If someone tells me that they’re a man even if they have female genitalia, or vice versa, I’ll probably refer to them by their desired pronouns. But to compel that recognition by force of law is a moral disgrace.
That’s exactly what’s happening in Britain.
Enter Caroline Farrow, a journalist who, the BBC notes, now faces the police in “a taped interview under caution because of tweets posted in October.” Specifically, tweets in which Farrow is alleged to have “misgendered” another woman’s child. Farrow apparently regards the daughter, who was born as a male, as still being a male, and referred to that individual as “he” on Twitter. This led to a criminal complaint which Surrey Police are now investigating.
Because, you know, Britain’s knife crime epidemic is a sideshow when it comes to the existential threat of tweets.
But let’s be clear, this is insanely immoral.
First off, it represents an obvious loss of police resources to an issue of utter unimportance. More importantly, however, it represents the subjugation of individual freedom to an autocracy of words. It is a real, if admittedly less serious, representation of 1984‘s Big-Brother-style authoritarianism. But the consequences here are real: The natural extension of this legal approach to words and disagreements is silenced contemplation in favor of chilled hesitation.
While the U.S. is lucky that we won’t have to deal with this legal concern (the First Amendment fortifies our freedom of expression), Britain has a big problem. From to Facebook to Twitter to colleges to Parliament itself, the U.K. is increasingly choosing the fake right not to be offended over the natural rights of freedom. That is anathema to a democracy forged in the Magna Carta.
Still, Britain’s sorry situation does reflect something broader: The transgender movement might present itself as a cause of absolute moral justice, but in its political action, moral darkness follows.
