Heaven help us, I can’t believe I’m actually agreeing with something Claire Fox has done. Fox is a thoroughly loathsome piece of work. She was in one of the Communist sects led by Frank Furedi, which published Living Marxism. As a genuine, paid-up member of the far left, she and the rest of the LM crew were fully behind the IRA’s right to armed struggle and their consequent bombing and murder of civilians. This continued right up to either the Omagh or Warrington bombing in the 1990s, which did much to discredit the IRA. Among the victims of the Warrington bomb were two small boys. While supporters of terrorism would naturally consider soldiers and politicians fair targets, I think severely normal people, British, Irish or whatever, hate the murder of innocent civilians and positively loathe that of children. The bombings were widely condemned, except by Fox, who defended it. She has never retracted or apologised for her comments.
Then, when Communism fell, she and the rest of the Living Marxism crew decided to abandon it as well. They crossed the floor to become right-wing Libertarian Tory contrarians. Living Marxism was rebranded as the Last Magazine, ’cause the Fall of Communism marked the end of history according to Francis Fukuyama. This went down the tubes, but Furedi and the rest went on to found Spiked. Which, as Zelo Street has so wittily put it, is so called because it should be. The other year the ghastly Fox was then taken up by the Tories for her work on their behalf, and is now a peer in the House of Lords. Ugh!
But this time she has done something right. One of the issues facing gender-critical feminists and anyone concerned with women’s safety is the move to house transwomen in women’s prisons. Unfortunately, this does not just mean the kind of people most us would naturally think of as a transwoman. I think most people, when they think of them have in mind gentle souls, whose identification with born women has led them to transition surgically. If this was the case, and all transwomen were like that, then I think there would be much less opposition to transwomen being placed in women’s prisons.
Sadly this is not the case. The trans category has been expanded so that it includes biological men, who identify as women but retain their male anatomy. Furthermore, the traditional rigorous medical examinations to confirm trans status have been, or are planning to be, scrapped in place of self-recognition. A male prisoner may therefore claim to be a really a woman only on his own say-so, and therefore demand to be placed in a women’s prison. This is a real problem for the safety of the women already there, as many of them are violent rapists and sex offenders. There has already been a series of rapes and sexual assaults in California’s women’s prisons, thanks to the legislation demanding that trans identified men be housed in them, to the point where the prison authorities are actually handing out condoms.
I realise this is a controversial issue, and people have been cancelled and thrown off university campuses for stating that there are only two sexes and other challenges to the trans ideology. I will state again that I am not anti-trans, and do not wish to see anyone persecuted, beaten, discriminated against or denied educational or employment opportunities because of their sexuality or gender identification. But I do believe there is an imperative need to keep women safe from dangerous predators.
I’ve blogged about this issue before. Gillyflowerblog, one of the respected commenters on this blog, has said in a previous comment about a post I made on Sargon of Gasbag and Posy Parker on the dangers of radical trans extremists on the dangers of involving the medical profession. She said: “Lastly, if a medical certificate is required to transition then do you expect the same for gay people. After all, the biology suggests heterosexuality. It is a very dangerous step to invole the medical profession”. I take her point. I’ve no doubt it is, and have every sympathy in this regard as once upon a time when homosexuality was a criminal offence people did seek medical intervention to correct it. However, while I recognise the dangers of medical intervention, you can do much to help women’s safety by removing biologically male rapists and predators from them. I understand the British government is doing so by building separate trans wings for them.
Belfield, the mad right-wing internet radio host, put up this video of Fox making her speech on his blog yesterday, with a comment about how loved her. Well, he would, as he’s as right-wing as she is. Nevertheless, Fox makes very good points, though this doesn’t alter the fact that she and her fellow Spiked crowd are still scumbags.
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