UK TERFs are still basking in the warm afterglow of a UK Supreme Court ruling last week that went in their favor, essentially declaring that trans women aren’t women, legally at least. While the ultimate effects of the ruling are still uncertain, and there are still laws on the books that ostensibly protect UK’s trans citizens, it’s clear that the ruling is a disaster for trans citizens of the UK.
Trans women will seemingly be required to use men’s rooms, though this will expose them to a much greater risk of harassment and violence; they will be shut out of domestic violence shelters for women; they will be kicked off sports teams; and they will likely lose many other legal protections as well. “My concern is that if the equalities minister does push for transgender people to be shut out from these spaces, as they say, there’s going to be nowhere else for them to go,” Cleo Madeleine of pro-trans charity Gendered Intelligence told the Associated Press. “The message we’re getting, frankly, from the highest equalities office in the country is that they want to get rid of us, and they don’t really care where we go.”
And that, to the TERFs, is the point. The current doyenne of UK TERFdom, author JK Rowling, celebrated the ruling with a cigar. After all, she had bankrolled the group that took the case to the UK Supreme Court to the tune of 70,000 pounds (or $92,000), according to the Times.
But not all of UK’s TERFs are feeling quite so chuffed. In the midst of the celebrations, a number of prominent UK TERFs have come forward to complain that despite the victory … a lot of people don’t like them very much.
In an otherwise gloating column for the Sunday Times, anti-trans activist Hadley Freeman sniffed that
I’ve been writing about the effects of gender ideology for more than a decade, and in that time I’ve had to leave a job I thought I’d have for ever, I’ve been publicly denounced by people I thought were friends and I’ve been blacklisted from more events than I can count.
She wasn’t the only anti-trans propagandist lamenting the sometimes unfriendly reactions they’ve gotten from decent human beings.
Meanwhile, former comedy writer Graham Linehan, now an unhinged X/Twitter attacker of all things trans, took a few minutes from his nasty diatribes against trans women to complain about the friends and career opportunities he’s lost along the way.
Alas, Glinner has gotten so unhinged that not even JK Rowling wants to be his friend.
These complaints aren’t new for Linehan. He rants about this constantly. He seems to spend about 95% of his extremely busy time on X ruining his life and career with his transphobic obsession–and the remaining 5% of the time complaining that mean trans people have ruined his life and career. This adds up to an awful lot of tweets. Here’s a (small) sample.
I am sure there are countless more examples; I got tired of looking.
In case you feel a little bit of sympathy for poor “Glinner,” he’s also been spending the past several days encouraging cis women to physically assault any trans women they catch in a women’s bathroom.
He also straight-up threatened this poor woman.
Linehan calls trans women and their supporters “groomers” and “nonces.” While he doesn’t use the slur “t**nny,” he’s fond of the new-school slur “troon,” a derogatory term for trans women which first gained popularity on such bastions of humanity as 4chan and Kiwi Farms and is commonly used in harassment campaigns.
Huh. Maybe there’s a reason he’s lost friends, his wife, and his comedy career.
In her excellent post commenting on Freeman’s column–which kind of, sort of gave me the idea for this post–Erin Reed noted that
Despite her cause’s legal win, Freeman is likely to be disappointed if she believes it will earn her back the friends she’s lost. Ask the anti-marriage-equality activists of the early 2000s. Back then, more than 30 U.S. states passed bans on same-sex marriage, and many of the loudest opponents surely believed their victories in the courts would translate into cultural dominance. They were wrong. Public opinion shifted dramatically, gay couples gained visibility and support, and just a decade later, the right to marry was enshrined nationwide. Today, those who championed those bans are remembered not as protectors of tradition, but as relics of a bigoted era—and the same fate almost certainly awaits the loudest voices in today’s anti-trans movement. …
Ultimately, Freeman’s column isn’t pitiful because it rubs salt in the wound—it’s pitiful because it lays bare the true aim of the anti-trans movement. This was never about policy or bathrooms or youth sports. It’s about a cohort of people who feel culture shifting beneath their feet, who were raised in a world where casual cruelty toward transgender people was normalized, and who now find themselves resentful that society has moved on. Rather than reflect or grow, they double down, demanding that their revulsion be seen as virtue—that their discomfort be not only accepted but celebrated. Freeman’s yearning for social validation, cloaked in the language of righteous indignation, reveals the movement’s hollow core. … this isn’t about the law, it’s about the isolation that comes from being wrong. And no court decision—no matter how cruel—will win back the friendships lost to hate, or rescue those who chose the wrong side of history from the consequences of that choice.
She’s right, of course, but unfortunately, I think it’s going to take longer for things to turn around for trans rights than it did for marriage equality in the 2000s. Trans people have been scapegoats and targets for years, and the campaign against them is only accelerating. We’re in the midst of a massive, cruel backlash in every arena of politics and culture–and it will only get worse if Trump, who is basically giving the Christian Right everything they want and then some, succeeds in turning this country into the totalitarian state of his dreams. But you can’t go backward forever, and the majority of Americans are opposed to Trump and Musk’s blitzkrieg attack on America. All of these terrible people–Freeman, Smith, Bindel and Linehan (not to mention Trump and Musk)–are indeed on the wrong side of history, and the sooner they learn that, the better. Resist.
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When I fight things I see as injustice, I don’t do it to win friends. When I’m desperate for friends, I don’t yell about how much I hate Trump or whomever. EVEN IF some person decided to be my friend on the basis of mutual loathing for some truly hideous person, someone beyond the pale like A.A. Milne, mutual hatred of some 3rd party isn’t exactly going to bring fun, happy times.
You want friendships? Do something fun and happy that you love, like reading Dorothy Parker slamming A.A. Milne or… no wait. Hang on. I need to think of something else.
:Yawn:
One of the reason they are so mystified is they are deep enough in, and online enough, to think their view is not only the default but what everyone ‘normal’ secretly thinks.
It’s the same as your everyday racist that brings up something stupid in general conversation, they genuinely believe that you are posturing, virtue signalling etc if you disagree, because their prejudices feel like an incontrovertible truth. It’s why they get so angry, they think any dissent is an attempt to trick them by bad actors.
People like Hadley get a veneer of intellectualism even though in my opinion their victory isn’t even internally consistent. If the contention is Sex Matters why are they so fixated on the word ‘woman’ as opposed to ‘female’. I’m sure the answer is not at all satisfying or coherent.
California’s Proposition 8 – which was seen by some, at the time, as the final nail in the coffin that same-sex marriage could be seen as a realistic proposition in the US (or much of anywhere else really) any time soon, or perhaps ever – passed in 2008. Obergefell v. Hodges – which legalized same-sex marriage everywhere in the US, and took place two or so years into a broader international push towards greater LGBTQIA+ rights – passed in 2015. That’s a complete turnaround in just 7 years. Still a long time from most peoples’ personal perspectives, but from a historical perspective, that was practically warp speed. It’s not like everything’s all hunky-dory, but overturning same-sex marriage rights at least seems to be on the back burner in most places.
The situation is not exactly the same, obviously. This may be further complicated by the fact that UK feminism (and to a lesser extent, Australian feminism) seem to be rather disconnected from western feminism in general, and that has an effect on the UK’s political environment. But there’s hope that, even in the worst-case scenarios (which in the UK, may have already come to pass) that there could be a similarly complete turnaround in under a decade for the places where trans rights are still a battlefield.
As for people like Hadley Freeman, while I can’t comment on her specifically, I have noticed over the years that a lot of them are basically like “when I have exposed the nefarious brainwashing which my friends/families/colleagues have been subject to, they will come crawling back to me and apologize for the way they treated me”. To which I respond “they don’t really understand how most people work, do they?”
A very minor aside for your mild amusement.
Of course there have been demos around the UK, with more planned, protesting the decision of the (afaik quite recently invented) UK “Supreme Court”, with the London demo held last Saturday probably the biggest of these. It was planned as a static rally in Parliament Square, just outside the Houses of Parliament, with police in attendance; I’m not sure how many attendees the cops were expecting, but presumably not a huge crowd as they apparently fenced off the grass initially, intending people to gather on the pavement, and crucially they did not close off any roads to traffic.
The crowd who did turn up was so much bigger than anticipated (estimates range up to about 20k – I couldn’t tell, but I can say that the entire square was so rammed that not only was the grass completely covered (you literally could not get onto the grass by the time I got there, which was shortly after the official start time) but all four of the surrounding roads were full. And the growing crowd then naturally spilled out along the roads leading to and from the square.
Oops, this meant that traffic very soon ground to a complete halt – spontaneously, just because the crowd was so big. And not only around the square; once traffic had stopped there, the jam of course spread in minutes to all the roads near it until the whole of Westminster was gridlocked – which was of course far, far more disruptive than if the police had just done the usual, and closed the roads and redirected traffic in the first place :-s
I’ve heard this attitude described as a lack of empathy, but I think it’s more fundamental: a lack of imagination. Some TERFs simply cannot conceive of a world where others think differently out of sincerely felt emotions or reasoned thinking. Though I will note they have just enough imagination to believe their actions are heroic.
My heart bleeds for them
@Victorious Parasol
The Fundamental Attribution Error, or the subset of that known as Main Character Syndrome.
Ultimately fascists are never happy just being able to make policy. They want everyone to “smile and obey.” It’s not enough that they won the court case: they need everyone else to be happy about it.
That’s why I believe their end-game will be to try putting all trans people (or anyone suspected of being trans) in prison, and using coercive interrogation to try to make trans people say we like that they imprisoned us and we “repent from transed ideation.”
The same TERFs who brought this case to the Supreme Court also appear to be against unisex bathrooms. I don’t know what they expect trans people to do.
They expect us to stop existing in public.
The correct response to which is, I believe, “Hell, no, we won’t go!”. Preferably in a chant at a massive protest.
I was quite surprised at my Nan’s funeral just how well informed her friends were on trans issues. Apparently that was all down to Hayley from Coronation Street.
But it’s equally surprising to see the attitudes of ‘Gen Z’ now.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51545-where-does-the-british-public-stand-on-transgender-rights-in-202425
Strong disagree to all of this, David.
Trans women don’t have a right to use women’s toilets, they don’t have a right to demand women change clothes in front of them, they don’t have a right to clobber female opponents in Olympic events, and they definitely don’t have a right to bully the shit out of anyone who disagrees with their emperor’s-new-clothes schtick.
This isn’t about being nasty, it’s about setting boundaries. And when women try to set those boundaries, the trans community has made it really really clear they are happy to play dirty if it gets them what they want.
@Margaret Pless:
Name ten current female athletes. Off the top of your head and without doing a Web search, although obviously I can’t enforce that.
*sounds the TERF alarm*
@Margaret Pless
You know you’re just fringe authoritarians, right? You know most women oppose your control-freak cult, right?
@Full Metal Ox
I could but for the moment I’m not going to play into your what-about-ery and goal post shifting. I mentioned women’s sport because the point of women’s leagues is to give women a fair chance to compete and having a right to privacy and women’s spaces. That’s what Title IX is about; and letting males into women’s teams totally end-runs Title IX by letting males access teams and resources designated FOR WOMEN.
Why do you think that women’s and men’s sports are sex-segregated to begin with? I’ll give you a hint – males have numerous biological advantages that make them perform better than women. They have higher hematocrit, bigger lung capacity, tend to be taller, longer legs and arms, testosterone is a classic anabolic steroid… do you get the picture? If you just allowed all teams to be co-ed, men competing against women, boys vs girls, then there would not be women in sport at all. They would get crowded out by men because of that advantage.
I figure you’re getting at the idea that because women’s sports isn’t as popular as men’s sports, then it doesn’t matter to you if teen girls and female college students get crowded out of women’s teams by males who possess a natural, biological, and all but ubiquitous advantage over them, it’s fine if teen girls get passed over for college scholarships designated for women in favor of trans identified males, it’s OK for women’s leagues to make their competitions unfair by letting men compete under really specious rules. (e.g. US Rowing stipulates an athlete need only identify as female for one semester, no hormones or surgeries required, and if an athlete notices there’s a ‘6 “2 man running 3 seat in a competitor’s boat, she’s told nope, she’s a woman, just like you, and you’re a bigot and a sore loser for asking.)
This is so bad for high school girls, because placing in high school -> placement in competitive college teams -> potential scholarship and other financial benefits. Performance in lesser leagues is how pro athletes cut their teeth and get identified in talent searches; but more importantly, every woman and girl deserves fair play, and accommodating trans identified males in women’s leagues undermines that fairness. If my daughter was told to compete against a teenage boy in track and field, my problem is not that boy’s internal psychological struggle. I would care that she’s being placed in a fundamentally unfair competition.
Women’s sports are for women. Men cannot be allowed to self-identify into a women’s league any more than 35 year olds should be permitted to self-identify as children so they can dominate U12 competitions (Name 12 child athletes under 12!!! …see how irrelevant that question is? It doesn’t matter if you don’t know 12 famous child athletes under 12, what matters is that the competition is fair!)
PS Simone Biles, Mia Hamm, Brittney Griner (Grimer?), Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Lindsey Vonn, Danika Patrick, Billie Jean King, Sharon Lokedi, and oh… ANGELA CARINI, who was forced to face off with Imane (A man) Kelif in the 2024 Olympics in women’s boxing and had to quit after one punch because men are, pound for pound, stronger than women.
PPS David I hope you’re reading… this is important to me and I usually enjoy your writing, but it’s not OK for trans activists to bully people for common sense beliefs and wanting privacy and fairness.
I’ve probably shared this story before, but it’s worth repeating. Stanisława Walasiewicz was an Olympian (American team) who demanded a genital exam for Helen Stephens because Helen had beaten her time. Helen submitted to the exam. She was confirmed as cis (though we weren’t using that terminology back then).
This was for the 1932 Olympics. The one held in Nazi Germany. Hitler was so impressed with Helen Stephens, he tried to get her to defect to Germany, calling her a “real Aryan type.” She was also a lesbian, which affected her post-Olympic career. Never mind that she was a superb athlete and a heck of a good ol’ country gal who made her home state proud. I was living in Missouri (her home state) when she died, and we were still proud of her.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Stanisława Walasiewicz, later Stella Walsh, was killed in the course of a robbery. A post-mortem revealed that she was intersex. But Helen Stephens was a classy dame and didn’t sneer or snerk at her rival who’d insisted that Helen undergo a physical examination that Stella would’ve failed. Helen Stephens showed sympathy for Stella’s situation and bore her no ill will.
Be like Helen. Defy a Nazi to his face and be gracious to your rivals.
I’m leaving Margaret Pless’ comments up, though they violate the comments policy, because people have responded to them. But she’s now on moderation, which often turns out to be the equivalent of a ban.
I’ll delete her comments if you folks would prefer that.
@Margaret: The fact that you call Imane Khelif a man is a good indication that your movement is mostly about policing gender conformity.
I just skimmed over the latest troll’s screed and there doesn’t seem to be anything new there, just all of the usual stuff that ranges from “anecdotally false and highly dubious to anyone who has ever significantly interacted with a trans person” to “disproven several times over”. It basically comes down to “a small number of women need other people’s faces to be stomped on in order to feel secure, and trans women are among the few semi-acceptable targets remaining”. Though for some reason (probably the relentless misgendering, under the assumption that trans women are fundamentally men) my subconscious came up with a rather deranged joke which I hope isn’t offensive:
“A dozen trans women sit at a table. Then Andrew Tate comes over and sits down. The average rate of violence-against-women at the table has increased 10 million percent.”
All this effort to exclude trans girls from playing sports.