Muslim drag queen expertly schools anti-LGBT journalist who obnoxiously claims transphobes are being ‘demonised’
Brendan O’Neill (L) and Amrou Al-Kadhi traded barbs over the trans movement on SkyNews. (Screen capture via Twitter)
The editor of Spiked, who unsuccessfully urged the British parliament to stop equal marriage, has said that people saying their pronouns are ‘they/them’ shows the “trans movement has become Orwellian”.
In an interview with Sky News this week, Brendan O’Neill attacked the “trans movement”, disquieting the work of activists as promoting “[politically correct] misogyny”.
Sparring the columnist was non-binary Muslin drag queen Amrou Al-Kadhi, who stressed that the soaring rates of anti-trans violence pelting the UK should not be sidelined.
What did he say exactly?
Despite linguists, whose livelihoods are studying how language works, imploring the greater recognition of the singular ‘they’, O’Neill stressed that ‘they/them’ is “plural” as it is commonly understood.
Moreover, he slammed the “elitist” language of pronouns and “non-binary”, before then describing it “Orwellian rearrangement of language”.
His comments echoed a 2017 Spiked article where he similarly declared that “Britain is going full Orwell” over the “Orwellian nightmare of transgender politics”.
Sure, Jan.
Here’s the full @SkyNews feature where I challenge professional troll Brendan O’Neil on his idiotic claims that respecting someone’s they pronoun is ‘Orwellian,’ and why being trans is not an ideological movement – it’s just people living their lives. https://t.co/uruuystQkj
— Amrou Al-Kadhi 🦄 (@Glamrou) January 9, 2020
O’Neill then claimed that people are “demonised” for not using such language, prompting Amrou Al-Kadhi to respond: “I think what we have seen in society in the past few years is demonisation of trans people, OK.”
“Ever since this constant debate about ‘transgender lives’ that have been happening in the British media for the past few years, there has been an 81 per cent spike in trans hate crimes alone last year.
“Two in every five trans people have been attacked on a bus. I was attacked on a bus!
“I think the people being demonised are actually the minority here and some of the most vulnerable in society.
“We all try to pretend this is some sort of debate,” they continued, “which has a pro and a con side, but these are people’s lives.
“Trans people are not a ‘movement’, they are not an ‘ideology’, they’re not a ‘belief system’, trans people are merely people trying to live their lives who don’t, for whatever reason, fit into the binary – some of them do fit into binaries – but don’t fit into ‘traditional’ kind of gender that people would understand it.”
Points were made.
Spiked journalist calls ‘transgenderism’, ‘[politically correct] misogyny’.
Amrou Al-Kadhi lit into O’Neill for now giving trans people “basic respect […] and you can dress it up as ‘Orwellian language’ or whatever way you kind of want to package what is essentially intolerance.
“But that’s all it is, Brendan.”
O’Neill responded that he “knows trans people, trans people fit into society very well”, decried the trans movement as a “deeply intolerant movement” and also described “transgenderism” as “[politically correct] misogyny”.
He continued: “Language is universal, language belongs to all of us. We can’t simply change language and this is why I mentioned Orwellianism.
The plot of [George Orwell’s] 1984 is a new elite attempting to control how people think by changing the words they use.”
O’Neill referenced the dystopian novel which follows the establishment of a superstate that employs Thought Police that target and stop individual thinking, to target and stop the individual thinking of trans individuals.
Brendan O’Neill labelled ‘bigot’ by LGBT+ Twitter for his anti-trans thoughts.
Tans people – one of the most marginalised communities – are regularly the victims of violence, abuse and murder, statistics show, and have witnessed transphobic hate crime quintuple in England and Wales in the last four years.
As trans, non-binary and gender-diverse lives are under increased scrutiny from critics and the press, especially as high-profile figures such as non-binary singer Sam Smith raise the community’s presence and sprits up high, it has intensified anti-trans talk.
Allies and the LGBT+ alike tore into O’Neill’s thoughts, noting that language is elastic and changes overtime with use.
“elitist language” stfu. people learn new words everyday! we should WANT to learn, not reject the unknown! how ever else will we learn? sounds to me like you’re trying to justify being a bigot. acceptance and love is the way forward, not rejection and hate. In 2020 normalise love https://t.co/s7fzmY6YL4— hannah (@hannernz) January 7, 2020
While praisers of O’Neill rushed to support his point that trans-inclusive language is elitist and cannot be understood by most people by using completely non-elitist language.
Postmodern neologisms designed to undermine the trad metaphysical foundations of western thought – the very philosophical principles that have led to equal rights/opportunity/representation – & replace it w/ the same pathological collectivism that led to the horrors of the C20th https://t.co/BxJRXVlEj7— ‘Chinese’ Gordon 🇬🇧 (@Gordon_Pasha) January 7, 2020
