Dear Billy
Over the past few years, I’ve been following your Twitter interventions on the topic of gender ideology, and in particular your clashes with feminists, with a combination of amusement and puzzlement. Can Billy Bragg really be that dim, I’ve asked myself? Well, today I read your interview in the Observer, and I’ve concluded that Yes, he really can.
Your main argument against feminists who object to gender ideology is “who they are lined up with.” In other words, it’s not the arguments they make that you object to, but the fact that the other people making similar arguments are nasty right-wing Americans. This is a position that even the averagely bright 10-year old would be able to identify as a logical fallacy. (Philosophers refer to it as the “guilt by association fallacy”, if you’re interested, which you’re probably not.)
The trouble with adopting the guilt by association fallacy is that you can quite easily find examples where it’s not very helpful. For example, in the 1970s, the Paedophile Information Exchange, which campaigned for the legalisation of sexual relationships between adults and children, gained a surprising amount of traction in left-wing circles, including the National Council for Civil Liberties and the Campaign for Homosexual Equality. There’s a picture you might have seen of protesters outside the organisation’s conference in Conway Hall in 1977. Many of the protesters were ordinary women, but a number of the men present were members of the National Front, which you don’t need me to remind you was the principal fascist political party in the 1970s.
Now, for a self-respecting left-winger, that presents quite a dilemma, doesn’t it? You’re either on the same side as the people wanting to legalise sex with children, or you’re on the same side as the fascists. From the perspective of 2024, neither looks palatable. The only solution – and you’re not going to like this – is to actually think about the issue and work out, from first principles, the right moral position. For someone like you, who isn’t used to thinking critically, it’s going to be a lot of hard work. I want to say that ultimately you’ll find it rewarding, but to be honest, I’m not sure that’s true. You are a tribal thinker, and finding yourself outside your tribe is uncomfortable.
People who are capable of thinking rationally, and have a basic grasp of morality, are able to understand, without too much effort, that sterilising vulnerable young people, encouraging them to remove body parts and putting them on a lifetime of harmful medication, is a bad thing. They also understand that allowing men to play in women’s sports, or putting violent rapists in women’s prisons, is a bad thing. The fact that you are not able to grasp this shows the degree to which tribal thinking has a hold on you, and how difficult it would be for you to abandon it.
Perhaps I could persuade you by pointing out that there are left-wingers on both sides of this debate? True, many on the left – much of the Labour Party, the SWP, the Greens – have thrown in their lot with the gender ideologues. But on the gender-sceptic side, you have people like Allison Bailey, a Black working-class lesbian with impeccable left-wing credentials, as well as Professor Jo Phoenix, a left-leaning criminologist (also a lesbian, of course), Julie Bindel, a longstanding socialist and campaigner against male violence, Selina Todd, a professor of working-class history, and very many others, not forgetting the organisation Woman’s Place UK, founded by a group of trade unionists and Labour Party members.
I suspect, however, you think that none of these really count. Why? Because they’re women, and you are, at heart, a misogynist. At this point I imagine you protesting: how can I be a misogynist? I don’t hate women. I’m married to a woman. I have friends who are women. I support women’s right to abortion and all sorts of other stuff like equal pay.
But misogyny isn’t just about hating women. In your case, you suffer from a failing common to lots of left-wing men: you just don’t think women or their opinions are important. You are not interested in anything women have to say, even when – or especially when – they are talking about their own rights. You concur, perhaps unconsciously, with the 14th rule of misogyny: “Women have all the rights they need: The right to remain silent.”
If left-wing men spoke up for the gender-sceptical side, you might listen. But almost none have, which no doubt makes you feel even more certain that you’re right. In fact, the only time that men – heterosexual men at any rate – seem to see feminists’ viewpoint on this is when they have daughters. This enables them to grasp the idea that, if you allow any man to legally identify as a woman, and therefore use women’s spaces, the consequences are inevitably harmful. Perhaps if you had a daughter, you too would feel queasy at the thought of her being forced to share a changing room with a 6ft 3in, 18-stone, 45-year old hairy-bollocked bloke. But you only have a son, and seemingly lack the imagination or empathy to care about the safety of young women in the abstract.
I don’t think I have any hope of persuading you through an appeal to either reason or morality, because you are neither a rational thinker nor a moral one: your thinking is purely tribal. You are, however, a vain man, so instead, I will appeal to your vanity. And I will do this by asking a simple question: do you want to be on the right side of history, or the wrong one?
Let’s go back to what I said earlier about the Paedophile Information Exchange. All those left-wingers who cosied up to them don’t look so great now, do they? (Harriet Harman knows that the NCCL's affiliation with PIE will be in her obituary.) Whereas those who were brave enough to oppose them have been triumphantly vindicated. Or look at all those left-wing figures who lent their support to eugenics: George Bernard Shaw, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Harold Laski, among others. Some modern socialists may try to gloss over their predecessors’ support for this dangerous ideology, later espoused so enthusiastically by the Nazis, but, well, it’s embarrassing, isn’t it?
And look: the tide is now turning on gender ideology. The Cass Review has seen a rapid volte-face performed by the Labour Party, the Scottish government and even Stonewall. A few die-hard extremists have attacked Cass, including, naturally, GenderGP and Mermaids. (Incidentally, I’d put money on Mermaids not still being here at the end of 2024.) You have chosen to throw in your lot with the extremists which, from where I’m standing, seems an unwise decision. At the moment you resemble a man stranded at sea desperately trying to swim to shore against an outgoing tide. The sad truth is that you are, very soon, going to find yourself on the wrong side of history, along with the eugenicists and the PIE supporters. And for a man of your vanity, I don’t think you’re going to find it a nice place to be.
So here’s the choice that faces you, Billy: stick with the half of your tribe that is stubbornly resisting the overwhelming scientific and moral arguments against gender ideology, or join the half that is performing a reverse ferret while pretending that this is what they thought all along.
In your position, I know what I’d do. But then, I’m much much cleverer than you.
Sincerely yours,
Corgi