Another day, another virtue signaller standing by their ‘trans siblings’ and taking a pop at feminists. Sandi Toksvig, she of the unfunny Radio 4 shows more recently known for her involvement in the Women’s Equality Party (WEP) – has denounced feminists who are ‘anti trans’.
‘I am so distressed by people who call themselves “radical feminist” that are anti-trans. I could weep. I don’t get it. It’s beyond me,’ she told a journalist this week. Toksvig went on to insist that she has been an activist all of her life. But is that really the case? While Toksvig has recently made a name for herself by going to war with the Church of England over the presence of bishops in the House of Lords, what her life of activism has achieved is beyond me.
Was Tokvsig on the feminist frontline in the 1960s and 1970s?
When I came out aged 15 on a working-class housing estate in the northeast of England, it was pretty rough. But eventually, after years of fighting, we won the rights we have today. This includes the right for single sex spaces that, thanks to trans activists, is currently under threat. Toksvig, who came out in 1994 at the age of 36, would be wise to remember this.
In her interview with the i paper, Toksvig goes on to say:
‘When the feminist movement started in the 60s and 70s, lesbians were often excluded, because we were told that we would make the movement less palatable’
I’m intrigued as to how Toksvig knows. When feminists were battling to set up single sex services to support women that had experienced rape and domestic violence, was she there? Was Tokvsig on the feminist frontline in the 1960s and 1970s? If so, what did she achieve? If not, perhaps she should pipe down about those feminists who were present, instead of berating us for being trans exclusionary.
Rather than aiming her fire at women, Toksvig needs to realise there are important battles still to be won. Even today, lesbians are lectured by some for excluding men who identify as women from our dating pool. Such attitudes are a rerun of old misogynistic times, but with a progressive spin. Toksvig should surely understand how distressing it is for lesbians to be told we are not valid unless we include a penis in our relationship.
Perhaps Toksvig felt the need to speak out because she has seen what has happened to lesbians such as myself, Kathleen Stock, and numerous others when we pushed back against gender ideology? Whatever her reason for adding fuel to the misogynistic fire currently raging, it is cowardly, craven, and deeply disrespectful of those women that have fought for the rights that she enjoys. ‘Radical feminists’ like me will not be rebuked by someone who spends time attacking us – instead of concentrating on fighting for the rights of women.
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