Maggie Chapman and the Silence of Anti-Trans ‘Free Speech’ Warriors

Free speech for anti-trans “gender critical” activists, but it is not allowed for women standing up for trans people.

Photo by Pavel Danilyuk

In the wake of the UK Supreme Court ruling on the definition of “sex” in the Equality Act, there haven’t been many politicians willing to speak up for trans people or our rights, rights that have just been removed by the highest court in the land.

One of the few who have is Green MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) Maggie Chapman, and she’s being made to pay for it. You see, in the UK, being “gender critical”, aka anti-trans, is protected free speech and a protected belief under the Equality Act. Calling out transphobia? Not so much, apparently.

At a protest against the Supreme Court ruling in her home city of Aberdeen, one of many across the UK that the mainstream media have largely ignored, Chapman spoke up against the “bigotry, prejudice and hatred… coming from the Supreme Court and from so many other institutions in our society”.

Maggie’s right: the Supreme Court excluded trans people from intervening in the case, peppered transphobic language and assumptions throughout its judgment, and used a binary definition of “biological sex” which the Resident Doctor’s wing of the British Medical Association — you know, actual doctors — has referred to as “reductive, trans and intersex-exclusionary, and biologically nonsensical”.

The Supreme Court allowed itself to be led by anti-trans organisations and rolled back protections for trans people, arguably breaching the Human Rights Act. The court asserts our rights are unharmed, though it’s hard to see how they would know, given they didn’t ask any trans people.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) — undoubtedly one of the “other institutions” Maggie Chapman is referring to — has already released interim guidance that goes further than the legislation in mandating trans toilet bans, in some cases excluding trans people from both male and female single-sex spaces and segregating us into a mythical “third space” (who has the money to build more bathrooms in this economy?).

It also mandates that gay and lesbian associations exclude us — no, I’m not kidding, the UK’s equality body now tells gays and lesbians it’s discriminatory not to exclude trans people.

In the space of a few years, “gender critical” lobby groups have used the UK’s legal system, via employment tribunals and the Supreme Court, to slowly turn the Equality Act from a law intended to protect, among others, transgender people, to one that is used to exclude us from public life and harass us.

A law that excludes trans people and removes our rights is transphobic, and so are the courts that have twisted it from its original intent, and now enforce it.

Maggie Chapman knows a lot about equality. She’s the Deputy Convener of the Scottish Government’s Equalities Committee, the former Chief Operating Officer of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, former lecturer in cultural geography, environmental ethics and social justice at Edinburgh Napier University (where she taught one of my undergraduate classes), and a long-time feminist and social justice campaigner.

Chapman has faced calls to resign due to her comments about the Supreme Court ruling, with Scottish Conservative MSPs and legal professionals calling her support for trans people “appalling” while accusing her of failing to “respect the rule of law”.

One lawyer, Roddy Dunlop KC, who opposed Scottish Gender recognition reforms and proposals to ban anti-LGBTQ+ conversion therapy, has accused Chapman of putting the Supreme Court judges in danger, which is a pretty bizarre claim, given it’s the Supreme Court harming trans people. Nonetheless, the transphobic media have repeated this claim uncritically, most notably the BBC.

It’s strange to think that the kind of evidence-based facts about the justice system being institutionally transphobic, as well as homophobic, racist, sexist, and discriminatory in other ways, that I learned at university — from scholars like Maggie — are now leading to calls for her dismissal.

Of course, Maggie hasn’t done anything whatsoever to disrespect the rule of law or put judges in danger: she’s exercised her right to free speech by criticising the legal system for its institutional transphobia. How that harms judges, I have no idea — hurt feelings?

Much to her credit, Maggie has responded to calls for her to apologise with an outright refusal, stating “I’m not going to apologise” and that it was her duty to “stand up and represent trans people”. It’s hard to argue with that, given her role on the Equality Committee.

But the transphobes aren’t happy. For daring to stand up for trans people, Maggie is facing a vote to reconsider her position on the equalities committee that could eventually lead to a vote for her removal from the committee in parliament.

Contrast that to the many times transphobic MSPs like Joanna Cherry KC have criticised the law, including opposing hate crime legislation, stating (unironically) “there’s no right not to be offended” — something she should maybe remind Roddy Dunlop and the Supreme Court.

Why is it outrageous when Maggie criticises the law, but not when Joanna does it? Well, the fact that Maggie is an outspoken supporter of trans people and Joanna is an outspoken transphobe probably gives you a clue.

It’s got nothing to do with the “rule of law” — it’s ridiculous to argue that a member of parliament has no right to criticise the law or the legal system — and everything to do with her support for trans people.

Roddy and Joanna once complained because another MSP had blocked them on social media due to their anti-trans views. But they aren’t speaking up against Maggie potentially losing her job for speaking up for human rights.

Where are all the free speech warriors now?

Anti-trans and right-wing groups are always on about being silenced when blowing their transphobic dog-whistles — sorry, “concerns”. So-called “gender critical” anti-trans activists like Kathleen Stock have made careers out of claiming to be “silenced” by critique.

This is despite being regularly platformed and quoted in the mainstream right-wing press, to the extent that transphobes crowd out legitimate women’s issues from public debate, according to research.

In the UK, pointing out transphobia is deemed harmful, a dangerous infringement on free speech, but promoting transphobia is the very essence of free speech itself.

The University of Sussex has just been fined hundreds of thousands of pounds for not upholding Kathleen Stock’s right to express her transphobic views. Essentially, the university is being punished for not doing enough to stop students exercising what is arguably their right to free speech by protesting against her.

Can you imagine a university being sued for not allowing protests against racism, misogyny, or antisemitism? Well maybe, in this new era of right-wing populism being mainstreamed, another example is the many pro-Palestinian protestors who have found that their free speech isn’t so protected, either. But make no mistake, the valorisation of transphobia as free speech and the crackdown on critique of anti-trans law and policy is absolutely part of this cultural shift towards normalising far-right politics.

According to journalist and media researcher Lee Hurley, there have been almost 80 articles published in the British press since last week’s ruling, many featuring “silenced” anti-trans activists such as Maya Forstater, Kathleen Stock, Helen Joyce, Stephanie Davies-Arai, and, of course, JK Rowling. Their silence is deafening.

Any calls for them to be de-platformed or lose their jobs due to their bigotry are an attack on free speech, or portrayed as an attempt to make women “wheesht” (a popular claim among Scottish anti-trans activists). But now that Maggie, a woman and long-time feminist, is facing the same, they don’t seem too concerned about her right to free speech.

Free speech for the transphobes, but don’t dare stand up for trans people, or they’ll ruin you; that’s not what “free speech” is for in Britain — it’s only for punching down and silencing the oppressed and our allies.

Solidarity with Maggie, one of the few UK politicians willing to stand up and defend trans people while our rights are being stripped away, and rightly call out the Supreme Court for its transphobia and cissexism.

---

Update: the attempt to remove Maggie Chapman from the equalities commission failed by a vote of 4 to 3, including Maggie’s own vote against her removal. Both Labour MSPs and a Conservative MSP on the committee voted to remove Maggie, while the other three SNP MSPs voted against her removal.

It’s good news that Maggie will keep her position, but she shouldn’t have been at risk of losing it simply for criticising the Supreme Court in the first place — in a democracy, we have a right to disagree with politicians and the legal system. Today, UK Justice Minister, Shabana Mahmood, has said it is “unacceptable” to criticise the Supreme Court’s decision, echoing the accusations levied at Chapman. Statements like this aren’t just a sign of transphobia, but also of the UK government’s creep towards authoritarianism.

---

Thanks for reading. If you want to support my writing, you can tip me here.