Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
MP hits back in ‘transphobia’ row
MP Rosie Duffield has hit back after the openly gay leader of Canterbury City Council criticised her for liking tweets described as “transphobic”.
The Labour member took to Twitter to respond to a piece penned by Ben Fitter-harding ahead of Pride Canterbury on Saturday.
Cllr Fitter-harding wrote that society’s attitudes towards those who are LGBTQ+ have improved greatly, but added “members of the community are still hurting, and they need us now more than ever”.
“Recently, for example, Rosie Duffield MP has once again come under fire for liking transphobic tweets,” he wrote.
“For all of those grappling with issues of gender the last thing they need is their MP supporting sweeping claims about who can and who cannot be a woman.
“That this woman in particular, who was so celebrated by the LGBTQ+ community when she defeated Julian Brazier in 2017, could now inflict such pain upon it is something many of us find hard to bear.
“Yet progress continues, even as people like Ms Duffield attempt to stand in the way.”
Ms Duffield has come under fire for her stance on some trans issues.
Last August, she was branded a “transphobe” on Twitter after liking a controversial tweet by Piers Morgan in which he took issue with a CNN post that referred to “individuals with a cervix” in a reminder about the importance of smear testing.
Mr Morgan replied to the tweet, asking: “Do you mean women?”
After endorsing Mr Morgan’s view, Ms Duffield was flooded with complaints from social media users arguing that the comment undermined the status of transgender men.
Responding to the criticism, the Canterbury MP wrote: “I’m a ‘transphobe’ for knowing that only women have a cervix .... ?!”
Her comments sparked backlash from many, including bosses at Pride Canterbury, who called for her to apologise.
She later faced calls from LGBT+ Labour for her whip to be removed after she liked a tweet by American rapper Kurtis Tripp, which was branded transphobic.
He wrote: “I’m so sick of hearing how “queer” has been reclaimed. I had that word spit in my face as recently as 2018. And look at WHO is reclaiming it?
“Mostly heterosexuals cosplaying as the opposite sex and as “gay”.”
On Friday, she took to Twitter to hit back at Cllr Fitter-harding’s article, writing that she “always fully supported the rights of all trans people to live freely as they choose”, but worries about the erasure of women’s safe spaces.
She began by criticising Cllr Fitter-harding for being “happy to support, work with” former Canterbury MP Sir Julian Brazier, who opposed gay marriage, once branding it “a very radical measure which will undermine a treasured institution and could have unforeseen consequences”.
Ms Duffield continued: “I have actively fought for gay rights (and all human rights) all of my life.
“I chose to make my first MP speech, after less than 2 hours sleep, at Canterbury’s first Pride event.”
She went on to detail her “feminist and gender critical beliefs”, which have previously proven problematic.
Ms Duffield - who has spoken openly about her own experiences as a survivor of domestic abuse - wrote: “Whilst I’ve always fully supported the rights of all trans people to live freely as they choose, I do not accept self-id as a passport for male-bodied biological men to enter protected spaces for biological women.
“That includes DV refuges, women’s prisons, single-sex wards and school toilets.”
She added: “Some angry strangers, none of whom have ever met me, have decided what I believe and that it is ‘transphobic’, which seems to others piling on to be the worst of all possible crimes.
“My sins? To agree that
‘I will continue to support LGBT rights as I have done all of my life, whether stranger men say so or not’
male-bodied people should not be included in lists of murdered women; to have ‘liked’ tweets such as Piers Morgan’s ‘You mean women?’ when he read a health advice post about ‘people with a cervix’.
“While there may be a very small number of people who now identify as men and still have female organs, the vast majority of women should not have to rename our bodies or ourselves accordingly.
“If my views of feminism, women’s rights and women’s basic physical safety offend some men like [Mr Fitter-harding] then that reflects pretty badly on him. I did not ask him what his views were on women’s rights.
“I will continue to support LGBT rights as I have done all of my life, whether stranger men saysoornot.”