My most popular posts of 2025, no paywall
As the year ends, here's a round-up of the articles you've loved the most
Hello everyone, how is your Winterlude going? I hope you are finding plenty of time to do the things you love, with the people you love, but if now is a quiet moment with a coffee or something stronger, I’ve put together my most popular posts from 2025 for you, and taken off the paywalls, just for a few days.
At first, I was going to just put these in a chart, counting down from ten to one, just like in the good old days of Top of the Pops. But when I looked at the stats, it seemed more interesting to explore them in a slightly messier way, looking at the themes that were popular and saying a bit about each post with the beauty of hindsight.
Before we get started, I want to say a big thank you to those of you who have supported me with a paid subscription this year. Without this help, I would never have been able to devote so much time and energy to this substack. It is SO appreciate. Please consider supporting me with a paid sub in 2026 - it’s less than a quid a week (86p) - you probably won’t miss it but it will make all the difference to me…
Right, let’s get going on our tour through 2025…
The number one spot by a country mile has been nabbed by the very last article I wrote this year, when I heard the news about my own publisher, Harper Collins, dropping author David Walliams due to his alleged treatment of women. Over 90 thousand of you have read this piece, with over 1.5k likes - and these numbers continues to rise, making it my most read post not just of 2025, but of all time - even overtaking my investigation into the BBCs inaccurate and misleading report about the male ability to produce breast milk, which has had over 43k views and 647 likes.
It probably won’t surprise regular readers to hear that, apart from the wild card Walliams post, streaking way ahead of the pack just as we reached the 2025 finish line, many of my other most popular 2025 posts were about sex and gender. You particularly liked this one, which looked at some of the statements made by Dr Beth Upton, the doctor at the centre of the Sandie Peggie case, and explored the wider issue of the cult-like thinking of the gender movement. It got over 14k views, and 326 likes.
In the same vein, you also loved this post about the bitter-sweet triumph of the Supreme Court judgment - over ten thousand of you read it and it got 273 likes.
Another post about the SC judgement, this time focusing on the beginnings of what has turned out to be quite a spectacular backlash against it, was this one. I remembered how swimmer Riley Gaines had been told when she tied for 5th place with male Lia Thomas, “We only have one trophy for 5th place, so we’re giving it to Lia. Your trophy will come in the mail.” They both got the exact same finish time!! These kinds of injustices and the open bias against women they demonstrate, continue to make my blood boil. 9.2k readers on this and 184 likes.
This next post about the anti-woman bias of BBC Woman’s Hour was also very popular. 9.5k of you read it, and it got 230 likes. Written before the reality of BBC bias on this issue was being talked about in the mainstream - and even now, of course, the problem is a long way from being addressed, let alone fixed.
Since I began writing The Word is Woman way back in 2023, you have consistently loved it. This year has been no different, with each one racking up at least 5k views, some over 8k. I’ve written nearly 30 editions of TWIW this year, but this one got the most likes.
You can read the full TWIW archive here.
There has also been steady and loyal support in 2025 for my Sunday ‘nosebag’, (it’s called this as a little nod back to the name of my original blog in the 2010s, The Mule). In the nosebag, I usually share six things that have caught my attention that week. Most nosebags get roughly the same level of support - around 5 thousand of you read them. Here’s a recent example with the paywall lifted of one (23 likes!) I enjoy writing these nosebags and they are becoming the closest I have to a diary - always good to look back on - added to which they are a chance to broaden out and write about a range of wider topics and thoughts…
The whole archive of Nosebags is here.
You loved this nosebag ‘special’ that I wrote about my trip to Oxford to see Helen Joyce and Julie Bindel. Over 7.5k of you read it, and it got 115 likes.
In the second half of this year, I dived straight in to the thorny issue of right / left division in the gender critical world, and wow, the twitter pile on I then experienced was really quite something. Sat in a very delightful holiday cottage at the Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival after a really lovely evening out, I opened my phone to find an absolute bin fire. This then repeated itself after I wrote about events at FiLiA. The best and only way to survive these pile-ons, really, is to stay off twitter, and / or to channel Greer.
When it comes to online pile-ons, this really REALLY wasn’t my first rodeo, and in this next popular post from March 2025 (8k views and 178 likes), I wrote about yet another incident of people trying to undermine my livelihood because of my gender critical views. But what the post was really about was how what people describe as my ‘bigotry’ is actually compassion for those caught up in gender ideology, particularly teenage girls. It’s a deep dive into what I feel might be their motivations for rejecting ‘femaleness’. I probably should have given it a better title. Have a read.
Also on this theme, I wrote about Chimamanda and why I understand her decision not to talk about gender (even though it’s quite clear where she stands on it). 8k views and 181 likes on this one.
And finally on ‘gender’, if you’re interested in the ‘grift’ aspect, do have a read of this post exposing the ‘Queer Birth Club’. Since I wrote it, they have shut up shop completely and disappeared from the internet. Interesting when you consider that at their height, they had the NCT, Birthrights, the NHS and so many others in the palm of their hand and dancing to their tune. Now - gone.
Aside from the gender issue, I think my other most popular posts from 2025 have been on the (related) topic of what it’s actually like to be female. This post about how so many of us hate what we see when we look in the mirror got over 8k views, and over 200 likes.
You also loved this piece, written the day before my 50th birthday, about the power and allure of filters as we get older. Over 7k views and 123 likes.
This tribute to Naomi Stadlen, who died this year, through the lens of my own first experiences of motherhood, was also popular with over 6k views.
And many of you loved this idea of menopause, not as an ending, but as a challenge to remember who you truly were before oestrogen knocked you off course. Nearly 7k views and 138 likes .
I have loved writing this substack this year and am grateful to all of you who have read and supported me. Please let me know in the comments what you have enjoyed, and what you would like to see more of in 2026.
Please also feel free to share any of the above posts you have liked and appreciated (I won’t put them back under a paywall for a week or so), and encourage your friends to subscribe - ‘free’ subs are appreciated as well as paid!
Having said that, I would not have been able to write so regularly and prolifically this year without the support of those of you who have a paid subscription. This way of ‘crowdfunding’ an individual writer has been absolutely game-changing for me, allowing me to devote time and energy to my own ideas, to take risks, and to write honestly and openly in a way that feels true to myself. A true gift, so thank you all.
See you in 2026! M xx
If you don’t want to subscribe, but have appreciated this substack in 2025, feel free to buy me a NYE cocktail.
Oh and one more thing, I’ve written four books, would you like one? And there’s a 5th one coming next summer, watch this space!
Thanks Milli. I enjoy reading your posts very much. Thank you for giving me so much to think about. Here’s hoping for a fabulous 2026. x
You continue to hold high the light - thanks, Milli x