Taking offence over transsexuality

Don’t do things which hurt other people unless you have a really good overriding reason. EoinConway

Not more of this “the press has a right to offend” balderdash. The press offends me every day, and I respond by defending my right to be respected. Moore and Burchill caused offence; I have fought back against this – myself and many other trans men and women. The press might like to turn back the tide to earlier times when they could write whatever vile garbage they wanted to.

Social media has allowed geographically isolated minorities a way of fighting back against the vested interests of the press. The press don’t like persecuted minorities to have this tool at their disposal. Tough: get with the program, girls and boys; you ain’t gonna push us about the way you did April Ashley [a British woman outed in the Sunday People as a transsexual] 50 years ago. LesleyStafford

Is it really that difficult to grasp the idea that negatively objectifying an at-risk minority is irresponsible? Comments about censorship and political correctness run mad are entirely orthogonal to the issue. We were, till quite recently, a society that tolerated views of women and children that facilitated cruel and dysfunctional men’s gratuitous mistreatment of vulnerable members of those groups.

Trans people, by mere virtue of their identity, are disproportionally vulnerable to violence and discrimination. Would we have such difficulty apprehending the contours of the pain caused to trans people if we were equally vulnerable and the “harmless joke” was at our expense? MaxKrzyzanowski

Freedom of speech always needs to be related to power to be heard. Trans people have a history of going unheard (both as individuals and communities), of being talked about rather than talked to. I think that accounts for a lot of the emotion involved in situations like this.

I also think, sadly, that it accounts for the aggression shown by some trans people on Twitter. I suppose it’s ironic at one level, but finding themselves in a space where they speak without fear of violence tends to bring out the aggression in some people.

It’s no more acceptable for a trans person to call Suzanne Moore some horrible name or wish her an injury than it is for Julie Burchill to talk abusively about trans people on the Guardian website. IsaMcHugh

I hope The Irish Times is not going to allow the bullying of Moore to continue on these pages. She has been bullied and misrepresented in the most hateful, misogynistic manner by people from the trans lobby, and whatever comment they wish to make about language is lost amidst the nasty and aggressive way this issue was handled. Raggagirly