They wrote in an email to What The Trans:
To whom it may concern,
I am a representative of BASH BACK, a trans led direct action group devoted to tackling the rising tide of transphobia in the UK. As I write this, actionists are conducting our first action at Wes Streeting’s office in Ilford North.
Wes Streeting, as you well know, is responsible for a heinous ban on puberty blockers for trans youth, as well as a swathe of other restrictions on transgender people’s healthcare rights.
He is also, according to at least one legal professional, personally responsible for covering up reports of the deaths of trans young people under the care of NHS England. Every day, trans people are dying as a result of his policies and his inaction.
As trans people, we refuse to take this lying down any longer. We have chosen to take action to demonstrate that we will not be victimised or scapegoated by Streeting and his ilk any longer. We will not allow more of our loved ones to be to be harrassed, to be legislated, to be excluded, to be denied healthcare, to be murdered. We are trans and we BASH BACK.
The British establishment has so clearly colluded to make sure we’re given no quarter to advocate for ourselves. We’re depicted, we’re demonised, we’re allowed to watch from the sidelines as two panels of cis people discuss with deceptive civility how to solve the problem that is our inclusion in society on their comfy news sofa - but if we take any action they can’t spin into rationale for retaliation it’s allowed to die in the wind.
We protest non-violently, it’s seldom covered by our media. We respond to poorly informed reports whose conclusions about our healthcare implemented would lead many of us to despair, we’re dismissed as biased. We organise one of the largest in-person parliament lobbying events in living memory, the domestic media leaves it for international outlets to report on.
But if we protest and leave a sticker reflecting our discontent? Trans vandalism, these sick people should just debate us. We speak too harshly against the people working incrementally towards our excision from society? Trans threats, these people are dangerous. We do a little bit of property damage so that literally anyone will pay attention? Trans criminality, maybe we need to bring the hammer down on them.
Meanwhile public healthcare for trans adults is a Kafkaesque endeavour in waiting lists which stretch on for years if not decades. Healthcare for trans youth is incrementally snuffed out entirely, and the data showing the rise in suicidality and self-harm consequent of that decision is suppressed. Trans people are quietly discriminated against such that many of us live in poverty, and despite that we’re disproportionate victims of violence and abuse support is often inaccessible to us.
We’re not going quietly into the night. We take actions to try and ensure that no member of our community goes without healthcare, we share resources to help each other avoid poverty, we offer each other support where nobody else will - but we won’t lie back and accept the barbarity of society’s reaction to us.
Intensifying action in response is a consequence of the fact that we’ve been given no air to speak, a consequence of the fact that despite our peaceful protestations and attempts at civil debate the assault on our participation in society at large is eroded away at further, a consequence of that we’re given no other options.
It’s only going to get more radical out there until society realises that we won’t accept decisions made about us without us.
it’s what homophobes and transphobes deserve
Good.
I’m sure the “protests should target those responsible” crowd will be pleased with this too.
Fuck yeah
they gonna get proscribed now too?
That’s going to work isn’t it?
probably better than nothing. or waiting another few years to vote for another fraud so we can all pretend most of the world is “democratic”.
You got a better idea?
Democracy is built on this shit. This is a clear attack on an elected official’s mandate. And it’s more or less the limit of what the people can do to express their discontent in modern civilised society. Or would you rather we just stayed home drinking wine and watching Love Island while our rights are eroded?
My friend you need to have a look around. Are you a fabulously wealthy while man? No? Then you’re on the same side as the trans youth, whether you like it or not.I doubt they’re trying to change his mind, more get payback on the people trying to legislate us out of existence
actionists? Good grief.
Yeah. That is absolutely the most important issue here.
Good grief, Penfold.
Ok so explain how costing citizens more public funds for repairs helps their cause and doesn’t just alienate everyone?
What they are is right-wing plants, trying to make trans groups take the fall for their idiocy. It’s clear as day.
Emiline Pankhurst and the suffragettes were terrorists, and even called themselves terrorists. They won that fight didn’t they despite plenty of reactionary “someone please think of the taxpayer” cowards.
They did not win. Again, the WSPU completely abandoned its campaign with no results on the outbreak of war. Pankhurst had already moved on to ethno-nationalist politics by the time the vote was extended. In any case, the Suffragette version of the franchise excluded working class men and women, as Pankhurst didn’t think they would vote in the Empire’s interest. Even when Women got the vote it wasn’t in the way the WSPU wanted.
What’s your point? Direct action doesn’t work because unless your results align 100% with your initial goals?
My point is that in modern Britain, violence hasn’t been a route to any “freedom”
“But can’t you see that protesting won’t change anything, so why even bother”, the antiprotestors loudly protested.
Jesus fucking Christ. This will cost you less in your tax bill than the state’s support for the famine in Gaza.
People need to make a fucking point. Let them.I don’t live there, so I don’t really give a fuck. What I give a fuck about is groups like these giving the actual people they’re “defending” a bad name.
I don’t live there, so I don’t really give a fuck.
And yet you keep commenting.
But that’s not what you fucking said is it. You said that they are costing taxpayers. So why would you give a single solitary shite about that if it’s not your taxes? Where do you live? Why are you weighing in on this as though you do live here?
Offices are paid for centrally by a Parliamentary agency. Local taxes going to local things isn’t a thing in Britain.
You’re the absolute fucking opposite of a “witty” whatever the fuck. Messed up that username something bad if you can’t even fucking read a comment. Here, I’ll paste it again for you.
"Ok so explain how costing citizens more public funds for repairs helps their cause and doesn’t just alienate everyone?
What they are is right-wing plants, trying to make trans groups take the fall for their idiocy. It’s clear as day."
I even highlighted the important parts, in case your crayon filled nose is covering up the phone. Looney tunes motherfucker.
Absolutely incredible. The front of you to put that edit in then gaslight as though it was there when I wrote my comment.
Removed by mod
Stupid numbfuck mongoloid.
That’s a very good point you make.
You’re a bad troll, you could use your time to do good you know?
Had to go get your alt account, huh?
Why don’t you doubly fuck off then.
You’ve made my point my guy
Username checks out.
Good point, when has using violence to protect yourself from the state, which is oppressing you through violence, ever helped?
Ohh, right. That is the only way oppressed people’s have ever won their freedom.
Not really true though is it. No disenfranchised group in Britain ever gained the vote through violence. Indeed, violence was counterproductive, and it was peaceful dialogue which won out every time.
Are you fucking serious? You really think this is going to pass through undetected?
No disenfranchised group in Britain ever gained the vote through violence.
WOMEN.
Women literally gained the vote through violence. Check your facts before you vomit your opinions all over the internet and masquerade it as analysis.
Maybe I should repeat that.
The Suffragette campaign was a total failure.
It was abandoned in 1914 shortly after the outbreak of war, with the WSPU turning its efforts to the recruitment of soldiers for Empire. By November 1917 Emmeline Pankhurst had changed tack and now operated within the political system, founding the Women’s Party (with a manifesto commitment to require all civil servants to provide verification of race purity for national security). This was obviously well before the Representation of the People Act 1918 extended the franchise to the first women, and the Act of 1928 making suffrage equal. By this time of course, the senior Suffragettes were mostly getting well stuck in to the British fascist movement.
As to their methods, they had the effect of poisoning the political world and the public against the vote. The painstaking work done over many years by the Suffragists to build consensus in Westminster was obliterated by the violence. Things weren’t helped much by the murder of two naval sailors, two attempts to assassinate the Prime Minister, and a prolonged letter writing campaign aiming to hound all Jewish MPs out of office.
As for the public, the arson campaigns focused on sporting pavilions, schools and hospitals. In many towns vast crowds turned out to burn down the local Suffragette office in retaliation. Bombs were left on commuter trains (making the TfL’s decision to name a line after them hilarious), attempts were made to blow up a canal to flood a town, and an attempt to demolish the biggest sorting office in the country with 200 workers inside. One of the aforementioned attempts to kill the PM was to burn down a crowded theatre. These seemingly confirmed the opinion of those who claimed women were too unhinged to trust with elections.
Most at the time who weren’t Suffragettes agreed that they had put the cause back by decades, and it was only a catastrophe the scale of a world war that put it back on track.
The Suffragette campaign was a total failure.
Yeah, and that’s why women now have the vote.
Or perhaps Parliament just felt like making those changes for no reason?
Yes, the “no reason” that occurred 1914-18, and the decades of consensus building by the Suffragists. The Suffragettes had abandoned their agitation in 1914, then completely disbanded in November 1917, as I said to allow Pankhurst to focus on setting up an ethno-nationalist political party. The bill to extend the vote to the first women passed in February 1918, three and a half years after the violent campaign had concluded.
Reading comprehension of a 3rd grader. Worse, perhaps.
Definitely mentally challenged by the looks.
You might want to spend an hour combing through the words of the comment you decided to ignore, so you might have a chance of understanding your own, sheer, and utter, idiocy.
The comment I “ignored” (written after mine, so I don’t know how you expected me to take it into account) was a biased reading of history. To claim the suffragettes were “a total failure” and that the suffragists would have succeeded if they hadn’t existed is complete conjecture. Your resorting to insults shows how weak you believe your argument to be.
Are you sure about that? Unless you’ve got some historical or political credentials, I’m going to assume you just haven’t heard of it being successful. Peaceful dialogue is rarely the start of things. It happens after you make it known that without it, there will be consequences.
OK, so there were the militias on the streets of Britain that convinced the government to retain Northern Ireland, but this is a remarkable outlier, and Britain is noted for being good at getting ahead of things, of bending rather than breaking, and of avoiding the connection between insurrection and change.
For example, while armed insurrection was the mark of Europe in 1848, the Chartists were simply petitioning Parliament. There were outlier bands of Chartist insurrectionists, but not official and they were suppressed very quickly. The Chartist demands were not immediately adopted, but most eventually were, as a result of the engagement from within the system over an extended period, and the recognition that incremental change would lessen the desire for revolution.
We see the same again with Women’s suffrage, where the violent Suffragettes were a total failure and even a negative force, while the peaceful Suffragists, working within the system, came closer to effecting change. Ultimately it was the upheaval of the war which brought change.
Quickly looking through the guidelines, it seems the public wouldn’t fund damage costs.
