Thought for the day, 17 April 2025

Some reflections, and I hope they won't come across the wrong way.

I haven't yet read the UK judgement, so I can't comment much. I'll just say that courts are there to interpret the law, not say whether they like it or personally agree with it - and sometimes that means upholding laws that are no longer fit for purpose.

For that reason, I don't think it's right to characterise this as a moral judgement on trans people - even if TERFs are crowing and trans people are hurting.

But I do have some broader comments.

My observation is that TERFs fall into different camps. Some are good old-fashioned populists who'll jump on any bandwagon that involves hating on people - because it's a time-honoured way for shitty people to build careers.

But others are (typically older) feminists, many of whom are lesbians. This is where I want to choose my words carefully.

Many of these older women who now hate trans people, and trans women especially, used to be reviled themselves - and maybe still are. They don't look like women are meant to look, dress like women are meant to dress, talk or defer or be helpless and pretty and high-pitched or whatever women have traditionally been told we must be. Society shut the door against them, so they kicked the door down.

And I love that about them: women my age followed them right through that bloody door, in gratitude and celebration.

But it's probably fair to say that feminism hasn't always done well at solidarity. White women vs women of colour. Straight vs gay. Middle class vs working class. Maybe that's because when you've fought so hard, given so much to the fight, there's a price - and maybe a temptation to batten down the hatches to preserve whatever you've won. There's got to be a bunch of feelings attached to that.

The thing I find so difficult to understand is the glee. Maybe it's possible to take different intellectual or ethical positions on how we create a society that welcomes all genders. I'm pro-diversity AF, and even I think from time to time, this isn't straightforward.

But the only way through what is not straightforward is with honesty, decency, patience and - above all - good faith. You start from the position that everyone deserves a seat at humanity's table. Farting around with the ordering of cutlery is a distant second priority.

Instead, we have second wave feminists outside a courtroom, crowing and laughing that their fellow citizens, their workmates and neighbours and family members, now can't take a piss in a public toilet.

And I don't know how to offer you a better metaphor for our diminishment - as societies, as feminists, and as human beings - than that.

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