Stephanie Hayden, 45, is locked in a legal battle with Mumsnet
A transgender activist fears she has been banned from Mumsnet for trolling, in the midst of a legal battle in which the website revealed the details of a user alleged to have posted defamatory remarks directed against her.
On Monday a High Court judge ordered Mumsnet to reveal the identity of an online troll who made allegedly defamatory comments about Stephanie Hayden, 45, accusing her of ‘serious criminal activity’.
Today the website complied with the request but Ms Hayden said the user may have provided misleading details.
In their reply Mumsnet also said they had been ‘giving some thought’ to Ms Hayden’s membership of the site following her suspension last week for ‘misleading and inflammatory behaviour’.
The site said it wanted to focus its our moderation resource on serving the needs of parents, ‘rather than dealing with the problems caused by inflammatory trolls’, signing off their email ‘go well.’
Ms Hayden said: ‘Mumsnet have now banned me from the website and accused me of being a troll. This is yet another example of Mumsnet attempting to silence the voices of the transgender community whilst permitting harassment and abuse.’
She added: ‘I will now review the information supplied in order to assess my legal options. I expect to be back in touch with Mumsnet Limited in the very near future as there appear, on initial reading, to be issues with the veracity of the information supplied.’
Mr Justice William Davis gave the website until 4pm today to reveal the identity of the user ‘ALittleHelp18’, who posted an allegedly defamatory comment in November, accusing Ms Hayden of serious criminality.
Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts. The site is locked in a legal battle with Ms Hayden
The court order issued on Monday gave Mumsnet until today at 4pm to comply
Ms Hayden said her lawsuit was not about so-called ‘deadnaming’ or ‘doxxing’ – a word used to refer to the ‘outing’ of someone’s identity or former identity online.
She said: ‘It’s an idiot on a website who’s gone too far and is trying to stir the brown stuff.
‘Nothing to do with transgender, or deadnaming – this was nothing to do with that.
‘It was to do with Mumsnet being socially irresponsible in allowing there forum to be used for such serious allegation of serious criminality which are entirely untrue.’
She said that when she brought the matter to the attention of the site’s moderators in November they said they would not remove the post because the commentor stood by their accusations.
Last month she asked again for the comment – which by now has spawned hundreds of ‘satellite’ comments and accusations – to be removed and Mumsnet again refused, she said.
So she got a court order demanding the site reveal the name, address, email and date of birth of the user who posted the comment, in order to take legal action herself.
Mumsnet did not contest the application, but its founder, Justine Roberts, said: ‘Clearly, if we thought the details we released might be used maliciously, we would be happy to contest the order if one of our users asked us to do so.’
Yesterday at the High Court Mr Justice William Davis issued the order.
After 4pm today, Ms Hayden issued a press statement to say: ‘Mumsnet Limited have once again demonstrated a complete absence of corporate social responsibility.
‘Not only does the Mumsnet forum permit the regular harassment, abuse, and defamation of transgender people demonstrating a contempt for the transgender community; today Mumsnet Limited have demonstrated their contempt for the law of England and Wales. This is a very serious matter.’
Lawyer Ms Hayden, 45, who began transitioning in 2007, said she started her ‘full time transition’ in 2015, and received a gender recognition certificate in May of 2016. The document, along with her driving licence and passport now identify her as a woman.
Ms Hayden does not support so-called ‘self-identification’ by transgender individuals, and called for some in the transgender community to show more ‘common sense.’
Posting the court order yesterday Ms Hayden said: ‘The days of defaming, abusing, and harassing transgender people on Mumsnet behind the cloak of anonymity are over’
She told MailOnline: ‘My view is, a plague on both your houses. Some more enthusiastic trans activists don’t live in the real world.
‘I don’t argue that somebody who in their every day life appears as a man – or a woman – should be able to obtain a gender certificate.
‘Self identification would certainly devalue the certificate, which defines you in the eyes of the law and society.’
Following the recent controversy surrounding comments by athletes including Martina Navratilova and Sharron Davies, on trans woman competing in female sports, she said: ‘It should be left to the professional bodies of the sport concerned.
Stephanie Hayden (pictured) tweeted an image of a court order which requires Mumsnet to name the anonymous user who allegedly defamed her
‘Before I started medical transition I was a big strong bloke. Imagine a woman like me in a women’s team, that’s ridiculous
‘I was 16 stone, a strong heavily-built man – come on, that’s just common sense.’
She explained she had lost 20kg of muscle mass and now has less testosterone than most natal born woman.
Posting the court order yesterday Ms Hayden said: ‘The days of defaming, abusing, and harassing transgender people on Mumsnet behind the cloak of anonymity are over.’
Ms Hayden has been involved in several of online spats in recent years.
In 2018, she reported Father Ted creator Graham Linehan to the police for ‘transphobic harassment’ after he shared a tweet saying she was a ‘dangerous troll’.
Sitcom writer Mr Linehan was given a verbal harassment warning by West Yorkshire Police after transgender activist Miss Hayden reported him for referring to her by her previous names and pronouns on Twitter.
And in February, a mother was arrested in front of her children and locked up for seven hours after referring to Ms Hayden as a man online, in an arrest Ms Hayden insists was linked in fact to the leaking of financial and medical information.
She said she received death threats online after officers detained Kate Scottow at her home before quizzing her at a police station about an argument with Ms Hayden on Twitter.
The 38-year-old, from Hitchin, Hertfordshire, had her photograph, DNA and fingerprints taken.
Mrs Scottow denied harassing or defaming Miss Hayden and said she holds a ‘genuine and reasonable belief’ that a human ‘cannot practically speaking change sex’.
As well as potential police action, she is facing a £25,000 civil lawsuit over alleged defamation, use of private information and ‘harassment’. She has also agreed to been made the subject of an injunction that bans her from writing about Miss Hayden online.
High Court papers, filed by Miss Hayden, accuse Mrs Scottow of a ‘campaign of targeted harassment’ against Miss Hayden between September and December last year, allegedly motivated by her ‘status as a transgender woman’, including messages sent from two separate Twitter accounts.
But Mrs Scottow’s has filed a defence insisting: ‘[Mrs Scottow] holds a genuine and reasonable belief, which is fundamental to her existence and worthy of respect in a democratic society that a mammal, specifically a human, cannot practically change sex.’
Ms Hayden has been involved in several of online spats in recent years. In 2018, she reported Father Ted creator Graham Linehan (left) to the police for ‘transphobic harassment’. Kate Scottow (right) was arrested by police after referring to Ms Hayden as a man online
Writing on online forum Mumsnet, Mrs Scottow – who has also been served with a court order that bans her from referring to her accuser as a man – claimed: ‘I was arrested in my home by three officers, with my autistic ten-year-old daughter and breastfed 20-month-old son present.
‘I was then detained for seven hours in a cell with no sanitary products (which I said I needed) before being interviewed then later released under investigation … I was arrested for harassment and malicious communications because I called someone out and misgendered them on Twitter.’
Confirming the arrest, Hertfordshire Police said: ‘We take all reports of malicious communication seriously.’
The court papers filed by Miss Hayden claim that, as a ‘toxic’ debate raged online over plans to allow people to ‘self-ID’ as another gender, Mrs Scottow tweeted ‘defamatory’ messages about Miss Hayden. Miss Hayden told MailOnline that sensitive personal, financial and medical information had been shared online.