Rishi Sunak is a Horrible Bastard
Some thoughts on this Rishi trans commons thing
It’s really strange and disturbing seeing Brianna Ghey’s death be weaponised by literally everyone at the moment. The indignity and callousness from the right wing government is almost to be expected at this point, and to be honest I at least appreciate them showing their true face so brazenly. It’s the British media I don’t understand. They’re attempting to display empathy, and it doesn’t suit them. It’s fascinating to see outlets like the BBC, The Guardian, ITV and even The Mirror suddenly have a moral compass when it comes to trans lives, because I guess that even they know that the optics of a dead child aren’t ideal.
The fact that Brianna was a trans girl becomes this discomforting, gigantic quandary for them, because they’ve spent the last few decades pedaling the exact same thoughtless transphobia that will have absolutely contributed to the atmosphere of palpable disdain a whole bunch of their audience seems to have around trans people today. The entire reaction to Rishi Sunak’s “trans joke” in The Commons, while Brianna’s grieving mother was literally, physically present in the room, is a huge demonstration of hypocrisy - because 364 other days of the year, jibes at trans lives are simply par for the course in that ugly room. Again, completely to be expected from a conservative government that could at times make Thatcher blush, but the Labour party have been pandering to it for what feels like ages now.
Keir Starmer doesn’t care about trans people at all, he only cares about winning - and as a result he’s thrown us under the bus more times than I can count, bending to obvious dead-brain tactics like “defining a woman”. Again, you can’t only start caring about trans people when they’re dead and they’re children. What about the ones who grow up, as Brianna should have done? Do their lives and deaths become something you can joke about because they don’t have the naivety of youth? Are the optics better to degrade a marginalized adult?
Personally, I cannot believe the restraint, dignity and decorum displayed by Brianna’s grieving parents at this time. They’ve clearly been through so much as a family & their maturity speaks volumes in contrast to the toddleresque, brazen bullying of our politicians. More than anything I just hope that this gross week can demonstrate to the majority of the British public what kind of people their apparent “leaders” actually are.