Anti trans organisations exerting powerful influence over media and politics, new analysis reveals

• Four UK newspapers published 17,000 articles on ‘trans issues’ in five years, averaging 9 articles a day 
• Reporting overwhelmingly excludes trans voices and amplifies anti-trans perspectives 
• ‘Trans issues’ elevated to top-tier political debate, despite low public salience 

New analysis published today by Amnesty International UK reveals how a rapidly expanding network of organisations campaigning against trans rights is shaping media coverage and political debate across the UK, while trans people are increasingly excluded from reporting about their own lives.

The briefing maps the rise of so-called ‘gender critical’ anti-trans organisations and presents new evidence of their disproportionate influence in national newspapers.

Amnesty’s mapping identifies more than 50 organisations campaigning to restrict the rights of trans people. Only three of these were in existence prior to 2017, highlighting the speed and scale of growth in recent years.

Media coverage dominated by anti-trans narratives

Alongside mapping this network, Amnesty conducted a large-scale linguistic analysis of UK newspaper coverage between January 2020 and April 2025, examining reporting across The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Sun.

The findings reveal:

• 17,000 articles published on trans-related topics in five years
• An average of 264 articles per month, around 9 per day
• Coverage that is disproportionate to the size of the trans population, which is approximately 0.5 percent of the UK population
• Persistent association of trans people with controversy, conflict and harm
• Minimal inclusion of trans voices, with reporting instead dominated by politicians and anti-trans campaigners

The analysis also found that senior political figures, including the Prime Minister and other party leaders, frequently appear in coverage. This shows how trans issues have been elevated into a central political battleground despite limited public concern compared to other issues.

Part of a wider backlash against rights

The report situates the rise of anti-trans organisations within a broader movement campaigning against abortion rights, LGBTI rights and gender equality in the UK.

Previous Amnesty research identified 65 organisations, 75% of which are registered charities, actively campaigning to restrict abortion rights, LGBTI rights and gender equality. The research found that 32 of these organisations spent £106 million between 2019 and 2023, with significant links to international networks.

While many of the organisations mapped in this research operate informally, available data indicates growing resources and coordination across this part of the movement.

These organisations and individuals are focused on restricting trans rights, including:

• Removal of gender recognition
• Exclusion of trans people from public spaces and services
• Efforts to limit access to healthcare and education

Chiara Capraro, Amnesty International UK’s Gender Justice Programme Director, said:

“This research provides stark evidence of how anti-trans organisations have shaped media coverage and political debate in the UK since 2017.

“There is nothing balanced about the way trans people’s lives are reported. Anti-trans narratives dominate coverage and are often presented as fact, while trans people themselves are pushed to the margins or erased entirely.

“This is not happening organically. What we are seeing is a coordinated and increasingly well-resourced effort to roll back trans people’s rights and reshape public debate. The consequences are real, affecting trans people’s equality, safety and wellbeing across the UK.

“Trans people have become a lightning rod in wider culture wars, with harmful narratives amplified across powerful platforms, shaping public perceptions.

“Trans people may be the immediate target, but powerful forces are at work  to roll back our hard-won freedoms and rewrite the rules on whose rights, bodies and lives deserve protection Anyone who cares about equality and human rights must consider this an alarm bell and make clear that this kind of bias has no place in our society.”