Rishi Sunak’s Commons ‘joke’ will make life even more dangerous for trans people like me
Trans journalist Jess O’Thomson explains why the prime minister’s widely condemned remark has added to an atmosphere that puts trans lives like Brianna Ghey’s in jeopardy
On Wednesday, during Prime Minister’s Questions, Rishi Sunak made a joke at the expense of the trans community about Keir Starmer’s definition of a woman.
The remark – about how Starmer has recently performed “99 per cent of a U-turn” over what he believed to be the definition of a woman, a reference to the leader of the opposition’s interview last year in which he said “99.9 per cent of women do not have a penis” – has since generated considerable backlash, not least because Esther Ghey, mother to murdered trans teenager Brianna Ghey, was moments away from entering the House of Commons’ public gallery.
Last week, the two teenagers responsible for the murder of Brianna were sentenced to life imprisonment. I attended and reported on their trial and sentencing, and was, to my knowledge, the only trans journalist present.
During the trial, the court heard upsetting evidence of the role that transphobia had played in Brianna’s “sadistic” murder. Her killers discussed her trans identity in the messages planning her murder. Both referred to her genitalia. The male defendant constantly referred to her as “it”, and said he wanted to see whether Brianna would scream “like a man or a girl”.
The court also heard how Brianna was extremely vulnerable and had been bullied at school because she was trans.
Despite this evidence, there have been numerous attempts to downplay the role of transphobia in the case. Various gender-critical commentators had publicly refuted that transphobia had played any role. Following the verdict, The Guardian ran a piece with the headline: "Why Brianna Ghey police quickly ruled out transphobia as motive”. At the time, I felt almost gaslit by these representations of the case, which stood in stark contrast to the actual evidence we were hearing in court.
However, in her sentencing remarks on Friday, the judge highlighted the “dehumanising” nature of the transphobic messages, concluding that Brianna’s murder was motivated, in part, by anti-trans hostility. The Crown Prosecution Service stated that they considered the murder to be a transphobic hate crime. In her statement, read out to the court, Brianna’s mother concluded that the male defendant had murdered Brianna because he “hated trans people”.
It is in this context that Sunak made his Commons jibe about trans people.
Significantly, however, Sunak has made similar comments before without a backlash on this scale. Even now, members of his government are trying to downplay his remarks, with women and equalities minister Kemi Badenoch tweeting that it was instead Starmer who was being “shameful” by linking “his own inability to be clear on the matter of sex and gender” to Brianna’s mother’s grief.
Today, Penny Mordaunt, the Conservative MP and leader of the House of Commons, called on the prime minister to “reflect” on his remarks, which have been widely condemned. “Whatever the rough and tumble of this place, whatever the pressures and the stakes that are made in the heat of political combat, we owe it to the people who sent us here to strive every day to make them proud of us and this place,” she said.
Last year, we saw an astonishing amount of this sort of rhetoric, with a significant portion of it focused on trans people’s genitalia – comments that are upsettingly reminiscent of the discussions between Brianna’s killers about her having a “dick lol”. Brianna’s father, Peter Spooner, has correctly identified Sunak’s comments as “degrading” and “absolutely dehumanising”, and has demanded an apology from the prime minister.
It is important that we condemn these sorts of comments for their substance – not solely for the (albeit disgraceful) fact that they were said in front of the grieving mother of a trans child. These are comments trans people are used to hearing every day. They form part of the normalisation of anti-trans rhetoric that we have witnessed in both politics and the media over recent years. The Daily Mail, for example, last year published 115 articles about trans people in just one month – the vast majority of which were negative.
This kind of normalisation of transphobia has serious consequences for the trans community. Between 2015 and 2021, anti-trans hate crime reports quadrupled, and have only continued to rise. Last year, a Home Office report suggested that comments made by the media and politicians might be responsible for this increase.
The severe level of anti-trans hatred has been apparent in the wake of Brianna’s murder – particularly following the trial and sentencing of her killers. Accounts reply to coverage of Brianna’s murder solely to misgender her. Gender-critical activist Kellie-Jay Keen (aka Posie Parker) has benefited from extensive support from both politicians and the media for her anti-trans activism. On Friday, the day of the sentencing, Keen suggested that Brianna’s mother was “evil” for having supported her daughter’s transition.
Personally, as a trans journalist, I have been subjected to extreme hatred for daring to talk about the role of transphobia in Brianna’s murder. I have had to leave social media due to accusations that this makes me a child “groomer”, as well as death threats.
The hatred I have faced for being a trans journalist has not remained online – I have been physically attacked and injured by members of the far right for reporting on their anti-drag protest. Meanwhile, my expertise is ignored and I am treated as unreliable in talking about these issues, simply by my being trans. This creates a terrifying atmosphere in which trans people feel unable to participate safely in public life.
It is time for the media and politicians to confront the role they play in creating a toxic atmosphere for trans people. I hope that the criticism of Sunak reflects a growing recognition that things desperately need to change.