Surveying the sea of men surrounding the female speakers at a Let Women Speak event in Brighton last month, in their black hoodies, black balaclavas, black sunglasses, black bandanas and – for that stylish finishing touch – black weighted gloves (serving the same function as brass knuckles), I thought it was no coincidence that they looked like criminals trying to hide from CCTV. I was also struck by the commonalities between these young men and their so-called right-wing enemies, the “incels”. The “Black Pampers”, as an unidentified feminist dubbed them, want more than anything to prevent women from defending their rights. Like the incels, these trust fund Antifas want to return to a time when being a man automatically meant being on top of the heap, even when sadly lacking other means.
The main target of this circle of goons was the pink jumpsuit figure of Kellie-Jay Keen – creator of Standing for Women and inventor of the “Adult Human Female” slogan, which has upset so many haters of the biological fact. His message is simple. There is no such thing as being born in the wrong body. There are a small number of unfortunate hermaphrodites. The rest of the trans lobby is made up of heterosexual men who love to dress up as women. Often, they’re also misogynists who love to mess up women’s-only spaces, whether they’re restrooms or sports podiums. It’s a shame that the old word for “transsexual” has gone out of fashion, because most of those who call themselves trans today are simply transvestites, or even better “transvestites” – really very cross-dressed, in the case of Brighton contingent.
Keen’s striking beauty (Marilyn Monroe’s maturity meets young Queen Elizabeth II) has proven to be an extra-sharp thorn in the side of those who fear and/or hate her. In a fun twist on an old diss, a lot of men want to be her and a lot of women want to be with her. As for the young men who shouted hatred at her, one can only guess the darkness of their confused emotions.
New roses complained of a “heavy police presence” at the Brighton protest, “with officers separating protesters and counter-protesters”. Trans filmmaker Fox Fisher “felt the police were sending a message that they were” protecting TERFs and their right to say hateful and hurtful things… A transphobe had a direct interaction with a trans rights supporter, punching backhand words like tennis with the police forming the net between the two opponents. ‘Police keeping the peace – how dare they?
Speakers kept coming, despite the counter-protests. They shared their experiences of violence and sexual abuse, as well as their experiences of being rejected and fired simply because they believed women’s rights should be protected. The friendliness of the women was remarkable – if not for the smoke bombs the men in black were throwing at us, it could have been a busy day. I spotted women of all ages and ethnicities, lots of lesbians, cute heterosexual couples, and friendly men. And on the other side, a constant flow of hatred against our disobedience.
I couldn’t help but notice that the men’s suit in black was the only black thing about them. To paraphrase Jon Snow at a Brexit rally, I had never seen such an all-white turnout in my life, a fact that seemed to make them even more angry with people of color on our side. Women wearing lesbian t-shirts were called “freaks”. A woman on a mobility scooter was surrounded and threatened. But the madness on the other side really came to a head when a political desk officer for Brighton MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle accused a pro-free speech father of raising his baby so that he is a fascist.
The Black Pampers consider themselves left-wing, but I’ve been on enough picket lines and protest marches in my life (my dad was a communist and labor organizer) to know that’s not the usual way of being on the left. men behave. One of the first attacks on a trans woman in this country took place when a 60-year-old grandmother, Maria MacLachlan, was beaten by a 25-year-old man at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park in 2017. A year later the attacker, who calls himself “Tara the TERF Slayer”, was reportedly accompanied to court by other men in black, three fighting dogs (Dobermans and Mastiffs) and “a huge death metal sound system “. “The machismo of it all was palpable,” noted Jen Izaakson in Feminist current.
It’s obvious that they are very angry young men – but rather than being angry with society, they are angry with women. In the fetid echo chamber they inhabit, they bounce from college to squat to incidents of public disorder without gaining any wisdom, remaining in a state of adolescent anger. One of the banners I saw in Brighton – with ‘COMMUNITY DEFENCE’ written next to a drawing of a Molotov cocktail – could have been made by a particularly deranged primary school child.
The Black Pampers Squad at least knows enough not to voice their hatred of feminism. But they express it in many ways, from their repeated chants of ‘You are not real feminists at TERF (real feminism apparently meaning letting men do what they want) to demonize the beautiful colors of suffragettes – so much so that a Scottish woman was arrested for posting a green, white and purple ribbon on Twitter because that a particularly crazy trans activist felt “threatened” by this “noose”.
The words of LSE gender studies student Matt Thompson were highlighted by Sex Matters last year. They came back to prominence last week when one of his teachers, Dr Jacob Breslow, resigned as a trustee of trans charity Mermaids, after being accused of giving a talk for a organization “to help pedophiles”. Thompson wrote in an essay, “If TERF think trans is an endemic threat to feminism, let’s be feminism’s threat… Imagine this: I hold a knife to your throat and spit my trans into your ear. Does this turn you on? Are you scared? I fucking hope so. Instead of being ridiculed as an inadequate pornographer, Thompson was asked to present the same paper at a conference at the Department of Gender Studies.
Like incels, the Black Pampers seem outraged that women generally choose who they have sex with — and that lesbians, in particular, want to exclude them. This is why men who identify as lesbians obsess over the “cotton ceiling” and colonize lesbian dating apps. The fact that women “won’t share” in this most intimate arena has infected them with a self-righteous rage that is beyond ugly to see.
Remember that next time the men in black will identify themselves as revolutionaries. Scratch an Antifa and find an incel, brothers in arms against arrogant women.
Julie Burhill is a dope journalist. His book, Welcome to The Woke Trials: How #identity killed progressive politicsis published by Academica Press.
