A gay icon lies smouldering. Ashes are all that remain of a reputation carefully built over two decades.
Kim Woodburn first appeared on our screens in 2003 alongside Scot, Aggie Mackenzie, in the Channel 4 series How Clean Is Your House? Further appearances on chat shows and reality TV, saw her embraced by the LGBT+ community.
People loved her attitude, catchphrases and personality, but there was also substance behind the adulation and her vocal defense of gay marriage.
All it took for the goodwill to evaporate was an appearance on GB News.
GB News is renowned as a beacon of tolerance and inclusivity, what went wrong?
Woodburn was appearing on one-time comedian Mark Dolan’s talk show when the subject predictably shifted to the culture wars and a pressure group’s campaign for ‘female only changing rooms’.
Don’t we have them already?
Yes, we do. But why let facts get in the way of the great ‘Trans debate’.
Is that what this is about?
That’s what it’s always about. Dolan led Woodburn in with a brief monologue identifying the list of GB News wokerati (aka those comfortable with mixed changing areas). According to Dolan they are lying. Woodburn is supposedly the ‘voice of silent majority’ and one at risk of being ‘labelled a transphobe’ for her views.
What do the silent majority say about this?
“Look, if I’m going to be labelled that, get on with it. I give not a jot. If I don’t want to show a man, accidentally, my knockers, or my bottom half, dear, which could easily happen, then I’m being labelled?” Woodburn continues: “A man’s a man, a woman’s a woman. And women who say they don’t mind sharing a dressing room with a man, they must be sexually frustrated and need to see something naughty!”
That’s a lot to unpack.
And that’s exactly what the LGBT+ community were trying to do in the wake of the interview. Woodburn has attended numerous Pride festivals as guest of honour, she has spoken of the challenges the community faces. She even picked a (rather predictable and cliched) list of her Pride anthems. Now she is removing the T from the equation. And, in doing so, joins the list of ‘cancelled’.
So what happens next?
You know exactly what happens when people get cancelled. Expect to see, hear and read Woodburn in TV studios, radio shows and newspapers, explaining how she has been denied her voice. Just don’t expect to see her at Pride next year.
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