On 13 January 2013, Burchill wrote an article for "The Observer" defending Suzanne Moore after a reference by Moore to transsexuals had been greeted with a great deal of criticism. In Burchill's view, it showed the "chutzpah" of transsexuals to have their "cock cut off and then plead special privileges as women". There were a number of objections to her writing from members of the transgender community and non-transgender community alike. The editor of "The Observer", John Mulholland, responded on the comments page to what he described as "many emails protesting about this piece" and stated that he would be looking into the issue. Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone, formerly a junior Minister for Women and Equalities, called for the dismissal of Burchill and Mulholland in response to the piece. The article was withdrawn from the website the following day and replaced with a message from Mulholland, but reappeared on the "Telegraph" website. On 18 January, "The Observer"s Readers Editor Stephen Pritchard defended the decision to remove the article from the newspaper's website, quoting the editor who took that decision as saying "This clearly fell outside what we might consider reasonable. The piece should not have been published in that form. I don't want the "Observer" to be conducting debates on those terms or with that language. It was offensive, needlessly. We made a misjudgment and we apologise for that".