Calling on the Green Party of England and Wales to Recognise ‘Gender Critical’ as an Inherently Hateful Ideology & Movement - Allan McLeod
LGBTIQA+ Greens Note:
The recent disaffiliation of Green Party Women from the Green Party of England & Wales which from our members we understand failed to represent its membership, had a culture of bullying, and at times treated its ‘Gender Critical’ stance with primacy above other issues, despite fierce internal disagreement on this stance;
The online conduct of Green Party Women since disaffiliation suggests a scorched earth response and no desire to resolve either constitutional or philosophical disputes. This includes:
◦ criticism of members by name;
◦ sharing content from former or suspended members;
◦ Creation of a new mailing list independent of the Green Party of England and Wales.
· The decision of Scottish Greens to end its formal association with the Green Party of England and Wales due to a perception of GPEW’s failure to address transphobia.
LGBTIQA+ Greens Resolve:
To call on the Green Party of England and Wales to recognise the Gender Critical movement as a hate movement seeking the eradication of all gender diverse (including but not limited to trans, non-binary, agender and gender fluid) people through social exclusion, legislation & physical violence;
To call on the Green Party Executive Committee, Equality & Diversity Committee, and Standing Orders Committee to provisionally adopt the appended statement entitled Green Party of England and Wales Philosophical Stance on the ‘Gender Critical’ Movement as our philosophical stance on the Gender Critical movement, until it can be debated and voted on at party conference;
To call on the Green Party of England & Wales to invite the group ‘Feminist Greens’ to affiliate itself to GPEW as the liberation group/special interest group to represent female and non-binary members post disaffiliation of Green Party Women, as a successor entity.
Green Party of England and Wales Philosophical Stance on the ‘Gender Critical’ Movement
The Green Party of England and Wales notes the rising visibility of the ‘Gender Critical’ movement in the UK and overseas, and hereby states our moral & philosophical opposition to a socio-political movement which we find to be a transphobic, extremist, violent and eradicationist hate movement. This statement is based on the ‘Statement on the Genocidal Nature of the Gender Critical Movement’s Ideology and Practice’ published by the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention on the 29th of November 2022 and is adapted to British circumstances.
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention defines ‘Genocidal Ideologies’ in their statement from November ‘22 as ‘ideologies that deny or seek to erase the existence of a specific group because of the supposed threat it poses to holders of the ideology’. Further, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention described the Gender Critical movement as ‘a fascist political movement furthering a specifically genocidal ideology that seeks the complete eradication of trans identity from the world’.
Various Gender Critical groups and individuals express support and agitate for the Gender Critical movement in different ways and expressing different (and sometimes contradictory) views, such as (but not limited to):
· Expression that a trans or gender diverse identity (that is a gender identity which does not match an individuals sex observed at birth) is a mental illness;
· Portrayal of trans people as dangerous by portrayal of individual trans people who have committed crimes as representative of trans people either in general or through collective responsibility;
· By describing trans identity as a sexual fetish rather than a trans persons’ authentic sense of self;
· Condemning family members and health professionals who support a trans persons decision to seek and receive gender affirming care as encouraging harmful behaviour;
· Claiming that a large portion of trans people who medically transition later detransition and express substantive regret over an irreversible medical procedure;
· Portraying trans affirmative medical care as mutilation or as an abusive act against a trans person;
· As men who wish to access female only spaces through female impersonation, presumably to cause them harm or fear of harm;
· Allegations of predatory sexual behaviour, including paedophilia, against trans people and trans supportive individuals and groups;
· Denial that trans people exist claiming there is no such thing as a ‘trans person’, sometimes citing as evidence one or more of the previously mentioned arguments.
The claim that trans people are largely a group of men pretending to be women who are a danger to women, or who diminish women’s rights, appears so often in their discourse that it has become such an overarching theme in their arguments it has succeeded in gaining a degree of undeserved centrist & liberal political acceptance. This occurred despite the adherents sometimes holding otherwise far-right beliefs and associations, including (but not limited to):
· No-exemption anti-abortion political standpoints;
· Opposition to same sex marriage;
· Support from hyper-conservative media outlets;
· Support from Christo-fascist churches and religious groups;
· Support from Ethno-nationalist & national socialist political groups;
· Support from assorted petty criminals including thugs, racists & domestic abusers.
Multiple political parties in the UK have a number of Gender Critical members and politicians. This is most notable in the Conservative & Unionist Party who have at times openly begun using Gender Critical tropes and suggesting trans-discriminatory legislation and policy as a part of their ‘culture war’ against all minority groups in order to appease their hard right support base, and parties perceiving themselves as ‘progressive’ adopting a ‘middle ground’ approach indicating an attempt to placate Gender Critical people with at least acceptance in principle of the false dichotomy of ‘women versus trans’ or ‘feminists versus trans’.
Throughout the period of Conservative government, beginning with the Liberal-Conservative coalition and subsequent Conservative administrations, we have seen multiple attempts to attack marginalised, vulnerable or minority groups within our society such as migrants, refugees, the disabled, the unemployed and now trans people. It is our belief that the public backlash that many of these policies or actions inspired halted the worst of successive right-wing governments cruelty, and that the reason that the Conservative Government has turned its attention to marginalising trans people is that they believe that it can be portrayed as an attempt to find balance between women’s and trans rights.
The Green Party of England and Wales does not believe such conflict in women's and trans rights exists, and views the governments ‘culture war’ against trans people as a cynical attempt to violate the human rights of a minority group assumed to be so small in number that the negative impact would be felt by a minimal number of people, so reducing the condemnation from the public all-the-while establishing for themselves the authority to repeat this behaviour on other groups. This would be made possible as once the dehumanisation and withdrawal of rights & acceptance of one group has succeeded the government will have gained the tacit approval from the public that such behaviour is acceptable under some circumstances against other minorities.
Over the past few years, coinciding with the Gender Critical movement becoming increasingly vocal, there has been a documented increase in the number of hate crimes committed against both trans people and other queer folk. This seems to be a repeat of the ‘Boris Johnson effect’; for context after former Prime Minister Johnson described Muslim women as looking like letterboxes there was a noticeable increase in recorded hate crimes against Muslim people; and therefore we accuse the Gender Critical movement of inspiring hate crimes and discrimination against British trans citizens through deliberately hostile behaviour and language, reaching the state that there have been instances of British trans people living overseas as refugees because of how trans-hostile the UK is becoming/has become.
The association between the Gender Critical movement and the far-right has reached the stage of Gender Critical protests and demonstrations being supported by Nazi or neo-Nazi groups, sometimes brandishing Nazi imagery such as the swastika or individuals making the obscene ‘Roman Salute’. Far right groups and individuals have mobilised to ‘protect’ Gender Critical protests and demonstrations from counter-protest, enabling them to portray themselves as the defenders of women.
There have been instances of assaults against trans people being videoed and broadcast online where the trans person under attack was simultaneously portrayed as violent if they attempted to defend themselves, of neo-Nazis protesting drag events bearing inflated banners bearing the bloodied face of a trans person they had previously beaten broadcast as both a threat and a trophy. The families of trans individuals who have killed themselves or been murdered have become targets for abuse by Gender Critical activists, including on at least one occasion serious consideration being given to disruption of a deceased trans persons funeral.
The support of Nazis to the Gender Critical movement is both disgusting and unsurprising. The Lemkin institute statement from November ‘22 reminds us that the Mangus Hirshfeld Institute for Sexual Science was among the first libraries to be burned by the National Socialists in Germany which studied human sexuality & gender, and that prior to Western colonialism many societies held a place for 3rd gendered people outside the gender binary.
The harm that the conduct of the Gender Critical movement has caused is not limited to trans and other gender diverse people; there have been incidents of cis people with an androgynous or gender non-conforming appearance or aesthetic being subjected to discrimination or hate crimes due to a perception that they were trans. This suggests that the Gender Critical movement is a danger to the entirety of the queer community, as well as cisgendered women. This danger to cis-women becomes all-the-more apparent and chilling when we consider that the defenders of Gender Critical street protests claiming themselves the defenders of women has included men with a history of domestic violence. That the Gender Critical movement ignores the fact that it is being proactively exploited by men who are an active danger to women to sanitise their reputation is hypocritical in the extreme considering the some of the claims they make about trans women, and informative that the Gender Critical movements goals are more to do with trans exclusion and providing people who hold a hatred of trans people an outlet to express this than about protecting women.
It is our assertion that if every claim made by the Gender Critical movement about trans people were wholly true and accurate (however by-and-large their claims are disprovable with minimal to moderate scrutiny) then there would be no possible way for trans people exist without violating the rights of cisgendered women; and if a person violates the rights of others through no action other than mere existence the only way to not violate the rights of others would be to not exist.
Based on this we conclude the Gender Critical movement to be eradicationist, totalitarian and fascistic in nature; whose methods are sometimes adapted from the methods of the far-right & have at times crossed the line into domestic terrorism, and whose end goal (despite being impossible as trans people always have and always will exist) is the complete eradication of trans identity from society both as gender diverse individuals and as a distinctive cultural group of people. This is to be achieved through the cultivation of negative tropes & conspiracy theories (including repurposed racist or homophobic tropes), criminalisation, discrimination, violence (sometimes including homicide), harassment & targeted abuse (sometimes to the point of inflicting suicidal ideation) and outright denialism of the existence or validity of trans, non-binary & other gender diverse identities.
We assert that their can be no place in truly progressive political parties for adherents to the Gender Critical ideology, or within society at large, beyond the grudging tolerance granted to holders of objectionable beliefs & philosophies who have not (yet) expressed themselves through discrimination, hate speech, criminality or other proscribed behaviour. We consider it the social & moral obligation of progressive political movements, groups and parties to attempt to dissuade people from continuing to hold harmful or objectionable beliefs or philosophies such as those of the Gender Critical movement. To that end the Green Party of England and Wales will not allow itself to be used as a platform for Gender Critical individuals to broadcast or advocate their vile and fascistic beliefs or message.