What worries me in all this is that we are seeing an escalating threat. I think for a long time we have perhaps assumed that when trans activists post tweets about murdering women, raping women, torturing women, that they are exaggerating or simply trying to intimidate women. But I don't think they are, and they are getting bolder. The first physical assault we saw was in 2017 on Maria Maclachlan, a relatively minor assault that gave a foretaste of what was to come. There was an attempted assault on Julie Bindel in Edinburgh, and a lot of aggression towards Helen Steel at the Anarchist Book Fair where she was surrounded by a mob. In other countries, we've seen assaults and also events such as hanging a woman in effigy. In Canada, a man called Chris Elston was attacked and pushed to the ground while police did nothing.
The fracturing of a woman's skull at KJK's Auckland event seems to have been the most serious yet. I think unless the police step up and do their job properly it is only a matter of time before a woman is either killed or experiences life-changing injuries.