A prominent activist for trans rights has sparked controversy online after she recalled a row between her and the late Woman’s Hour presenter Dame Jenni Murray after her death was announced.
India Willoughby, 60, said Murray had been responsible for spreading “terf garbage” and that this was the “spark that lit the war on trans people in the UK”.
Willoughby said that she was a TV Loose Woman and Channel 5 newsreader when she was asked to go on BBC Woman’s hour in 2017.
She said she was expecting it to be a “regular light showbiz interview”, but that Murray was “snotty as hell” and asked her “What qualifies YOU to present a show for women? Have you even read Sheila Jeffries? Should women shave their legs?”.
Willoughby added that Murray was “Peering like an owl over the glasses perched on the bottom of her nose” during the interview.
She then referred to an article Murray had written in The Times after the interview.
She said: “A few days later, she wrote a hit-piece double-page spread in The Times, saying I wasn’t a real woman, and all the usual terf garbage we now hear every day.
“Really horrible stuff. I complained - and the BBC suspended her for six months. Unthinkable now! Murray was removed from Woman’s Hour. Big story.”
The spark that lit the war on trans people in the UK started when I went on BBC Woman’s Hour in 2017. At the time I was an ITV Loose Woman and Channel 5 newsreader.
— India Willoughby (@IndiaWilloughby) March 21, 2026
I was invited onto WH for what I was expecting to be a regular light showbiz interview - but straight away, Jenni… pic.twitter.com/4MuVIFKWas
Murray was banned from talking about trans issues on the BBC after the complaints. She was not suspended.
In 2020, she left Woman’s Hour after 33 years.
Last year, Murray wrote in the Daily Mail that she wasn’t sacked, but had been “banned from discussing the debate on air”.
She added: “More tweets followed with India calling me a nasty cow and far worse.”
Amid the backlash to Willoughby were comments defending Murray.
“Jenni was a brilliant woman, not worried about speaking the truth, an undoubted champion of women,” one person wrote. “You were a speck on her amazing career. RIP.”
A number of the comments directed at Willoughby insulted her personally.
The Standard has approached her for comment.
Murray joined BBC Radio Bristol in 1973. She later joined Newsnight in 1983 and then moved to Radio 4 for the Today programme.
A statement shared by her family to The Daily Mail confirmed she died on March 12.
Outgoing BBC director-general Tim Davie said Murray “created a safe space for her audience thanks to her warmth, intelligence and courage”.
