Sandi Toksvig has prompted an outpouring of support for expressing her anger at anti-trans people in politics and the media.
The former Great British Bake Offpresenter said: “I am so distressed by people who call themselves ‘radical feminists’ but are anti-trans. I could weep. I don’t get it. It’s beyond me.
“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 have been excluded myself, so how could I do that to someone else? It fills me with rage.”
Toksvig was speaking in an interview with The i newspaper to promote an upcoming performance with the London Gay Men’s Chorus.
A vocal LGBT+ rights campaigner for decades, Toksvig was one of Britain’s most visible lesbian women when she came out publicly in 1994.
She also founded the Women’s Equality Party in 2015 and is working on a campaign to remove unelected Church of England bishops from the House of Lords because of its opposition to same-sex marriage.
She said: “It’s shocking. They don’t deal with gay people or women in an equitable manner. And they aren’t some sort of obscure organisation – this is our state church.
“None of them have been elected. This is our parliament and it’s not OK. Be a bigot if you want to, in your own back yard – but don’t come and play in mine.”
Responding to Toksvig’s comments on social media, people immediately jumped to the TV stalwart’s side.
Broadcaster India Willoughby wrote: “Now here’s a classy lady. Graham Linehan [the screenwriter and prominent anti-trans campaigner] will be along shortly to tell Sandi she’s not a real feminist.”
Another person said: “Sandi had such an impact on me when I was growing up and watching number 73 [a 1980s British TV show].
“I’d never seen another woman like her and being a non conforming teenage lesbian who didn’t understand herself or her sexuality, Sandi was pivotal in helping me figure it all out.”
And a third added: “She’s fabulous isn’t she.”
As for Toksvig, she promised to go on campaigning.
She said: “I’ve been an activist all of my life. It’s a core part of who I am. We’re here, we’re making noise – and we’re not going away.”
link: https://www.indy100.com/identities/sandi-toksvig-trans-lqbt
One theory is displacement.
Andrea Dworkin is controversial, a product of her time, influenced by her own trauma, and I certainly don’t agree with all that she’s written. However, Right Wing Women has a lot to say on the topic. (If anyone here watches Contrapoints on youtube, she also often quotes her.)
Dworkin writes that women (often) fear male violence, but notes that the men closest to them are those most likely to hurt them. Because they need to survive in a male dominated world, because they often love them, they are often too afraid or unable to direct that anger at those most likely to hurt them or those who actively abuse them. They can’t be angry at their husbands, teachers, employers, religious leaders, colleagues, fathers or boyfriends. So right wing women instead direct their hatred at a weak and marginalised minority. One they can irrationally hate openly, without fear of repercussions. One they will even be applauded for hating, by the very men who (are most likely to) hurt and abuse them.
Dworkin:
That’s why the hatred focuses so much on trans women raping women. It’s an irrational fear, given how rare it is. If a woman’s going to be raped, it’s almost certain to be by a man. A lot of ‘TERFs’ are victims of (sexual) abuse, inevitably by a man who was close to them. But these women can’t openly hate men for that. So instead they hate an acceptable target, one that can’t fight back. Right now it’s anonymous trans people, before that it was lesbians, before that racial minorities. Lynchings were often justified as being carried out in order to protect the virtue and safety of white women.
It seems like a plausible theory. You see a similar thing happening in other bigots and fascists. Bob is mistreated and exploited at work. He can’t call his boss a cunt, or kick him in the nuts, his boss could fire him. His boss is too powerful. So instead Bob redirects all that resentment at a target he perceives as weak: minorities, women, those he perceives as being below him. It’s likely that something similar is happening with right wing black people who are anti-semites.
To quote Lyndon B. Johnson:
That’s also why a lot of women (and men) on the far right of the political spectrum, will not stop being right-wing if you point out that their leaders are treating them like shit. They often know (deep down) that they are being treated like shit by the people they follow, but they don’t care as long as they get to redirect their anger at a socially acceptable target, or at least one that is acceptable in the group they belong to.