcasting Code.

Even though the code requires channels to show “due impartiality” when discussing subjects of “political controversy” and “current public policy”, the regulator is ignoring 10 of the 11 broadcasts that we described in our initial complaint.

For Matthew Gill, a lawyer at Good Law Project, Ofcom are “basically giving rightwing channels a free pass”.

“The far right can only spread their toxic lies because of platforms backed by billionaires,” Gill said. “So we need a regulator that takes it seriously when channels break their duty to provide balance. It’s time for Ofcom to stop rightwing media barons broadcasting hate.”

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this investigation, and what steps the regulator takes to stem TalkTV’s tide of transphobic hate.