On Saturday, in Trafalgar Square, a man called for violence against women. Specifically, it seems, intellectually curious women, those unruly harridans who refuse to bow down to certain beliefs. Punch them ‘in the fucking face’, he bellowed into a mic. The heaving mob around him cheered. An electric current of hate seemed to flow through their ranks. Some punched the air, others laughed, taking delight in their leader’s invitation to hit ‘bad’ women.
It had the vibe of a witch-hunt. This is what medieval mob gatherings must have felt like, when pious, pitchfork-wielding men headed out to apprehend ‘demonic’ women. Only this 2023 mob were not wearing witchfinders’ hats or waving the Bible about. No, they sported multicoloured threads, had pink and orange hair and were all wrapped up in rainbow flags. For that rallying cry for violence against a group of women was made at Trans Pride.
The speaker was Sarah Jane Baker. He is a man who identifies as a woman. He is an ex-con too – he spent 30 years in jail for kidnap, torture and attempted murder. And yet here he was taking to the stage at Trans Pride – a gathering passionately backed by London mayor Sadiq Khan – where he made the case for slapping women who don’t support trans rights. He said he had intended to be ‘really fluffy’ at this event, but he changed his mind.
There it was, in plain sight, in supposedly progressive London: a man gleefully calling for the assault of women
‘Nah’, he said, ‘if you see a TERF punch them in the fucking face’. And there it was, in plain sight, in supposedly progressive London: a man gleefully calling for the assault of women.
Let’s be clear about what a TERF is. Ostensibly it’s an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist, but to many it seems to mean witch. A wicked woman who refuses to take the knee to the post-truth, post-science ideology of changeable sex. For a man to call for violence against women on the basis that they dare to question his belief system seems to me to be no different to when wife-beaters think they have the right to smack their spouse around because she ‘spoke back’. It feels like rank misogyny.
How could this take place in central London in broad daylight? It’s no good saying it was just one bloke sounding off. The crowd egged him on. They lapped up his sexist bile.
The organisers of Trans Pride made excuses for his comments. We do not ‘condone violence’, they said, but many in our community ‘hold a lot of rage and anger and they have the right to express that anger’. Imagine if someone made that kind of defence of a more typical man who said something like, ‘If you see a gossiping wife, punch her in the fucking face’. They’d be cancelled in an instant.
What’s more, this was no fringe event. Trans Pride is ‘joyful’ and ‘empowering’, gushed the mayor. ‘I will always be on your side’, he tweeted ahead of the event. Picture a Tory politician praising a public gathering of right-wing agitators, where one of those agitators subsequently said: ‘If you see an immigrant, punch them in the fucking face.’ He’d be on the ropes. The media would implicate him in that despicable act of incitement. Yet Khan just glides on.
Even when Khan and others did buck up the nerve to condemn Baker’s menacing utterances, they were strikingly cagey about it. When quizzed about Baker’s words, a Sadiq spokesperson said:
‘The mayor is a proud LGBTQI+ ally and has been clear in his support for the trans community. He is also clear that violence is never acceptable.’
Those sentences are surely the wrong way round? The first sentence is not necessary at all, in fact.
Labour MP Clive Lewis said: ‘Advocating violence against others is wrong and this is no exception. But’ – but! – ‘as you’ll be aware violent language and actions are not unique to one side’. What? I’ve never heard JK Rowling or Helen Joyce or Posie Parker call for violence of any kind. Don’t try to ‘both sides’ your way out of this, Clive.
Men of the left, would it kill you to say, out loud and without caveats, that any kind of incitement of violence against women is repugnant and has no place in a civilised society? Try it. Put it in a tweet.
This disturbing event should give us all pause for thought. That an ex-con, a man jailed for crimes of violence, has been embraced by the trans lobby is deeply concerning. That he can be cheered in a public place for calling for violence against women is chilling. That it happened at an official Pride event that was fawned over by the political class is extraordinary. And that some on the left have been meek in their response to this outrageous act of sexism, or have said nothing at all, is revealing in the extreme.
‘Silence is violence’, they said during the BLM protests. Is that still the case? Does your silence here indicate that you support violence against ‘problematic’ women?
A former prisoner in women’s clothes encouraging protestors to punch women in the face is not ‘activism’ – it’s misogyny in drag.
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