The Daily Mail finally reveals who it thinks is the ‘powerful trans lobby’. It’s one man in a flower crown
Ben Saunders, an LGBT+ campaigner, has been “named” by the Daily Mail as the face of the ‘powerful trans lobby’. (Twitter)
The Daily Mail has finally revealed the face of what it likes to call the “powerful trans lobby” – and it’s one trans man in a flower crown.
The newspaper was reacting to the news that sanitary-product brand Always will be removing a female symbol from its products to make them inclusive of trans people who menstruate.
Always, which removed the Venus symbol – meant to represent women – from its sanitary-pad packaging after trans men pointed out that they, too, get periods, has “kowtowed” to the “transgender lobby”, the Mail on Sunday reported on 20 October.
Alongside the headline, “Transgender lobby forces sanitary towel-maker Always to ditch Venus logo from its products”, was a picture of one trans man, Ben Saunders, wearing a flower crown.
Granted, Saunders is Stonewall’s young campaigner of the year – but one trans teenager does not a powerful lobby make.
“My favourite thing about the manufactured outrage from the British press here: The ‘transgender lobby’ is apparently just this one trans guy in a flower crown,” said Gillian Branstetter, who works for the US organisation National Center For Transgender Equality, on Twitter.
Hiring him as my representative in anything and everything. That’s impressive af
— ?0xGreg-gory31337 ? (@Greg_Sideyr) October 21, 2019
Branstetter also pointed out that she herself works in the actual trans lobby in the US – and that she wishes it was as powerful as the right-wing UK media would have everyone believe.
“I’m literally in the trans lobby and I wish we were half as influential as jokers like these think we are,” she wrote.
that lobby wields a powerful energy, obviously emanating from the crown itself
— ☠️Aleister “ONESHIP” Gilgrim ☠️?☠️? (@gilgrim) October 21, 2019
That flower crown looks really good. Clearly he’s had lavish flower crown making lessons paid for by the powerful and well funded trans mafia. 😐
— Rachel Star-Partridge (@RachelTheParrot) October 21, 2019
As has been repeatedly stated by trans people, the “powerful trans lobby” sadly does not exist.
Transphobic hate crimes have quadrupled in the UK since 2015 and long-promised reform of the Gender Recognition Act has been repeatedly kicked into the long grass by the Tory government.
There are also only eight specialist gender clinics in England and Wales to serve a trans population that is frequently estimated to consist of more than half a million people.
Powerful trans lobby, indeed.
