The "Trans Ideology Erases Women" Sticker Debacle.

Bella Doe's visit from the thought police and the ongoing problem it represents.

Yesterday, there appeared on Twitter a video revealing the exchange between a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO)and a woman whose Twitter account identifies her as “Bella Doe.” The exchange was transcribed by another user “Tracy. S” for people who found the audio difficult (as I do) and includes the video clips for people to verify her transcription. Ms. Doe thanked her for transcribing it, so we can assume that she found Tracy. S to have transcribed it accurately. It will be most useful to read the whole transcript first (and listen to the video if you are able) before looking at all the various worrying aspects of this exchange.

It appears that Ms. Doe had been visited by the PCSO as part of a standard visit to do with drug use in the area when she was also challenged about the sticker in her window which stated that “Trans Ideology Erases Women.” Let’s break down all the things that are so worrying in this exchange and which so well demonstrate the miscommunication happening in these kinds of discussions.

Firstly, we do not know from the exchange precisely what Ms. Doe meant by ‘Trans Ideology Erases Women” nor does it seem that the PCSO makes much effort to find out. Instead she chooses to interpret it as meaning that “trans people do not exist. That it’s an Idea. An Ideology.” Maybe Ms. Doe does believe that. However, this is not demonstrated by the sticker. Ms Doe is critical of what she terms “Trans Ideology” while the PCSO speaks of “trans people.” People and ideologies are different things. People who understand themselves as trans may subscribe to any number of ideologies (using the word in its loosest term as ‘sets of ideas’) including ideas shared by the PCSO or ideas shared by Ms. Doe.

Furthermore, it is unlikely that the majority of people who are concerned about an ideology around trans issues disbelieve in the existence of trans people. Gender critical feminists are the group who have sets of ideas (or ideologies) that are most concerned about the concept of gender identity and about another set of ideas most simply expressed as “Trans women are women. This is not up for debate.” They do not often suggest that trans people do not exist, however, and some gender critical feminists are trans people. Gender critical feminists are more likely to say that “Transwomen are transwomen.” The use of the noun “transwomen” rather than the use of the adjective and noun “trans women” indicates a position that transwomen do exist but are something different to women and that this difference matters. The PCSO was clearly critical of Ms. Doe’s ideas around gender but she equally clearly did not doubt that Ms. Doe existed. This is a logical error from the start.

Ms. Doe expresses one aspect of her concern when she said that lesbians are considered transphobic if they do not include trans women [among their sexual partners, presumably]. (This concern also logically implies that she believes trans women to exist.) The PSCO then asks why lesbians wouldn’t include trans women to which Ms. Doe replies that it’s because they are men which the PCSO then refutes. This is a highly presumptuous question which implies that lesbians have some responsibility to feel sexual attraction towards male-bodied people. However, there is a general consensus among scientists now that sexuality is not a choice so the pressure is for lesbians to pretend to be attracted to trans women if they do not wish to be considered transphobic. This is certainly a regressive move. The words ‘sexuality’ and ‘homosexual’ include the word ‘sex’ because they are about attraction to a certain biologically sexed body and not a certain gender. The concept of homogenderality - attraction to people with the same masculine or feminine gender presentation as oneself - would be coherent but is also probably not a choice. I, for example, could accurately be described as “heterogenderal” because I am attracted to typically masculine men and butch lesbians and not attracted to feminine women or men whose gender presentation is more feminine. Generally, however, this is simply called ‘bisexual.’

The PCSO then becomes arrogant and authoritarian. She says, “Okay, where you are in your thinkings is very much needed a lot of enlightenment and reading. I find that very offensive and I’d like you to take it off.” The arrogance here is in the presumption that her own view is the one that is enlightened and that Ms. Doe has done no reading. This is an attitude we have come across most commonly among religious dogmatists. They are absolutely certain that their own beliefs are the truth and that anybody who disagrees has just not read the holy texts or understood them. It does not seem to occur to her that Ms. Doe may well have done a great deal of reading as there is a good 60 years’ worth of intensive 2nd Wave feminist scholarship and accessible writing on the subject of sex and gender. The PCSO desires Ms. Doe to remove the sticker as she finds it offensive. PCSOs have no legal power to force her to do so and so she uses the words “I’d like you to…” However, there is a power imbalance here as PCSOs are officers of the law and Ms. Doe appears to feel intimidated as her speech becomes flustered and halting. “No. I want to… No. It’s been… It’s faded, it’s been there for so… It’s been there. You’re. This. So now I’m… I have… I cannot express.”

The PCSO is then explicit about her rejection of freedom of belief and speech. This section is particularly significant. She says:

“Because you’re trying to tell people in the real world… Not inside your house. Outside. That trans people don’t exist. That it’s an idea. It’s ideology. And that’s it’s being harmful for women, which it isn’t. And it’s not a point of view, that’s fact.

So I think that is quite damaging because what you’re doing is trying to give other people the idea of what you believe. Which, I think, you need to do a lot more reading on. Personally.”

And later:

“You can express your views in your own world. This is not inside your world, is it? Anybody that comes to your door is going to see that.”

This is astounding in its explicit admission that the PSCO believes that Ms. Doe should not express her views outside her own home or give other people any idea of what she believes. Those of us in the UK who defend freedom of belief and speech and believe that they are not only an individual liberty but that the exchange of arguments and counterarguments about even very sensitive issues is essential to the advancement of knowledge and human rights are well aware that protections of these both legally and socially are woefully inadequate. This is often denied by Critical Social Justice activists, however. That an officer of the law should state so boldly that the expression of gender critical ideas should not be expressed publicly should make any liberally-minded person who doubts the free speech problem in the UK rethink their position.

When the PCSO states that the belief that trans ideology (which is still not defined) is not harmful for women and that this is not a point of view but a fact, the dogmatism is particularly clear. Does she really believe there is absolutely no conflict between women’s rights and the aims of some trans activists and so there is no need to discuss it? Is she unable to see that while in most cases, trans women going about their business does no harm to anybody but that in some cases it does? Are incarcerated women not in danger of harm if a male-bodied person convicted of sex offences against women is locked up with them? Are female rugby players not in considerably more danger of harm if a member of the opposing team charging at them went through male puberty and has the bone density and muscle that comes with that? If the PCSO wants facts on these subjects, there are plenty that should give her cause to rethink that position.

It is especially, significant that the PCSO ends this speech with “Personally.” She is not at Ms Doe’s door in a personal capacity but as an officer of the law. She has every right to express her personal views personally inside and outside of her home and she should do, but she has actually come to the door of another individual in her capacity as an (unwarranted) police officer and is imposing them on that individual. While British citizens generally feel quite able to say “I’m not interested, thank you” and close the door on a Jehovah’s Witness, few would feel it appropriate to do so with a police officer. It is also quite clear that Ms. Doe is very anxious and did not want to have this conversation. If the PCSO wants to have these kinds of conversations, she should do so on her own time with gender critical feminists who also want to have the conversation. Otherwise, in the course of her day, she should just do what Ms. Doe’s daughter suggested when she sees the expression of an idea that she doesn’t like and not look at it.

The situation does not improve even when Ms. Doe feels the need to tell the PCSO that she attends rape support groups which she would like to be able to do with other women who have been raped. This is intensely personal information that she would probably prefer not to share with a hostile stranger on her doorstep. It also failed to make any impact and simply led to her being told that anybody can be raped and that her experiences have made her get it into her head that trans women are men and now she lives in fear of trans women. It is very telling that Ms. Doe says she was not scared until people started telling her that her views on sex and gender were offensive and now she is. If Ms. Doe puts her views out in public, she must expect people to respond to them, often critically. That is part of their freedom of speech. This does not extend to having people turn up on her doorstep to object to signs in her window and not even to make arguments about them, just simply to tell her she is wrong, uneducated and offensive.

I am an atheist and, in the past, I have argued with religious believers about the existence of God. There is a right and a wrong way to do this, however. The right way is to find religious people wanting to discuss the existence of God with atheists and then do that. If I were to walk up to my neighbour’s door because she had an Easter sign saying “Christ is risen” and simply tell her she has all her facts wrong, that she really needs to read some books and educate herself and also that her sign is offensive to non-Christians and should be taken down, I would be behaving like an arrogant, intrusive and illiberal arsehole.

The PCSO denies that there is a comparison between religious belief and her own views on how sex and gender work. When Doe says, “But you’re telling me that I have to change… I have to change my belief,”she replies, “Oh, it’s not belief. It’s not beliefs. It’s facts. It’s not a belief system. It’s not like “do you believe in God?” You know, something you can’t see?” But the reason that some people feel themselves to have a gender different to that indicated by their biological reproductive systems is not something we can see at present although neuroscience can point at some indicators. Therefore, anybody claiming absolute certainty about how an individual’s sense of their own gender identity works is almost certainly going by an ideology. This could be an ideology rooted in queer theory and used in some trans activism to claim that gender and even sex is a matter of self-perception and performance (although Judith Butler would be unlikely to refer to any of this as ‘facts.’) It could also be a radical gender critical stance which holds that there are no innate psychological, cognitive or behavioural differences between men and women on average and that the idea that there are is produced by the social construct of gender which was created to oppress women.

Both of these are strongly ideological positions and both of these can be argued. If the PCSO who accosted Ms. Doe on her doorstep in her capacity as a police officer wished to argue the case, she should have put a note through her door while off duty, inviting her to discuss the proposition “Trans ideology erases women” as two women in their own time. Ms Doe could then have accepted this if she wished and had time to prepare and make her case for what she means by “trans ideology” and precisely how she thinks it erases women. The PCSO could have made her case against there being any such thing as trans ideology and why she believes there to be no conflict between the aims of some trans activists and women’s rights, safety and fair access to sport. Then they could have both responded to what each other actually believed and said and productive discussion could have ensued.

Unfortunately, that did not happen. Even more unfortunately, this consistently fails to happen and this consistently hinders all attempts to find a resolution between gender critical feminists’ justified concerns about women’s spaces and sports and trans activists’ justified concerns about prejudice and discrimination faced by trans people. The one perfectly accurate thing said by the PCSO was:

“[T]here’s a big big gap in understanding here. There’s a huge gap in understanding.”