One of those “everybody’s talking about” items –

I’ll quote the rest so that no one gets Twittersick.

Owen is also a gay man quite stunningly oblivious to just how alarmed many gay men and lesbians are to the direction this is all heading in. And they’re damn right to be alarmed – because people on here who are attracted to the same sex are also told they’re ‘hateful bigots’.

Most political commentators, even the best ones, have their blind spots on certain things. Owen has two. This one… and a pretty bizarre tendency to constantly overlook the hideous, shameful record of Arab and Muslim despots on human rights, women’s rights and gay rights.

And it’s been giving all sorts of organisations wildly, offensively incorrect guidance around the Equality Act. Its behaviour is disgusting and disgraceful. Simple.

See also: Edinburgh Rape Crisis, whose CEO has described rape victims as ‘privileged’ and ‘bigoted’.

As I see it, the views of Jones, Mridul Wadhwa and far too much of the left on this are based on an extraordinarily simplistic, frequently stupid view of the world. In which all groups are placed in a hierarchy, a pecking order, of privilege.

That these groups aren’t just individuals, but in most cases, couldn’t help being born into one or another of them is treated as irrelevant. Most privileged on the list are, of course, rich white men. Then, according to this hideously simplistic prism, come rich white women.

The whole discussion has become so completely unhinged that middle class white women are routinely viewed as much more privileged than white working class men (even though in practice, no-one really knows what ‘middle class’ or ‘working class’ mean any longer).

Then we move further down this stupid list and reach gay and lesbian people, ethnic minorities, refugees… and right at the very bottom, we reach trans people. Who face horrendous levels of discrimination and hate. So, the viewpoint becomes very simple.

“These are the least privileged people in society, so we must automatically support them at all costs. Anyone who disagrees is clearly a hater who want them to suffer”. Any nuances around the issue – the removal of women’s spaces chief among them – are flat out ignored.

Also any pointed questions about how we know trans people are at the very bottom of the stupid list, along with any pointed questions about all trans people, including for instance Caitlyn Jenner? With all the medals, and money, and getting away with killing a woman by rear-ending her car on the PCH?

This isn’t the minor issue some may still view it as. This is completely fundamental. Because women make up half the entire population. If you are a man who goes around telling women what they are allowed to think or say about being a woman, you should be given very short shrift.

Of course, political campaigns conducting their own polls with questions designed to give the answers they want is nothing new. But when Jones claims that most women agree with him, he comes awfully close to outright lying.

He should account for why he routinely ignores the detail contained in the above survey. He essentially pretends it doesn’t exist. Just as he pretends that the rampant misogyny, homophobia and racism among many of the more militant pro-trans voices on here doesn’t exist either.

But it does. And it’s seen on here all the time. Then look at the parallel he and others draw between what’s happening now and what happened to gay and lesbian people in the past. It’s the same thing, right? Wrong. Completely, utterly wrong. In fact, it’s the flat out reverse.

When you’re bullying lesbians who decline to pair up with men who say they are lesbians, you’re doing it wrong.

I think the idea that women have been oppressed, persecuted, harassed, raped, murdered since the dawn of humanity because of their gender, not their sex, is quite barking mad. Here’s a helpful hint: it’s mostly because men are much more physically powerful than women.

That plus the reproductive role.

And throughout history, men have used their much greater physical power to coerce, enslave, attack, assault and rape women: by penetrating their sexual organs against their will. That’s a large part of why so many women will always be wary when meeting a man.

…

It’s also why allowing trans women to compete in elite sport is flat out wrong – and to do so in physical sports based largely on power, quite lunatic in how dangerous it is. I’m waiting until the first woman is killed as a result of this madness – and how it’ll be ignored.

The idea that anyone who disagrees with trans women being allowed to compete with biological women in elite sport is a ‘transphobe’ or a ‘bigot’ for trying to stop women coming to actual physical harm isn’t just disgusting. It shows where this madness has led.

The idea that anyone who disagrees with people with male genitals being allowed inside rape crisis centres is a ‘transphobe’ or a ‘bigot’ – when the women who need those centres are traumatised, terrified and looking for somewhere safe – also shows where this madness has led.

But then, when Rosie Duffield receives constant rape and death threats for holding an opinion based on science and JK Rowling does likewise even when bravely telling her own life story – in which she herself was raped – that again shows where this madness has led.

It’s led to a place of hatred. Of demagoguery. Of extremist ideology trumping all reason. Of language being forced down the throats of half the bloody population because it’s ‘inclusive’ (no: it’s the very opposite).

Well said.