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Trans narrative power in UK politics
David Tennant’s recent speech telling UK minister Kemi Badenoch to shut up has sparked much hand wringing in gender critical circles, with the implication that a white British male should not attempt to silence a black woman. Except this black woman has used her ministerial privilege to silence and marginalise trans voices, exclude them from consultations about their very identities and right to access healthcare, and has explicitly implanted gender critical women into positions of authority on the proviso they attempt to strip trans women of their rights. Badenoch has significant narrative power over trans lives, so telling her to shut is an act of resistance freighted with all the cultural baggage she has created.
Erin Reed and other prominent trans voices regularly highlight the lack of narrative power trans people have in the mainstream media. Yes, trans people proliferate across social media, I can point to dozens who I follow, yet none of them have a scintilla of the mainstream impact as say Riley Gaines, Helen Joyce, or JK Rowling. Whenever trans issues are discussed they are invariably framed around cis women’s right to discriminate against trans people simply because trans women make them uncomfortable. Indeed, take the time to listen to any trans content in the mainstream media and it boils down to the feelings of the speaker couched in attempts to scientifically…
