Susanna Reid urges Good Morning Britain viewers to ‘ignore’ Piers Morgan while missing a glaringly obvious point
Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain (YouTube)
Good Morning Britain co-host Susanna Reid has come up with the ultimate solution for people angry at Piers Morgan for his anti-trans rhetoric: they should simply ignore him.
Yes, it’s that easy, apparently. When somebody is making hateful comments about an already oppressed minority, you should simply sit back and relax.
Susanna Reid made the comments today on Good Morning Britain as she sat beside Piers Morgan, who has doubled down in the last week on his anti-trans comments.
“I’d just like to point out, if you hate Piers Morgan – if you have a problem with Piers Morgan – the idea is not to make him trend all over the world,” Susanna Reid said.
“He has an ego – I mean literally, he has an ego the size of the London Eye. The way to effect Piers Morgan – I’m just giving you a little tip from my book, I’ve worked with him for a few years – ignore him. Honestly, you would do so much better, because then he would be like, ‘Look at me, over here, look at me!’
“But the thing is, if you look at him, it just gets bigger, the problem just gets larger.”
Anti-trans rhetoric cannot be ignored in today’s climate.
But Reid’s comments miss the point: that in today’s climate of extreme hostility towards trans and non-binary people, comments like Morgan’s can never be ignored.
Statistics released this week revealed that there was a 37 per cent surge in hate crimes against transgender people in England and Wales between April 2018 and March 2019. There were 2,333 hate crimes reported against trans people in that period compared to just 607 in 2014/2015.
Given those statistics, ignoring rhetoric which further stigmatises trans and non-binary people is no longer an option.
Piers Morgan smokes a cigar whilst watching the racing at Ascot Racecourse on June 19, 2019. (Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)
Reid’s advice stems from the same place as the parent who tells a child to “just ignore” a bully. That tactic doesn’t work for children, and it certainly doesn’t work for vulnerable minorities.
The way to effect Piers Morgan – I’m just giving you a little tip from my book, I’ve worked with him for a few years – ignore him.
The Good Morning Britain co-host’s comments also fail to address the fact that viewers overwhelmingly voted in favour of Morgan being sacked this week over his anti-trans comments. The show’s official Twitter account shared a poll on Monday asking if he should be fired. Almost half a million people voted in the poll, with 60 percent voting for him to go.
Needless to say, Twitter users were not impressed with Reid’s suggestion that they “ignore” Morgan’s comments.
https://twitter.com/TonyWill0ughby/status/1184427445941866503
https://twitter.com/jamesg_review/status/1184436980622471168
Susanna Reid is essentially Goebells to piers these days. https://t.co/mXuHCC5kK5
— Scot Ferguson MUA (@Scotwithonetea) October 16, 2019
https://twitter.com/joedanielss/status/1184434283089448960
Excuse me, why is #StanSusanna trending? She sits next to Piers Morgan every morning smiling away while he spouts bigotry & ignorance. She’s utterly complicit. People who don’t challenge morally unjust views in a public forum with a wide audience should be held accountable too. pic.twitter.com/ofMOb3jcDG— Steven Bonaventure x (@absolutegazelle) October 16, 2019
Piers Morgan claims to identify as a ‘two-spirit penguin’.
Controversy surrounding Morgan’s anti-trans comments has been brewing for weeks. On 11 September, he infamously claimed he now identifies as a “two-spirit penguin”. He then spoke about a BBC Teach video in which a teacher said there are “100, if not more, gender identities”.
After watching the clip, Morgan screamed: “Shut up! Shut up, you people. Let me tell you some of these gender names: Neutrois, pangender, polygender, two spirit person, transmasculine… What’s a two spirit person?”
When Reid tried to explain that the term is a Native American one, he cut across her and shouted: “What’s wrong with male and female?”
A Change.org petition calling for Morgan to be sacked over his anti-trans comments has been signed almost 25,000 times. Meanwhile, a competing petition calling for him to retain his slot has been signed almost 50,000 times.
He later hit out at non-binary singer Sam Smith who recently announced that their pronouns are they/them.
Morgan claimed that Smith was “wrecking” the BRIT Awards after reports emerged that suggested that the awards were set to scrap gender categories.
But LGBT+ people don’t need to worry – Reid has come up with the solution to this entire mess. We just need to ignore him.
