My top ten posts of 2024

Something to peruse whilst you dig deeper into your cheese selection

Hi all, I hope you have had the merriest of festive weeks, and are now enjoying the Winterlude, sometimes known as Twixtmas, or the Merrineum. A time to pause, eat and drink with impunity, and binge on classic movies. It’s also a good time to reflect on the past year and set intentions for the next, which is why I thought you might appreciate a top ten of my writings from 2024, in case you missed any. A side effect of creating this list is that it’s interesting for me to see which posts were most appreciated by you, as this helps me to zoom in on what you would presumably like more of in 2025.

Of course, many of the top posts were from The Word is Woman, but I’ve already done a round-up of those when we celebrated the 50th edition!

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So, without further ado, load yourself up a cracker with that fancy brie, and let’s get started on a round-up of all the other posts from 2024 (and there were over 100 of them!)…

(the paywall is lifted on them all, by the way, so do feel free to share with your friends!)

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At number 10 in our chart, it’s this post from back in March, partly inspired by the referendum in Ireland on amending the constitution to remove the word ‘mother’, partly by the Victorian photographs of ‘hidden mothers’ (and I got to them via the missing Kate Middleton and the conspiracy theories about doctored photos, remember that?). This post clocked up 6.6 thousand views.

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In at 9, is this post in which I explored language changes in the world of menstruation, breastfeeding and birth, and explained why I think words are so vitally important. At the time, Elspeth Duemmer Wrigley was being sued for saying, amongst other things, ‘only women menstruate’ - the case against her was then dropped. 7.21 thousand people read this one.

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The post in 8th place is a recent one, where I shared that a SAR (subject access request) I put in to La Leche League GB had revealed that the organisation had removed my books from their recommended reading list, and from their website shop. I’ve asked them for an apology and I will bring you news when I have it. 7.27k of you read this post.

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The 7th most read post was this one, written on the eve of the publication of the Cass review and explaining why I feel that those in the maternity world who capitulate with language changes are responsible for the harm being done to children and young people by so-called ‘gender medicine’. Just under 8 thousand of you read this one.

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At 6th place on the leader board, 8.2 thousand of you read this post about the Metro newspaper’s tweet that J.K.Rowling had ‘sadly opened her mouth again’ and attacked Sky news for describing a male murderer who had also put his neighbours cat in a blender as a woman. The post is a defence of both truth and the right to speak the truth.

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At 5 in our charts, this post outlines some of the ongoing online bullying and harrassment I’d been experiencing, and good news of what now feels like something of a personal tipping point, an apology from Doula UK. Just under 9 thousand of you read this one.

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In at 4 with 9.2 thousand views, this piece about pronoun use, written when Janice Turner and Andrew Doyle were both under fire for platforming trans woman Debbie Hayton and calling him ‘she’, tries to tread a nuanced path through everyone’s understandably barren field of fucks.

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My 3rd most popular post of 2024 with 13 thousand views was this one written after Saorirse Ronan raised the issue of how women have to think about their safety ‘all the time’, on the Graham Norton show. How could people be applauding her bravery on one hand, and declaring that sex and women’s safe spaces didn’t matter, on the other, I wondered…

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At 2, with 14.2 thousand views, this post about the resignation of the founder of La Leche League, Marian Tompson, over the issue of admitting men who wished to lactate and breastfeed to LLL meetings. In her resignation letter, she wrote, “This shift from following the norms of Nature, which is the core of mothering through breastfeeding, to indulging the fantasies of adults, is destroying our organization.”

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But in 2024, by far and away my most popular post was my expose of the BBC’s false reporting on ‘trans milk’ - read by over 35 thousand people. I’m actually really proud that I was able to dig into the story and get to the truth and I’m grateful for the platform of substack for being a space where such journalism is possible, in these times of slightly ‘alternative facts’. Eventually, of course, the BBC were forced to admit that their report was ‘misleading’ and ‘inaccurate’.

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So it seems like the posts you’ve appreciated the most in 2024 are those that question, probe and expose. Those that say the unsayable, and at the same time work hard to analyse why we find ourselves in this place where so many people are afraid to speak. I hope to up my game on this in 2025 and bring you more of the same, with bells on.

2024 has been an intense year for me, as alongside this substack I’ve written a brand new book, Ultra Processed Women, which is out in April. (Please do preorder it if you can, as preorders really help in lots of ways!) I’m currently considering starting up a whole new substack where I can focus on the topic of ultra processed food and women’s health, with explorations of the impact of UPF and other ‘processed’ aspects of our current world, alongside practical suggestions, videos, recipes, podcasts and more on ways we can all ‘unprocess’ our lives. If you would be interested in this, please let me know in the comments.

But please know how much I appreciate your support here on this substack, and that I intend to keep questioning, probing, exposing and speaking truth to power here in my own style, for as long as is needed. Those of you who are paid subscribers, I literally could not have done it without you. Those of you who can’t pay but who support me any way with the odd ‘coffee’, or just by sharing my writing and encouraging others to subscribe, I also really really appreciate you! Thanks to all of you.

All that remains is for me to wish you the absolute best time as you celebrate the end of one year and the start of another, and send you much love and gratitude for being such wonderful readers and supporters. See you on the other side! Milli x