J. K. Rowling and Fox News Attempt to Undermine UK Protests for Trans Rights
Two politicians who support trans rights are being held responsible for a violent sign saying “Decapitate TERFs” that was held aloft behind their backs.
by Evan Urquhart
Massive protests for trans rights took place all over the UK this weekend. The protests come in response to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s plan to veto a Scottish law seeking to streamline the process for transgender people to change their legal gender on documents, such as marriage licenses. Desperate to distract attention away from the uprising for trans rights, J. K. Rowling, and now Fox News, have focused on an individual who photo-bombed a couple trans supportive politicians. This person held aloft a sign saying “Decapitate TERFs” behind the backs of MP Kirsten Oswald and MSP Kaukab Stewart of the Scottish National Party while a picture of them at the protest in Glasgow was being snapped.
Rowling shared photos of this happening on Twitter, claiming Oswald and Stewart were "posing proudly in front of banners calling for women to be decapitated and eaten." The Fox News story then shared the tweet and comments by anti-trans figured in the UK condeming the sign, and a second sign saying “I eat TERFs and Tories” which was also held in frame, for promoting violence against women.
Two people who also unequivicolly condemned the signs were the two politicians in the photograph, who said they were unaware of them as the photo was being taken. This makes sense when you consider that Rowling’s own tweet about the incident seems to show in two successive photos that an individual holding the “Decapitate TERFs” sign starts out in the background with the sign barely visible, then by the second photo the person seems to have made their way through the crowd, getting close enough to hold the sign directly behind the politicians’ heads. (It’s not clear if the second sign is also being held by the same person, but both seem to move from further back in the crowd to directly behind the politicians in successive photos, and held either by one person or two people standing close to one another who are both trying to get the signs in frame.)
News accounts, including in the often-transphobic Daily Mail, all agree that the vast majority of the signs at the protest were peaceful.
screenshot from the Daily Mail
As protests continue in the US and abroad both for and against trans rights it’s important to take a step back and think about how they can be evaluated by non-participants. The most extreme protesters often make the best photos, which can skew public perceptions. Since no one can stop any particular person from joining a crowd and holding a handmade sign, it’s important to be asking who organized the protest, what the goal of the protest is, and how the majority of protesters conducted themselves. If a protest includes multiple groups of armed white supremacists and its goal is to shut down a holiday event for children, for instance, it’s fair to call it violent. If, on the other hand, one random person of unknown affiliation photo-bombs a couple of politicians, it would be unfair to portray the specific wording on that sign as somehow representative of the larger protest.
Does this all sound too basic, like it’s common sense that literally anybody should know? Probably! But common sense feels in short supply these days, when bad faith trolls like Rowling can so easily derail conversations about trans issues with complete nonsense like this.