“You ‘have to giggle or you’ll cry’ to novel, terrible levels when being transgender in Britain. You can be sure that I’m not being flippant before I mention all of Rishi Sunak. I don’t mean ‘laugh,’ as in anything is even remotely funny. I’m talking about when your jaw is open and you scoff a little, as if you don’t believe what you just heard. The laugh is actually a desperate attempt to refute the ‘things,’ and you can see fear in your eyes at the same time. That sort of chuckle.
I was not surprised to learn that our prime minister had disparaged trans people in order to gain affordable political points, nor was it surprising that Sunak and Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, and others had made the same accusation against Starmer. Since the mother of a murdered trans girl was present, it wasn’t even surprising that it might have happened. Any transgender people who has lived in Britain over the past six-odd years of relentless, coordinated, cynical, and extremely loud attacks on not only our legal protections but also our very society cannot possibly be surprised.
The wider response surprised me and gave rise to that scoff-so-you-don’t-break feeling. Starmer appeared shocked. It was widely acknowledged by social editors that the prime minister was in a bad position. Yet within Downing Street, for the rest of the day at least, this study was heard. Everyone responded appropriately when a strong people figure said something demeaning, inaccurate, and insulting about trans people for the first time in years. Beyond a few publications paraphrasing No. 10’s defense of the comment, the consensus was: this was unacceptable, meriting the kind of outrage that calls for an apology in public, and unbecoming of civil discourse in modern democracy. Instead of glossing over or praising evidence of anti-trans bias as ‘common sense.’
I thought, ‘Hang on a second, I don’t understand.’ How can this seem incorrect to everyone when senior Tory and Labour politicians have been claiming that a woman won’t be able to conceive for several months? When someone briefly asks, ‘Can a woman have a penis?’ how can journalists and commentators respond without cringing? Moreover, ‘What is a woman?’ The investigators across this lush and pleasant land must have been asking the most urgent issues, right?
Where have you all been while we’ve been yelling into the hole about the consequences of unchecked anti-trans prejudice obsessing but some right-wing officials and their ‘gender-critical’ friends in the real world? Where was the condemnation in 2021 when Sajid Javid, the then-health minister, called it ‘total neglect of scientific fact’ that some men—relatively some, of course —have cervixes? How can you criticize Sunak’s pitiful attempt at humor while simultaneously framing its core as a worthy and urgent point of discussion?
To objectify trans bodies for democratic gain is unacceptable then, it wasn’t suitable then, and it should never be acceptable to do so. This is because we are all thoroughly human, with our minds, fears, hopes, ideas, people, work, histories, prospects and fundamental rights. In no civilized setting does our society be in question. No more than anyone else, we are not good sport for PMQs bants. However, it appeared that the majority of politics and the media had implicitly concurred with us prior to Wednesday. Trans citizens have been compelled to live with this harsh and unsettling fact for many years, and it has been nothing short of a living hell.
On one stage, I understand. All at once understood that the presence of a trans man in congress that day made them vulnerable to misogynistic rhetoric. I don’t want to think about how ill Esther Ghey might have been. To provide this piece context, I feel like punching a wall because I even have to explain her and her family, who are in desperate need of being allowed to grieve in peace. However, it cannot be disregarded—and wasn’t by everyone—that if Brianna’s mother had not been present on that particular day, Sunak would have continued with his offensive jibe unnoticed. As usual, it would have dehumanized company.
I tried to make sense of it all for the rest of the day by exchanging emails with friends and fellow trans reporters while sorting laundry, cooking basil spaghetti for my six- and two-year-olds, and going to the grocery store. The perplexing protest, no Sunak using us as his party’s favorite political football.
I received assistance getting to the truth from folks who were smarter than me. It’s not really ‘wrong’ if insulting and taking advantage of a defenseless majority when someone else might be there is bad, is it? The fundamental decision to treat transgender people as though we don’t matter or are not truly ‘real’ will continue to be made. The true error made by Sunak was to humiliate himself and everyone else present. Consider the logic behind dangerous male banter: According
to their logic, telling misogynistic jokes is acceptable, but doing so in front of your girlfriend, wife, or mother will make her react inappropriately. As long as you choose your visitors, the information is acceptable. The socially appropriate audience for trans people’s humanity, in my opinion, is PMQs, which anyone with an internet-enabled screen can enjoy.
There is at least one additional explanation for the unusual despair and the hints of genuine grief. Simply put, it connected us all to Esther Ghey, who was not only a family but also an incredibly sympathetic person. You must convince Tories and their allies that we are only an abstract idea if they want to continue using and mistreating transgender people. They must take care not to tell you that this lie is simply that—a lie—in order for it to endure.
The worst thing they can do—the thing that may really make them regret it—is to make it clear that we are, in fact, people. We have mothers like Esther and fathers like Peter Spooner, Brianna’s father, and we are all just regular people who shouldn’t be insulted, taken advantage of, or the subject of a debate, regardless of who is present.
Freelance blogger Freddy McConnell
