Growing hostility

It has been a weekend when I have been noticing quite a few trans people, mainly trans women expressing their concerns about what seems to be going on around trans people at the moment, with several expressing that they wondered whether or not they would have come out of the closet if they had known that the level of hostility presently being stoked up was going to happen, though none of them were saying they regretted transitioning.

It seems this is something where all minorities are seeing an increase in hostility. I was interested that it is not just trans people who are feeling more unsafe. Chris Bryant, the Labour MP who is gay, said in an interview with Nick Robinson that he felt significantly less safe now than he did a decade ago and that he attributed this to the culture wars that this government was promoting. There was an unpleasant anti-semitic incident in Oxford Street last week when a bus was subject to abuse.  The way in which asylum seekers are dehumanised as “migrants” and labelled and almost objectified as economic migrants.

All of these minorities seem to the subject of misinformation about their circumstances. IN my case, being transgender, the gender critics are peddling that is self ID were to be allowed it would enable trans women to invade and use single sex women’s spaces. Allowing self ID would not do that as transwomen are already entitled under the equality act to access single sex women’s spaces. It is not new and there is already a power for single sex spaces to claim an exemption where appropriate.

The trouble is that gender critical theory is being promoted as if the existing rights do not exist. What is actually being sought is the reduction, the rolling back of rights already in existence by promoting fear. Organisations such as the WHRC seek to eliminate trans rights and the very recognition of trans people. Mallory Moore has written an article* for Medium entitled WHRC and “trans genocide” in which she comments that  WHRC (Women’s Human Rights Campaign) and other groups openly discuss their desire to eliminate transgenderism which they describe as a practice. What these organisations really want is to roll back or repeal the rights transgender people already have gained in International Human Rights Law and UK Law.  I find these attacks and arguments concerning. 

My experience generally is different and I suspect so is the experience of many trans people. Most women are accepting or at worst tolerant of trans women. I recall that in most surveys there is a majority of cis women that who are willing to accept trans women as women. My fear is that unless these extreme views based on misinformation are not rebuffed they will gain support and cause radicalisation.

*Mallory Moore https:/chican3ry.medium.com/whrc-and-trans-genocide-8f73ad6c0677