This is all horrendous. I’m sorry there are schoolchildren caught up in this. I feel for the victim, I feel for some of the girls who rounded on her. Perhaps some of them probably didn’t realise how intimidating it must have felt for the girl - perhaps they thought they were being ‘passionate’. Perhaps they thought that her lack of belief in their own particular world view that being either sex is something you ‘feel’ your way into, was ‘cruel’ or ‘bigoted’ rather than a different belief system. Perhaps some had been bolstered into a more aggressive display of anger against her by the type of ‘activist’ that feels justified in donning balaclavas and physically intimidating and sometimes attacking women at pro-women protests. Or the lovely anime avatars pointing guns or brandishing pink and blue baseball bats. Perhaps their school had created an environment that didn’t encourage independent thought or had outsourced certain aspects of their teaching to organisations that hadn’t been thoroughly scrutinised.
I hate the way OJ has made this all about himself though. His own moral crusade. He’s got a video up about how he will not be hounded out of his job, how he will always stand up for trans rights etc… He thinks that anyone who dares not share his belief that trans rights do not have any potential negative affect on certain rights and protections for women, are exactly the same type of bigoted, violent, nasty people who beat him up on his birthday.
If this had been a trans child being harassed, bullied, isolated, intimidated for stating their own belief - by 60 children would he have sought so assiduously to conduct his own investigation? Would he come back to his Twitter and hold his hands up if his ‘investigations’ turn out to verify the story?
i think this young woman is brave and principled and I hope she is able to get through her A-levels and attend a university and go on to have a good career and life. She has the makings of an amazing person and I hope that once the immediate dreadfulness of this current situation passes, she will find the time to feel incredibly proud of herself. And I hope she gets contacted by some of the girls and they apologise to her (and not just to get themselves out of a hole). And I hope the senior leadership team at the school examine their consciences and ask themselves whether they are creating a climate in their school where their young women can have open, honest and respectful debates.