The storm that has been gathering within the SNP over transgender rights has now blown up at Westminster with the sacking of Joanna Cherry MP from her front bench role as Spokesperson on Justice and Home Affairs.
Author: Debbie Hayton
Physics teacher and trade unionist.
The trans debate can be a nasty one. And when women (and it usually is women) have the courage to speak out, they face being shamed and silenced. Their crime apparently is ‘transphobia’. But all too often, this word no longer means the hatred or fear of trans people like me. Instead, it refers to the simple act of disagreeing with an ideology that insists men and women are defined, not by their biology, but by feelings. Dame Jenni Murray, Professor Kathleen Stock, Joanna Cherry MP, Julie Bindel, and many other women have been hauled before a kangaroo court and been found guilty.
What sex are you? It’s a simple question and one that most of those filling out this year’s census will answer quickly before moving on. But for others, the decision to ask this – rather than allow people to state what gender they think they are – is one laced with controversy.
Schools in January are usually full of life, but not this year. At the start of my day, I walk alone down silent corridors to an empty classroom. There are no children lined up outside; the bustle of school life is gone and the only voice I hear is my own.
Debbie Hayton sitúa la denuncia contra Lidia Falcón en el contexto de la campaña previa a la presentación por el gobierno de una mal llamada Ley Trans. «Estas leyes ofrecen pocos beneficios a los transexuales como yo, que ya estamos bien protegidos por la legislación existente. En España, como en Reino Unido, las personas transexuales pueden incluso cambiar su sexo legal, si así lo desean. Pero eso es insuficiente para los grupos de presión LGBTQ que buscan sacudir radicalmente la sociedad».
Lidia Falcón O’Neill is a legendary figure in Spanish politics. Half a century ago, she stood up to Franco as head of a cell in the communist Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia. In 1974, this opposition led to her being brutally tortured:
‘When she fainted they untied her and laid her on the ground. They woke her up with a bucket of water. … She stayed on the ground, wet, for hours, until they took her down to the cell. … On the sixth day, the torturers could not continue with the same sessions. They could no longer hang her on the wall because she was rapidly losing consciousness because of it. So, when she woke up, she kept getting punched and kicked while lying on the ground.’
Alejandro Torrús writing in Público (translated into English)
Joe Biden has wasted little time grabbing rights from women and girls across America. On day one, he signed an Executive Order on ‘Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation’. This is being hailed as a pivotal moment for transgender rights. But it’s nothing of the sort.
We’ve got to get real about the dangers of allowing vicious sex offenders with male anatomy to serve their sentences alongside vulnerable female prisoners. They are violent predators who pose a clear threat to women.
To those who believe that transwomen are women, the answer is simple: transwomen must serve custodial sentences in the female prison estate.
Objections can be dismissed as transphobic attempts to exclude one type of women just because they had the misfortune to be born with the wrong set of genitals.
If you haven’t already read Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage, you should. Shrier scrutinised the transgender craze that is ravaging the lives of teenage girls. She asked questions others avoid and talked to survivors who now regret the hasty and unwise choices they made as children; decisions that left some with mastectomy scars. The Economist listed it as a Book of the Year.
Debbie Hayton 