A talk with Sarah Jane Baker

A talk given by Sarah Jane Baker to Westminster Council’s LGBT network, held on the day of the For Women Scotland Supreme Court judgment.

That’s right, whilst terfs were living it up in the pubs around Westminster celebrating the Supreme Court Judgment, I sat in an airless internal room listening to the story of Sarah Jane (formerly Alan) Baker’s life. I have previously written a profile so won’t go over too much of the ground covered there. Westminster City Archives were hosting and his girlfriend was sat alongside him, their Jack Russell sat faithfully on his lap. He was there to discuss his memoir Transgender Behind Prison Walls and the current state of things.

Baker began by telling us that his connection to Westminster was twofold, in the past he had been a rent boy, having to sleep rough on its streets. His current connection was political, leading marches and the like, name-checking the politicians Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Nadia Whittome and Angela Eagle. Trans Pride was also important and Trans Kids Deserve Better were the ‘hardest working activists in London’ (i.e. the teens who released thousands of crickets at the 2024 LGB Alliance Conference). He identified with them because he had been a trans kid himself but had not had the vocabulary back then to express it.

A reading

Baker did a reading from Shaun Attwood’s book, which he was interviewed for, called Sitdowns with Female Gangsters: Real Conversations with the World’s Most Dangerous Women. ‘That’s validation,’ Baker joked. The section of the book he wanted to read out pertained to Attwood’s view of him being a ‘trans gangster’, who had to turn to violence after suffering ‘horrific torture’ in prison, which included the removal of his testicles by his own hand.

Being a ‘trans woman’ in a male prison was no easy ride, due to being victim to acts of extreme violence, as well as verbal insults and spitting, etc. None of this violence ever put Baker off being who he wanted to be though, in fact it had only made him more determined. Baker had wanted to get the op whilst in prison but the Gender Identity Clinic said he required two years of living on the outside ‘as a female’ before that was possible, which was obviously impossible when he was serving a life sentence for attempted murder. The prison authorities also refused to allow Baker to take oestrogen and so, frustrated by testosterone, which he regarded an ‘alien intruder’, Baker literally took matters into his own hands. Although it was two o’clock in the morning, it was no spur of the moment decision, but following extensive research. Baker had taken painkillers in advance, per rectum, every four hours over the previous four days. He had also marked the places on his groin where the incisions needed to be made.

Removing his testicles was a political act, he’d told Attwood. It was about bodily autonomy. As long as one didn’t use his body to harm someone else, one should be allowed to cut, burn or tattoo one’s own body.

He had spent thirty years in prison and had previously been a rent boy, a robber and a drug dealer. But he is also a classical violinist, an artist, journalist and political activist. Ultimately though, inside the prison system was where Baker became a ‘trans gangster, ruling her wing with a mixture of bribery, corruption and swift violence,’ said Baker, still quoting from Attwood’s book. Baker believes he has a ‘female brain’ but had been socialised in male environments. He is also ‘pansexual’, not caring about sex or gender. The only thing he cares about now, is: ‘Are you kind?’

Born in Brixton, South London, in 1969, Baker had eleven siblings from his father’s five different partners, three of whom lived with him in a large townhouse. His father was physically abusive to Baker’s mother, leading to her abandoning him when he was just four years old. Baker describes his father as a ‘wicked bastard’ who would punch small children with all his force. He once knocked Baker’s teeth out. As a result, he was understandably a traumatised child, bed wetting, which in turn resulted in more victimisation; having to drag his wet mattress and sleep in the bathroom. This also meant that Baker was often present when adults were using the toilet, causing him embarrassment, worthlessness and confusion about his identity. In spite of this, Baker learned to play the violin but also developed borderline personality disorder, though BPD helps him focus on tasks. He also began experiencing suicidal thoughts from around the age of five, which would also manifest as self-harm, burning his skin with matches and cutting himself. From the age of nine, he began running away from home, a pattern of behaviour so regular that he was put into a secure children’s home, which he also escaped from.

Reflections

It wasn’t all bad though, Baker suddenly assured us, deliberately lightening the mood. He now sees himself as human rights activist, which was a strange turn of events for him, having never cared about human beings before. There was a long pause. ‘I kidnapped and tortured somebody and got seven years for that and whilst in prison I tried to murder somebody, who hurt me,’ Baker admitted. We all nodded empathetically, as if we understood. Baker said he deserved every single day of the time he served for those crimes and that the victims hadn’t deserved it. It was his borderline personality disorder which had gotten in the way of him being able to apply ethics or any sense of morality to the actions he had taken. Becoming a Christian in 2000 allowed him to navigate his way round a moral framework. He didn’t convert to gain parole, since he spent a further 19 years in prison after that. It was also a way of dealing with loneliness and the various drugs which came his way inside prison.

‘Being transgender in prison wasn’t hard,’ said Baker and paused. ‘Being a human being in prison is hard,’ and went onto qualify that your personal circumstances didn’t make much difference, and believes it doesn’t help with rehabilitation or self-esteem (although his own example seems to contradict this). Since coming out of prison, Baker has had a nightmare with high rents and ‘cameras everywhere that I go’, though he sounded quite pleased about the latter.

Baker reflected that at the current time there was a growing right wing element, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK (who, in August 2025, announced men could go into women’s prisons – hurrah!) and Tommy Robinson.

On the ‘punch a terf in the face’ comment

At London Trans Pride in 2023, Baker said something he wasn’t proud of. He said what he said because he was really angry. Baker did seem quite proud though, I have to say, of the consternation caused by his ‘punch a terf in the face’ comment and that the likes of J.K. Rowling had mentioned him (which is like hitting the jackpot in terms of Twitter attention). Kellie-Jay Keen spread lies about transgender people, saying that they were evil and wanted to invade women’s spaces. Baker paused dramatically again; he was going to use the women’s toilets in the local pub he was about to visit, so nur.

Baker wasn’t going to shut up. There had been a 28 percent increase in attacks on the LGBTQIA community here in London for a start.

What his girlfriend thought

Baker then handed over to his girlfriend to talk about him. She was used to people describing him as ‘legendary’. In terms of his criminal history, she reflected it was often the case that people didn’t see the complexity or know how to make sense of such things. The thing that someone has done is not the total sum of that person. Most of us don’t know what we would do, or wouldn’t do, or what we were capable of, in difficult circumstances, like in war. (This was a sensible answer, I think, and find it hard to disagree.) She also knew what it was like to be othered, in terms of her identifying as a ‘gay woman’. Hmm.

The girlfriend felt that Baker was very talented yet didn’t feel the need to be competitive with others. Nor did he put other people down to make himself feel better (terfs excluded, I suppose) and was very happy to share the space for other people to talk. I may be utterly naive but the couple appeared to have a nice relationship with each other, with genuine affection between them.

The Supreme Court Judgment

Baker then wanted to talk politics. The Supreme Court Judgment, no less. It all got very sketchy, as neither he, nor his girlfriend, appeared to be completely certain of the details. I’m not going to pretend to be an expert, but there again I wasn’t invited to educate Westminster Council staff on the matter. They got the basics though, it was something to do with Equality Act and that having a GRC did not make a difference to how you were recognised in law with regards to sex. Naturally Baker’s girlfriend did not recognise the need for single sex spaces. Baker remonstrated that the law was being used to discriminate against ‘a community’ which was only one percent of the population. It wasn’t fair that such a small cohort was being ‘bombarded’ but Baker had to admit it did have its ‘monsters’ and that he wasn’t representative of the whole trans community. Oops.

No, Baker was just representative of himself and he didn’t want to end up in a concentration camp with a pink triangle on a pair of pyjamas. He felt that the Terf Island tag was giving the UK a bad name internationally, a bit like Trump and Musk reflected badly on the US. He was looking forward to the next London Trans Pride, which was getting bigger year by year.

Question & Answer

How does your Christianity fit in with being transgender?

Interestingly Baker reflected it was harder to tell people that he was a Christian. He wasn’t sure about God but did believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ with all his heart and soul. He wasn’t perfect but was trying to sin less and less every day. He was sorry about the person he kidnapped and tortured. And the person he tried to murder in prison. He couldn’t keep saying sorry though [if people didn’t accept it], especially to terfs, when the same were threatening to fire bomb his home, rape his girlfriend and kill his dog. Rowling in particular was a thorn in his side. Forgetting his Christian framework momentarily, Baker felt that people should be able to ‘do what they want’, including to say what you want, along as you didn’t hurt anyone. In prison you had to have your manners, if not, others would turn on you and you would end up with no friends. He was ‘worried’ this would happen to terfs, who didn’t give a fuck about abortion rights and domestic violence; all they cared about was the transgender issue.

As per usual for these things, it was time to bring up the murder of Brianna Ghey (though Baker did pronounce Ghey correctly, most of them don’t). Baker complained about the joke Rishi Sunak made during PMQs on the day that Ghey’s mother was in Parliament (though not actually in the House of Commons). He was also angry about Kellie-Jay Keen and her business selling T-shirts to angry old bitter women. Baker was sick of people coming up to him and calling him a paedophile and a monster. Trans people had always been here and would always be here. He was going to carry on being as ‘queer as fuck’. London was a great place for activism, whether it was trans-related groups, or groups like Palestine Action (which became proscribed a few months later). On the activist scene no one cares about his criminal past, they only cared about whether his heart was pure. He was trying to rebuild his reputation in the age of the internet, where nothing was forgotten.

Alan 'Sarah Jane' Baker, served 30 years in prison for violent crimes. Initially convicted of kidnap and torture, he was given extra time after trying to murder a cellmate. At a Trans+ Pride event in 2023, Baker told the crowd: 'If you see a TERF, punch them in the f****** face.' https://t.co/fG8UjQxiac

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 25, 2025

Responding to a compliment

Baker became quite enthused whilst being livestreamed. Referring to the parable of the adulterous woman (John 8, Verses 1 to 11), i.e: ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.’ The point of the parable being that Jesus pricks the conscience of the people, forcing them to reject the law of Moses. Baker didn’t think the story rang true, either as a real story or allegory, as ‘people weren’t like that’, feeling instead that the impulse for most was to bend towards ‘self-righteousness’. For example, there were a substantial number of terfs ringing up the employers of trans women and trans allies, trying to get them sacked, putting death threats on social media and trying to get people attacked on the street (which is something troons never do, obviously). This was all just because [some men] chose to wear a frock. All Baker was, was a human rights activist and not representative of anyone else, except himself. He felt (i.e. he hoped) he might be the most hated trans person in the UK, which was exactly as he likes it.

Baker was also angry about left wing organisations which had abandoned the issue of rent caps. So many people leaving prison could not cope with the cost of rent and simply ended up going back in. As a Christian he was called to love his enemies …

What is wrong with Candace Owens?

Someone wanted to know. Specifically, why was Candace Owens obsessed with the idea that Bridgette Macron was formerly a man called Jean-Michel Trogneux (the Macrons have now filed a US defamation case against Owens). Owens had apparently published a six hour podcast on the matter. The questioner reflected that Owens was also a Christian and self-righteous. When the woman finally shut up, Baker answered that Owens had turned to the subject as she had no skill in talking about serious issues.

He’s a hypocrite

The participant who was livestreaming Baker reported that the feed had been taken down because it had been reported within seconds. Baker expressed no surprise, feeling ‘they’ were watching and gave him an opportunity to tell us – offline – that he is, in fact, a bit of a hypocrite, returning yet again to the violent speech he gave on 8 July 2023. Baker said he was put on a trial for ‘hate speech’ (the specific charge was encouraging the commission of the offence of assault by beating, according to a BBC report) and found not guilty by the magistrate.

Giving evidence, Baker said she wished she could take the words back and that she had friends who were trans-exclusionary radical feminists.

She added: “I’ve never in my life used any physical violence against trans-exclusionary radical feminists. It wasn’t my finest hour; I am quite annoying but I don’t want people to be hurt because of something that I said.”

Sarah Jane Baker: Trans activist cleared of inciting violence, BBC News website, 31 August 2023

On the moment of conversion

Baker had been in Swaleside high security prison on the Isle of Sheppey, when he beseeched Jesus to make him a new person, describing it as a sudden dramatic physical awakening, electricity coursing through his body. Overnight his behaviour changed. Previous to that he had a high adjudication rate, claiming only Charles Bronson’s was higher. His fundamental realisation was that he did not want people to fear and hate him anymore, he wanted to love and be loved. He wanted rebirth. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to be rid of the guilt and shame he had felt his whole life and realised he could only do that once he had moved on from his own trauma.

Nowadays he has a much better life and makes art every day. The girlfriend intervened to let us know that Baker had encouraged her to do art also, even though she had had no confidence originally, which had eventually lead to her exhibiting at The Royal Academy. Baker has exhibited in Brighton but finds it difficult to let go of his pieces as he likes them so much. ‘Anyway, you’ve had enough of me waffling on,’ said Baker. We had and it ended there.

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Post script

Baker showed more powers of self-reflection than I normally see from a trans activist, because his history of trauma is real, whereas the worst thing academics and the like have normally experienced is not getting their own way. I also think men like Baker are different to most trans activists in that they are not really motivated by queer theory; the ones who are, only seem to know that one way of looking at the world and utterly obsessed with this ideology. Truthfully though, such men such aren’t outliers to the movement and mainstream trans activists merely look on with nothing critical to say, regardless of how inappropriate the behaviour may be from these individuals, examples of which are now so numerous you can take your pick. Even slam dunk cases, like that of Stephen Ireland (founder of Pride In Surrey and convicted for raping a 12 year old boy), failed to draw any ire from the professional activist class.

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