© GettySarah Jane Baker addresses a protest outside Downing Street in January.
On Saturday, a convicted criminal got up in front of a cheering crowd in central London and publicly incited violence against women. "If you see a terf, punch them in the fucking face," he declared to whoops of approval from his audience at Hyde Park Corner. (Terf is a slur used against feminists who support women's rights.)
The trans activist, who now call himself Sarah Jane Baker, served thirty years in prison for a series of violent offences including kidnapping, torture and attempted murder. Since he was released in 2019, he has been a regular attendee of trans events, including a demonstration outside Parliament in January when the UK Government blocked the SNP's gender reform bill. On that occasion, he was photographed with three Labour MPs who later claimed not to know who he was.
After Baker called for assaults on women at Saturday's London Trans Pride event, the organisers defended him. They insisted they did not condone violence, but added that "Sarah and many others in our community hold a lot of rage and anger and they have the right to express that anger through their words."
This goes to the heart of the matter. Time and time again, we are told that transgender people are the most oppressed and marginalised in society, and that their rage is justified. Politicians, including the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who published a grovelling message of support before the march, claim that trans people don't have full human rights — but are unable to specify which rights they are being denied. (I asked Khan three years ago; I never got a reply.)
The claim is untrue. Trans people have the same legal rights as the rest of us. What militant activists are demanding is a wholesale takeover of women-only spaces by men who claim to be women. The response, when we politely and reasonably refuse, is a form of aggression instantly recognisable to any woman who has witnessed male violence. Sometimes the threats erupt into actual physical violence, as evidenced in assaults on Posie Parker, Julie Bindel and Maria MacLachlan. That, let's remind ourselves, is exactly what Baker was advocating at the weekend.
The dishonesty doesn't stop there, however. The notion that "the debate is toxic on both sides" only aids trans activism. There is not a grain of truth in it, but the movement has so successfully indoctrinated supporters that it's repeated even by Parliamentarians who should know better.
Thus the Labour MP Clive Lewis condemned Baker's advocacy of violence, but went on to claim that "violent language and actions are not unique to one side on this issue". Really? When did feminists bang on windows and let off smoke bombs to disrupt peaceful meetings? When did we threaten to rape people with whom we disagree?
Baker's speech is just the latest example of the dangerous rhetoric routinely used by trans activists. If he was released from prison on licence, as seems likely, he has almost certainly broken his terms and should be recalled. The police should not stand idly by while women are threatened with physical assault.
But the larger issue is this. All that nonsense about gender fluidity and pronouns is providing cover for a violent, narcissistic upsurge of misogyny. It allows angry men to say and do things they wouldn't have dreamed of getting away with twenty years ago. And the people who make excuses for it are colluding in the most serious threat to women's safety and rights in my lifetime.
Reader Comments
I consider myself an old school feminist, nothing fluffy or cuddly about us, and certainly do not accept any of the TRA nonsense. Us older feminists have been fighting for women's sex-based rights for years. It's been a real slog, but the push back has begun. We'll get there in the end because women won't wheesht.
In my view, any -ism is a schism, because the suffix itself essentially means 'preference towards'. For that reason, I consider femin-ism to be ideologically flawed at its very root. Man needs woman, just as woman needs man... there should be no -isms involved.
I agree with a great majority of 'feminist' issues... however, I think one of the biggest problems in the world is the lumping together of whole demographic populations. There is a saying that roughly goes: 'patriotism is the last hide-out for a scoundrel'... I think people miss the point of this saying: the problem is not patriotism, it is -ism... and essentially, any scoundrel can justify their wickedness by their racial, genetical or biological grouping - they feel justified in their cause, because it best describes who they are. For me, the same applies for femin-ism... it creates a herd mentality, and in that kind of group mentality, any bad person can feel justified in being a dick. The assumption is that 'we should support women'... I think good women should be supported, and not just 'woman' as a blanket term to hide the scoundrelness of bad women.
I for one think that men should be educated in order to respect women (which in my view, is impossible whilst women's naked bodies are exploited to sell commercial crap)... and yet, feminists only focus on themselves and their issues, and any campaign or attempt for men to better themselves is labelled as machoism... There lies the problem with -isms: people only see things inside their own box.
Men should look out for women, have 'preference towards' women, and women should look out for men. If feminism was men-only, and machoism was women-only, I think that would be a step in the right direction. How amazing it is to be a loving caring relationship, where both partners look after one another, watch each others backs, sacrifice themselves in order to help their partner... it is one of the finest feelings in the world, to love and look after another who also loves and looks after you. Sadly, feminism just seems to all be about “me me me”, just as machoism. What does that mean?
'Wheesht' is a Scottish word, currently popular in the UK, and means 'be quiet'. Think an unruly child being told 'Wheesht yer heid!' - 'Shut your mouth!'.
I agree with you that men and women need one another, we do, very much so and not only for things like men opening jars or reaching high shelves. For humanity to succeed, we need to support each other. Life is richer and better for all when this happens. Thing is, as you say, all too many only think of themselves and it seems to me that feminism came about because women saw some of the unfairness being acted on towards them. Not being allowed to work outside the home and then being paid less than men when they did; not being allowed to vote or study at university; being expected to do all of the drudge work; the one-time legality of marital rape; beatings of women by aggressive men blamed on the women. The list is long and it is no surprise that women have felt the need to organise and name their ideas 'feminism'. Of course, there are women behaving in appalling ways too, but it is very rare for a woman to be as capable of brutality as a man. There is no epidemic of violent deaths of men from the hands of women as there is vice versa.
In an idea world we would not need any 'isms' but our world is far from ideal. Humanity seems to me to be at a low point and until things start to look up some of us need isms.
Certain governments are failing in their responsibility to protect the majority that lives its lives peacefully and represents an historical natural order towards life.
These Trans-whatever individuals are demonstrating antisocial behaviour born from a mental illness and should be treated as such.
At one point in time that may have been their responsibility but that is not their priority any longer. They are trying to destroy whatever they can get their hands on. The majority just happens to be in their cross hairs. Destroy the family = Depopulation.