by
Laura Webb
“Live and let live” is a motto passed to me from my grandparents: it’s important, as “we’re all in the same boat”. These are not overtly Christian teachings but they align themselves with a will to help each other and be kind. As the influence of that wiser generation fades, we are slowly faced with a darkening shadow.
At first, I think we were all complacent. Deep down, in crowds, with all of our lessons and painful history, we DO know better, don’t we? Part of my family being Jewish, I had additional learnings and teachings passed to me; and the most sobering was that evil only becomes powerful if people don’t stand up against it.
We didn’t. And in 2016, we left the EU in a disorganised spin. Those who always disliked it swore it was only just one main issue — sovereignty — that they wanted, and they refused to answer the questions of the price to be paid. Our right-wing politicians at first brushed off having any wider agendas, but in the USA, Trump didn’t.
Although extremism is not a well-defined mental health disorder, its descent into physical harm is, and is well documented. Post 9/11, In the UK we have had to come to grips with this: the Prevent programme has attempted to deal with people who have become potentially dangerous. Its scope is somewhat limited and mostly works to “fix” those who have already been radicalised rather than stop it in the first place.
Far from prevention, the Tory government has openly taken up a radical methodology, and is turning it, with far bigger resource, on an unlimited group of people: enter the “war on woke,” which was never mentioned on the original Brexit manifesto.
The LGBTQ community has not had the easiest time. All of its social and legislative progress made in the past 40 years has had to be fought for step by step, with court cases, studies and evidence. Canterbury, especially, has had a quietly troubled history. Until its Pride was started, LGBTQ events had real issues getting any foothold in the city: running events had to be done covertly for fear of the venue being pulled, or being targeted by religious extremists.
But progress there has been. Even the head of our Church on England is now seeing that fighting all bigotry and hatred is a job Christians need to do.
And it’s a big task now. Hatred and bigotry is now normalised. We are encouraged open our homes openly to white Ukrainian refugees and yet keep non-white refugees firmly locked up for “public safety”, astonishingly, while we have a massive shortage of workers.
Toilets appear to suddenly be the UK’s most important battleground. For years I was obviously wrong thinking improving accessibility and hygiene were what mattered. But (according to the government) there is a dangerous army of new predators being created to attack us women.
I cannot say I understand the LGBTQ community or politics in any great depth. But all I do know is that no member of that community has caused me any harm. In my day-to-day dealings and wanderings I meet plenty of diverse people — men, women and, occasionally, in-between — and I have to say we’re all odd in our own beautiful little ways, and never has just being “different” been a danger. Do I care socially for all people I meet? No. Do I “get” all people? No. Do some people irritate me sometimes? Oh god, yes. Does all that really affect my life? Rarely. Live and let live.
I grew up in the 1970s, and can remember the bigots who wouldn’t be around non-white people, saying they felt unsafe, and who also said LGBTQ folk were unsafe to be around too. The more extreme ones wanted more: they went out abusing and beating these groups up. I refuse to use the actual terms, but Asian bashing and LGBTQ bashing was real and awful. And now it’s back.
One thing I learned back then was to observe the typical sadistic behaviour set of an unprovoked attacker. It has specific markers, starting with dehumanisation, singling out personal features or differences, then claiming the victim is somehow a threat, justifying abuse and violence.
Debate
Roll forward to 2023. On June 12, our local Labour MP, Rosie Duffield, proudly took part in a Commons petition debate, continuing her years of support for claims by extreme lobbying groups and individuals that trans recognition is a threat to women’s and girls’ safety.
As part of the debate, inflammatory statements and deliberately emotional pitches were made by a cabal of very determined MPs wanting legislation rolled back, with little or no actual supporting evidence given. What was quite sad was that no trans people appeared to be present to defend themselves.
It’s all too predictable that an unelected prime minister would opportunistically seize on yet another baseless and toxified media debate in order to deflect from the real issues the country faces — and the newspapers and extremists are loving it.
But Ms Duffield, a Labour, yes, Labour, MP aligning openly with a far-right Tory government to have legislation changed based on little or no evidence, without elected mandate, seems bizarre.
Even more disturbing is that her alignment is with a Tory party that is now openly courting extreme “conservative” movements in the US such as National Conservatism. Such organisations are now openly working to overturn women’s reproductive rights, and sexual freedom worldwide.
In April, the Labour MP teamed up with evangelical Christian Tory MP Miriam Cates to, (in the words of the Daily Express), “warn that extremist trans activists must not be allowed to wipe away a century of hard-won protections.” Ms Cates was the first keynote speaker at National Conservatism’s UK gathering in May.
The long string of connected people Ms Duffield openly supports, both in real life and on Twitter, tells a story of a very deeply held belief, strong enough to see past any secondary effects. Her arguments for the legislation are made using the seemingly innocuous pitch that all groups will still be able to peacefully and “safely’” co-exist — as long as there is segregation.
But a few of days ago ITV did a small bit of news about the cost of living. As part of this, they featured a mother, who, as it was later revealed, happened to be a trans woman. The news story wasn’t about trans people, didn’t mention trans issues: it was about the cost of living for everyday people, families, and parents.
In fact, it didn’t involve Ms Duffield in any way, shape or form.
But she felt a need to get herself involved in the matter. Sharing a post on Twitter that openly misgendered the mother, as well as attacking ITV for calling the woman a mother, was not enough: the MP added the insult that any woman adopting a child she had not born herself was still a real mother, just not any trans woman.
The mother in the interview does not have backing from international institutions, nor does she enjoy a parliamentary police protection unit.
But as a direct result of Ms Duffield’s unprovoked and deliberate singling-out of one person’s momentary right to peacefully identify as they are legally allowed to, simply to discuss an important matter that affects her, the mother in the interview is now the target of both an invasive far-right media assault and a far darker personal targeting campaign of LGBTQ people at a time when that has seen real violence and murder of people in the UK and worldwide.
Even more chilling, later another MP in the Commons was calling for social services to investigate the mother, suggesting, again without evidence, that there was some hazard to her parenting her child.
The sad footnote to it all is that in Rosie Duffield’s own county, and even her constituency, a stream of young women and girls are being hospitalised due to drink spiking, and malicious injections. Where was her intervention on this far more important matter? Don’t they matter?
Implications
To personally attack any decent, law-abiding person online without provocation simply for being “different” is, frankly, sickening. There is no excuse. To me, it shows Ms Duffield’s basis of argument was never about women’s safety: it was simply hatred, bigotry and sadism, albeit a new nationalised form of it; pursuing politicised viewpoints and legislation based on your personal dislike shows not only a poor professional standard but a radicalised descent into a state of moral abandon.
Yes, this is the UK in 2023. But what are the implications?
As the woman didn’t self-identify as trans at the time, was looking a little “different” enough for Ms Duffield to make the attack?
Or did Ms Duffield know — and deliberately target her?
Is anyone politicians dislike now a legitimate target for personal abuse?
Do all us women now have to be more careful to avoid similar attacks?
Are androgynous or masculine-looking woman safe?
Should such women now keep a low profile in society to avoid attack?
If any woman says anything in public, does she first have to be vetted?
The whole thing is utterly stupid, negative, and pointless.
The awful murder of Brianna Ghey shows that a trans woman does not even need to look “different” to become a target. Who’s next?
Extremism is dangerous. I believe that to keep society safe, Rosie Duffield needs to deal with her harmful views.
Anyone who cannot control and take measure of their own personal prejudices is not emotionally mature or safe enough to care for the welfare of others, in my view, and political standards need to change to exclude such inflammatory views.
https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/06/30/rosie-duffield-trans-woman-itv-news/
Laura Webb
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What a great article! Thank you Laura.
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