TERFs Shocked When Public Transphobia Has Consequences
An infamous English TERF and accomplices who staged a silent protest across a few London pubs were downright amazed when public displays of transphobia were deemed to be aggressing and offensive, and they were removed by police following backlash from bar patrons.
Jean Hatchet, a notorious TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist), and two comrades decided to do a perverted sort of bar crawl with three homemade signs reading ‘TRANSWOMEN ARE MEN’, ‘NO MEN IN WOMEN’S SPORTS—IT’S NOT SAFE + NOT FAIR’ and ‘A MAN IN A DRESS IS A MAN IN A DRESS.’ Hatchet chose to live-tweet and, after the fact, pityingly relive the purposely provoking ‘protest’ via social media, saying that “(T)he idea was to see reactions in a normal bar on truthful statements about the reality of sex versus the nefarious gender.” In her posts, she continually states that the action was not loud or aggressive, and that the offensive statements on the signs were ‘truth’.
At the first bar, Hatchet and her cronies were mostly ignored and ogled at, aside from being approached by one middle-aged man who called them disgusting transphobes. So they moved on after seemingly not getting the reaction they were after. The second pub is where things took a turn, After setting up in front of a football game playing on a television to receive the maximum amount of attention, a bartender approached the three, saying he had received multiple complaints and asking them to take the signs down. Upon refusal (which is a quiet acceptance of whatever consequences come next, in the opinion of this author), the TERFs had ketchup and myriad drinks thrown on them and then were escorted out of the bar by police that had been called to the scene by other patrons. Hatchet, recording at this point, protested to the officers that they were being “assaulted.”
The context of this protest is interesting, as it takes place in the United Kingdom—There are conversations to be had about freedom of speech and right to assembly globally, despite being a constitutional right in the United States. However, unlike the United States, where hate speech is unfortunately protected under the first amendment, in the United Kingdom, hate speech is punishable by both fines and imprisonment. Therefore, many consider the TERFs to be lucky and under-punished, as there could have been far more severe actions taken under U.K. law. Strides are being made in the U.K. in terms of intolerance for transphobia in the media, despite perhaps the most recognizable of TERFs, JK Rowling, hailing from the United Kingdom.
Photo courtesy of social media
