Suzanne Harrington: Current UK media transphobia echoes homophobia of the eighties

Suzanne Harrington. Picture: Denis Scannell

Quick question. If you saw two groups of people having a massive row in the street, shouting and hurling insults and threats at each other, would you rush over to join in? Or would you cross the street?

Given the state of the trans conversation, I’d be the latter – hiding behind a parked car across the street, peeking through my fingers. I say ‘conversation’. I mean two polarised ideologies screaming at each other on Twitter. Even as a trans ally who wishes acceptance, inclusion and equality for all, all one has to do is express an opinion – any opinion – for things to kick off.

This is exacerbated by a right-wing media delighted to distract from the big stuff – climate crisis, late capitalism plundering our lives, the price of cheese – by pitting a tiny marginalised minority against intransigent TERF ideology. It’s particularly prevalent in the UK, where current media transphobia echoes Eighties media homophobia, except further amplified online.

It's been a week when beloved American author Judy Blume had to issue a statement after The Times ran an interview with her under a deeply misleading headline “I’m Behind JK Rowling 100%”. The implication is that Blume aligns with Rowling - and people like Graham Linehan - on trans identity. She does not.

“I wholly support the trans community,” Blume posted on Twitter. “My point, which was taken out of context, is that I can empathise with a writer — or person — who has been harassed online. I stand with the trans community and vehemently disagree with anyone who does not fully support equality and acceptance for LGBTQIA+ people. Anything to the contrary is total bullshit.”

Meanwhile, author Stephen King has managed to be both blocked by JK Rowling while simultaneously getting called a transphobe, which takes some doing. Seriously. Is this the best we can manage? Shouting at each other and cancelling each other out like faulty maths equations?

In extreme situations, we need people familiar with extreme situations. Enter Megan Phelps-Roper, a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church, the one founded by her grandfather Fred Phelps and classified as a hate group (‘God Hates Fags’, etc). Having left the sect in 2012 and written a brilliantly thoughtful book – Unfollow – she is now a political activist who has recently got involved in the trans conversation.

Worried about “what social media is doing to public discourse, by incentivising extremes”, thereby creating a digital landscape that amplifies hair-trigger response, rather than nuanced, measured debate, Phelps-Roper wrote to JK Rowling, not because she agrees with the author’s point of view, but to invite discussion away from the usual ping-pong of rage tweets. Rowling accepted. The result is a seven-part podcast called The Witch Trials of JK Rowling – a suitably ambiguous title – which does not, says Phelps-Roper, vindicate Rowling, but opens up a deeper conversation.

Whether you profoundly, viscerally disagree with Rowling’s opinions on trans or not, the point is this – talking. Not screaming, blocking, cancelling. We need more Phelps-Ropers types taking more initiatives like this, in real life, face-to-face. Talking, talking, talking.