Maddison Wilson
Maddison Wilson, a male who identifies as a transgender woman, was charged in February 2025 with multiple sex offences against children. Despite court documents alleging Wilson attacked a girl “with your penis”, The Daily Telegraph reports that the official court charge sheet identifies Wilson as “female”. Wearing a pink headband, black tracksuit and white trainers during the hearing at Southampton Magistrates’ Court, Wilson did not enter any pleas but confirmed preferred pronouns of “she/her” in the dock.
The charges are rape of a five year old girl and causing or inciting a girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity. Both are alleged to have taken place in Hull in 2011. Wilson, aged 37, is also charged with sexually assaulting a three year old boy and causing or inciting a boy under 13 to engage in sexual activity, with these offences alleged to have taken place in Southampton between 2017 and 2020.
Wilson is due to appear at Southampton Crown Court for a plea hearing later in February.
*Update 26 February 2025*
The BBC reports that the charges against Wilson were formally discontinued prior to the plea hearing after Southampton Crown Court was informed of the defendant’s death. A spokeswoman for Hampshire Coroner’s Office said the provisional cause of death, on 14 February, was hanging. A full inquest has been listed to be heard on 20 January 2026.
As was pointed out by various X/Twitter users, the judge at Southampton Crown Court referred to the defendant as “Mr Wilson” yet the BBC article referred to “Ms Wilson” and used female pronouns. This common bias (i.e. referring to male offenders as “women” because that is how the court referred to them) is used by many media outlets to justify colluding with rapists and other violent offenders’ demands re names/pronouns. If media were truly neutral on this issue, surely they would take into account that the complainants (in this case a three year old and five year old child) would be unlikely to have referred to their rapist as “Ms Wilson” – let alone the impact on them of seeing the BBC use female pronouns for their male abuser.
Image credit: Daily Echo/Solent News via Daily Mail
Media reports
BBC Trans woman charged with rape dies before court date https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y920n0zj4o archive
LBC https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/trans-woman-rape-maddison-wilson-portsmouth-southampton/ archive
Daily Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/13/trans-woman-raped-young-girl-court-told/ archive
Western Standard https://www.westernstandard.news/international/court-documents-show-uk-transgender-woman-with-a-penis-faces-child-sex-charges/62222 archive
Daily Mail https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14394249/transgender-child-rapist-charged-police-woman.html archive
Portsmouth News https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/crime/alleged-portsmouth-paedophile-trans-woman-5003421 archive
Daily Echo https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/24930914.woman-accused-sex-assault-children-appears-court/ archive