Conflict of rights

Rowan Moore argues that gender-critical feminists have presented their arguments in an unbalanced way in the liberal press, to the detriment of trans people (“The trans reality”, October). Those of us who believe biological sex cannot be replaced with the concept of gender identity in law and society have, he claims, polarised the debate. One of the few examples that he offers is an Observer column on the case Miller v College of Policing that I wrote in January.

In this piece, I welcomed a judge’s ruling that it is unlawful for a police officer to warn an individual off exercising their right to free expression simply because they have tweeted something offensive. Moore accuses me of omitting “crucial detail” because I did not quote at length what Harry Miller shared on social media. But—despite my drawing his attention to this when he put the point to me before publication—Moore fails to acknowledge that I quoted the judge’s remarks on the profanity of Miller’s comments. Perhaps Moore thinks Miller’s words justified the police action, which would be a strange position for a journalist.

That Moore misrepresents me to stand up his argument reflects the overwhelming lack of balance in his piece. I agree the debate over the conflict between sex-and gender-identity-based rights is too polarised. But Moore fails to acknowledge his own part in this: he has himself made inaccurate claims about children’s healthcare and gender-critical feminists, and the role of charities like Stonewall, which has stifled dissent from those who disagree with their absolutist position by wrongly tarring them as transphobic.

Misrepresenting people who disagree with you is not the way to depolarise a conversation, or to have a fair discussion about what the courts have recognised as a conflict of rights.

Sonia Sodha, Observer columnist and member of the Prospect editorial board