John Davison BAFTA Tourette’s incident and competing rights

[slet]

It’s interesting how this is being discussed atm. I see Ash Sarkar has framed it as an example of competing rights between disabled people and victims of racism, forgetting about intersectionality. But there is a struggle from those on the extreme left to see how women’s rights are compromised by ceding to TRAs.

not expressing myself very well but thought it had some interesting parallels with the sex and gender debate.

On thread odd thread that I have seen on the Feminists board posters will vociferously dispute the trauma that Black and Brown women experience. With that and Trans women comparing their own 'struggle' to racism, I don't often engage.

It’s not the same thing, but from my perspective as someone who is waiting on an autism assessment, and has trauma from a history of male violence:

If I hear a woman say ‘bitch’ as in, ‘hey bitch’ to a friend of hers, I cringe, but it’s another woman and it’s not aimed at me so it doesn't cause a reaction.

If I hear someone casually use ‘bitch’ without real anger in a film or TV show, I also cringe, and find that it makes me feel involuntarily tense if it’s a man saying it.

If I hear it in a film or a TV show in anger, when said by a man, it will evoke a physical reaction in terms of my heart rate increasing, feeling tense and on edge. (I will often choose to avoid films and shows that use many misogynistic slurs and threats, or violence against women, because of that.)

If ‘bitch’ was shouted at me by a man, in person, that physiological stress response will be markedly heightened. Again, to break it down beyond, ‘it makes me feel stressed’ – I'm flooded with adrenaline, my heart rate will increase, my perspiration will increase, my breathing becomes shallower and faster, and I feel tense, on edge, and vulnerable – prepared for an attack, essentially. It takes time for the adrenaline to leave my system, and for me to feel emotionally regulated again.

And ‘bitch’ isn’t even a particular trigger for me. It doesn’t throw me into a full blown trauma response I can’t control, it just stresses me out when used in anger by a man, because of my history. My body doesn’t ask, ‘hang on, is this a Tourette’s tic?’ before it reacts. It just reacts. And that physiological response doesn’t evaporate on the spot because someone says, ‘it’s Tourette’s’ – it takes time for my system to regulate again.

I can imagine that many black people may have a similar response to the n word, in terms of the body having a fight/flight or trauma-type response.

Does that explain it, at all?

Yes. Because as a woman with a history of male violence, I understand exactly what you mean. Thank you for making my point for me. While we may react to words we find distressing, context is everything.

My point was pretty much the opposite of that, actually, so I don't think you've understood at all.

My point was that the body doesn't understand all the nuances of context - if something hits a trigger by virtue of being said by a male, or a white man, or being shouted out in person, etc, the body will react without checking for wider 'context' and the impact of that reaction will remain even after the context is intellectually explained.

But you literally explained that the context in which you hear the word has a direct impact on your emotional reaction. Which was exactly my point.

You may have meant to make a totally different point but those weren’t the words you typed.

Also, you said:

"Because you seem to be saying that black people are unable to understand context or that this single word is traumatic whatever the context. And we know that can’t be true because there would be a huge outcry from the black community every time the word is used in a song or in a film."

That was an attempt to dismiss and minimise black people's potential reactions to the word when shouted by a white man unexpectedly. You're essentially saying, "Oh, come on now, you're not incapable of understanding context, black people! You don't fuss and cry every time DMX uses it, after all. So why are you choosing to get so upset over this??"

It's incredibly patronising and disrespectful. And it fails to understand that when something hits certain triggers (eg. white man, randomly shouting n---r at an awards ceremony), sometimes the body may react before the mitigating context can be explained.

I feel you're being deliberately obtuse.

Some usages (say, by a woman, in my example, or on a television where it's obviously not real) don't trigger a trauma response, so the body doesn't react.

Other usages (say, a man shouting it, in person) do trigger a trauma response, regardless of the wider context that the man has Tourette's.

Nope. I said context was important. Which you absolutely agreed with in your post.

Let’s take it back to the word bitch shall we? Seeing as we both find that pretty offensive. Do I buy songs where the word bitch appears and maybe sing along to them? Yes. Does that traumatise me? Not especially but I don’t like it.

Is that the same as my friend calling me bitch in a jokey way because I snagged the last discount? No.

Is it the same as a man walking past me on the street and snarling it in my face? Also no.

Is it the same as me standing on a stage presenting an award and someone shouting it out from the audience? Also no.

Context is key. Did you watch that video by the young black American woman I posted earlier? You should.

I hadn’t watched this earlier but she articulates it perfectly.

So is your point that the N word should be received differently by the actors in this context because JD said it unintentionally due to his disability? That may be the case once the situation has been fully processed and understood but it cannot be applied to that live moment where two black men are stood onstage in front of millions hearing that word yelled at them. It goes back to the two things being true at once; they can still be triggered and upset by what they experienced in the moment while also understanding it wasn’t intentional or racist.

It exactly like @OtterlyAstounding describes.

For both of you, male violence is something your lived experience has taught your amygdala - the brain’s threat detector - to scan for. Once triggered, your body floods with stress hormones - racing heart, sweating, hypervigilance. Even when the rational brain kicks in, it can take hours to settle.

For me - and for many Black people - hearing the N word unexpectedly can trigger that same response. It doesn’t have to be shouted as a threat. Historically, it has often gone hand in hand with violence. That’s how triggers work - involuntary, fast, and lingering beyond the moment when the rational brain catches up.

You asked about music. If I'm listening to certain genres of music where the word is expected, it won’t produce the same response. I am doing something I choose - likely somewhere I am relaxed - and my brain isn’t scanning for threats.

This doesn’t mean I couldn’t coexist with someone with Tourette’s. If I work with someone whose tics include racial slurs, over time I might be able to mitigate some of the impact because it’s no longer unexpected and I understand their condition. But that tolerance doesn’t mean the impact disappears completely. If I’ve had a day where I have experienced overt racism or microaggressions (sadly still normal) I may not have the bandwidth to rationalise a tic in that moment. So just as someone with Tourette’s can have worse days, there will be days when my resilience is likely to be lower too.

Assigning involuntary responses to one group only is not helpful. It's more nuanced than that. Judgement free space has to exist for both those with tic and those with trauma responses because understanding that someone cannot control a tic doesn’t mean it won’t still cause hurt.

I'm sure he said pretty much this himself didn't he? I think he said it was a mistake to put a microphone so close to him so anything he said got amplified.

The whole thing reminds me so much of the plot of I Swear - it's like the film he made it now playing out in real life

Context kicks in after the trauma response.

Chatgpt

Here’s a simple, layman’s way to explain it:
Your brain has two main “safety systems”.
The amygdala is the fast one.
The rational brain (the thinking part) is the slow one.
The amygdala’s job is to keep you alive. It scans constantly for danger using past experience. When it spots something that might be a threat, it doesn’t stop to think — it acts.
It hits the alarm.
That’s when you feel:
heart racing
muscles tense
on edge
This is fight - flight - freeze.
Only after that does the rational part of your brain step in.
The rational brain asks:
Is this actually dangerous?
Was that a real threat?
Am I safe?
Sometimes it says:
False alarm.
But by then, the body has already reacted.
Think of it like this:
The amygdala is the smoke alarm.
The rational brain is the person checking whether it’s toast or a fire.
The alarm goes off first to keep you safe.
You figure out the truth after.

@ThreeWordHarpy posted this earlier.

I find it very interesting that the BBC managed to edit out all of John’s other tics that evening, and we’re not discussing instead, for example, the homophobic “abuse” of Alan Cummings when John ticked “paedo” or the misogynistic “abuse” of women on stage with a tic of “slag”.

I haven't seen the footage (I don't live in the UK, not a massive TV watcher). Anyone care to comment on this?

This is what I mean about 'muddying the waters'. However you cut this, its problematic.

In terms of what I say above - and i did say it - was it was one where individual needs absoluetely do matter BUT the use of the word in our language isn't banned. It isn't illegal. In certain contexts its viewed as trendy / edgy not traumatic. That actually does matter. It is played on radio. Its played in public places. If you are in a shop or leisure facilities and a song comes on with the N word can you take legal action for exposure to the word because it triggers trauma? Why hasn't this been done to date? Honest question because again we are back to why what happened the other night matters when these other occasions don't merit social media storms and calls for cancellation and mass outrage...

It IS an important point thats being dismissed as automatically racist because it creates an inconvenience to the argument. It can't be avoided because its exactly the type of defence that would be presented in a court about quantifying harms and damages in any legal case. This might suck absoluete donkey balls to those required to do so but it still is going to be there.

And as I say, the court cases recently have made a point of saying there isn't a legal right not to be offended - just because transpeople don't like somethings people are saying they can't necessarily stop them saying them. We are back to freedom of speech and issues over intent again. You can't say certain things if they are targetted and constitute abuse and harassment but you can say other things in other ways and other contexts which people might be offended by which are not legally prohibited or impinge rights. And yes there are human rights about dignity and being protected from degrading treatment, but again we have context and intent to contend with. Tourettes falls into a space where it raises questions about where a tic with a racist word might fall in these legal terms and what rights have actually been violated. This is an unavoidable point in UK law.

You can rage all you fucking like about me spelling this out. There is a continued determination to catergorise what JD as racist abuse on the same level as criminal racial hatred - I really just do not believe it is because of various context. And I really really don't think a court would either.

In terms of the BBC broadcast, what are we talking about? Failures in meeting broadcast standards? Criminality? Are we going to see claims for individuals affected? Yes absoluetely failures in standards here (which in the BBC's case may foul of their remit). All absoluetely and completely valid. But beyond that....?

And then theres practical considerations of where you may or may not apply protections / exclusions for the purposes of legitimate aims and who this is aimed at and the MASSIVE point about proportionality.

Is someone on the street shouting the N word doing something that others need protection from? If they do the same thing in a hospital? Or a theatre? Whats the deal here? Genuinely do you think you can be protected from being exposed to someone having a Tourettes Tic in ALL situations? They are all going to be different aren't they? It will depend on stuff like vulnerability and ability to leave. Someone in a hospital bed who can't leave that situation and is repeatedly exposed to it on numerous occasions will have vastly more rights in this area than someone passing in the street for good fucking legal reason. Just like settings which have an aim to protect in various ways for specific issues women have higher and different rules to general public access.

In terms of employment issues it would come down to impact and the degrees of it. So yes, context and situations are going to come into it. As does the severity of the person with Tourettes. And no I do not realistically think that all black people will have a case here for protections in all situations. There are plenty of scenarios in which people are exposed to words which are trauma inducing that you wouldn't have a case to make because no intentional or quantifable harm has been meant. It has to be about specific situations for specific reasons with a specific vulnerability where there is an identifiable disadvantage. Remembering of course as part of this that the tics JD had were absolutely not exclusive to the subject of race. He did a good job of ticking all kinds of offensive stuff to a range of people.

In the case last week - broadcasting one tic but not the others DOES create problems - but thats a BBC issue not a conflict of rights between a person with Tourettes and two people on stage. And there's issues over broadcast standards - which may be legal issues under the BBC's remit. But these might not apply to a whole host of other media outlets in the same way though.

The question that still comes up is are you going to be looking at chasing after with Tourettes if you happen to come across them in your life and they happen to say the wrong thing. You and everyone else who might come into their orbit every single day in their life.

So no its NOT bloody about a boot on the neck of anyone. Again despite the absoluete determination to make it about that. There is a constant misrepresentation on this. Its about practical realities and definable harms and protections in real world scenarios. Not just a really simplist N word = bad and triggering to me. Cos that really hasn't proved sufficient for either women or transwomen when its come down to it - you have to demonstrate and explain rather more than that. Yes thats more than saying about 'generational trauma' unfortunately. Again, this isn't pleasant to say, but yeah it does matter.

It is about LEGAL ISSUES and how they apply and where they don't apply. Its about how you quantify harm as admissible or where you might class it as 'accidental or unintended hurt' which isn't actionable. And that applies to a number of DIFFERENT groups, because offensive ticks are not exclusive to being directed at black people. Indeed, how do you deal with the bloke with Tourettes who is black? Does he get treated differently to JD for doing the exact some thing because he is 'allowed' to say the word due to his colour and it somehow causes less offense????! Is one racist but the other not? It matters. Cos otherwise you are back to suggesting JD has more agency and greater culpability than someone with a different skin colour doing the same thing which neither can control. Yes it is a frustrating reality that has circular arguments.

However you feel about this, it has to be with consideration with the law rather than because you don't like certain words and find them triggering. Just like other subjects.

I feel sure I'll get another good kicking but its about this reoccurring issue with definitions, intent and context. This IS an upsetting subject. It doesn't mean these points aren't ones we shouldn't be talking about though.

I say time and time again on MN on so many bloody subjects, theorectical and real grievances and idealistic wishes all have to pass the wall of reality challenge in terms of the limit and limitations of law - we can't always have what we want the way we want it. I've been here for Brexit. I've been here for the issues of gender / sex. It ran through Covid in various ways. Its Trump's achilles heel and bane of his life. All for similar bloody reasons. I don't really expect the point to land this time either.

It was broadcast on a two hour delay, so no one who watched it on the Beeb broadcast would have been aware of those other incidents. But first hand reports from other attendees and even John himself confirm that he ticked about 17 or 18 times in total before leaving the auditorium.

The reason I mention it is that the BBC have got form for this with very high profile incidents from live broadcast last year, eg Glastonbury, and again they took a long time to take down and edit the iplayer version after a great deal of fuss. I would have thought that if lessons really have been learned then a) they should never have put a microphone near John in the first place and b) they should have honoured their promise to him to edit out all of his tics. They failed him massively. In fact it’s such a big cock up that I wonder how it possibly could have been honestly made again after the Glastonbury fiasco. And raises a hint of suspicion that it wasn’t an honest mistake at all.

I told Chat GPT what I wanted to say and asked it to compose my response because, child, your rambling post is not worth the effort.

I think we’re talking about slightly different things.
You’re focusing on what the law can realistically enforce — thresholds, intent, proportionality. That matters, because any real-world solution has to exist within practical limits.
But I’m not asking what should be illegal.
I’m asking how people live alongside each other when harm can happen without intent.
Two involuntary realities exist here — Tourette’s tics and trauma responses. Both are physiological. Neither is chosen. The law can help set boundaries, but it doesn’t resolve everything that matters in day-to-day coexistence. Not all harm is legally actionable — and yet it can still be real.
So this isn’t about banning words or chasing people with Tourette’s.
It’s about recognising that understanding someone cannot control a tic doesn’t mean the impact disappears — and recognising that impact doesn’t mean Tourette’s should be punished.
When race and disability meet, they can come into tension. Both are protected characteristics. Neither automatically overrides the other. That’s exactly why this isn’t something the law can neatly solve on its own.
The goal isn’t to make one “win” over the other.
It’s to acknowledge that both involuntary responses can exist at the same time — and that shared space sometimes requires understanding, flexibility and context.
The law sets limits.
But humans still have to live together within them.

Different century - same playbook.

As @Socrateswasrightaboutvoting touched upon, the first thing I took away from reading your post, @RedToothBrush is that you're talking about legality, when you should've noticed that right throughout this thread, and many of the others, legality isn't really the focus.

It's more about recognising that yes, a person who has Tourette's cannot help their tics and is not doing them on purpose, and that must be incredibly difficult to live with...but it does not erase the potential impact of those tics on others.

If people can be understanding of Tourette's Syndrome, then a little grace and understanding extended to those who may feel triggered, confronted, or injured by a person's tics should be possible too.

When people say they feel offended or hurt by someone ticking an offensive slur, especially if they're not familiar with coprolalia, it's not helpful to come down on them like a ton of bricks and tell them they're irrational, ableist, self-centred, lack intelligence, just want to cry racism, are playing the victim, or are trying to blame the Tourette's sufferer. In fact, it'll just make them feel more attacked, and become defensive.

It's possible to both not blame the person with Tourette's and feel sympathy for them, and also be compassionate towards people who were upset by a racial slur. It doesn't actually have to be one or the other.

The opening premise of the thread is about competing rights and the comparison to other issues - namely gender / sex. Legalities are fairly relevant to that.

As for 'rambling' and chatgpt. Well if that's your rebuff I think it's the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears going la la la. I didn't expect anything other than that.

My points still stand to those who want to consider the premise of the OP and the issues that arise in that context.

Oh and I'm never going to apologise for 'rambling'. Cos bloody hell I've been doing it on Mumsnet for years and over the years I don't think it's served me badly. I'm not really into thought terminating clichés, 256 character comments and jumping on the latest approved passing bandwagon of opinion for a reason... I'm into pragmatic understanding and solutions which deal with realities that are sometimes inconvenient. Cos those are our conflict and crunch points in society.

But no grace has been extended to John. I’m utterly furious about the disgusting bullying of a disabled man I’ve witnessed all over social media. It seems inclusion is only given lip service. Offending people is sufficient to have that inclusion withdrawn.

I’ve donated to a Tourette’s charity in disgust. The poor man even had his bike, his only mode of transport stolen

The poor man even had his bike, his only mode of transport stolen

Ffs. What is wrong with people.

His bloody film couldn't have come soon enough.

Hah, fair enough as to the premise of the thread! Although it talks about competing rights not legality explicitly, so a lot of people are talking about balancing people's needs, and not so much the legal side of things - probably because it's difficult to figure out the legal minutiae on an online forum,

As for the rest of your comment, that's obviously not meant for me. Or maybe none of your comment was meant for me?

I'm not on other social media, so I don't know about the social media situation beyond generalities.

That's terrible about his bike. If it was because of the BAFTAs and not just some young idiot being dicks, that's awful - imagine actually going to someone's house and stealing their bike because they said a word? Crazy. Looking it up I've read that at least the police got it back for him! So that's something.

It seems like a lot of people don't want to extend any grace to either 'side', so to speak, which is pretty typical. Here on Mumsnet, though, it seems there are an unexpected number of people totally dismissing black people's experiences in the process of supporting JD. I'm sure elsewhere it skews the other direction, but that's just what I've seen here.

Well I’ve seen people saying he should have his tongue cut out, he should be muzzled, he’s a racist, he should be financially penalised, the film should be boycotted.

I’m done.