60-Year-Old Woman’s Face Beaten By Trans Activists Trying to Stop a Debate on Gender the Activists Had Already No-Platformed
UPDATE: Since the writing of this blog post, there has been a much clearer video released of missing parts of the attack in the original, showing the woman was clearly assaulted. Please see the new video below because many trans activists and supporters are saying the woman deserved it. And here is a screenshot of some commentary that led up to the event
On Wednesday, September 13, a 60-year-old woman was punched by trans activists during a protest they were having against women who are concerned about the impacts of male’s self-declaration of gender and the legal system enforcing it. These issues impact women’s sports, scholarships, and businesses who will be forced to hire trans women in sensitive jobs that involve privacy and nudity. The gender discussion had already been no-platformed at another location, and the event was to be held at Speaker’s Corner in London. The Daily Wire and The Other McCain have posts on the incident if you want details. Last night I wound up closely watching the video of this incident dozens of times. And I have to say this was a completely unjustified assault, and any attempt to deny it should be confronted aggressively.
On a small scale, the video is so chaotic that you can’t tell what’s going on. The grandmother could have possibly done something to contribute to the situation for all I knew when I watched it on my phone or even my computer. Yes, sometimes even grandmothers engage in escalating behavior or even hit first, and you can’t trust eyewitness accounts over the Internet. However, if you look at this on a 100-inch TV screen which I have at home (projection), it’s quite obvious that trans activists assaulted this woman unjustly and that the people who did it should have charges pressed against them. There are people such as Zack Ford, a gay man, and writer for Think Progress, who are saying the woman deserved what she got. And several trans activists like Zinnia Jones are defending this and actually encouraging it. The woman’s face is all bruised up; this isn’t minor.
Let’s review the most important points:
1) Filming people at a public event is not illegal, at least not in the United States where I’m from. I’m not here to tell anyone what to do, but for your own safety in emotionally charged situations like this I’d highly recommend videotaping from the sidelines and not putting yourself within reach of people and relocate if they are demanding not to be filmed. There is no point getting up close to people and debating them in this situation. Nothing productive will come of it.
2) When they start pushing their signs into her camera, one of their hands almost seems to strike her or come close to hitting her and another trans activist’s hand hits either her arm or her body as she is CLEARLY TURNING AWAY TO PROTECT HERSELF. She’s making no physical provocations here whatsoever as they are doing this to her and is clearly displaying passive body language.
3) Then a scuffle happens where apparently a trans activist was trying to grab her camera but it’s hard to see what happens. Do they hit her here (they did-see new vid. below)? From her account of events it sounds like they did but I do not know for sure and can’t verify that. Were all of the bruises she had from being punched by the trans activist at the end of the incident? There was a strap on her wrist connecting the camera which worsened the struggle according to her.
4) The trans activist throws and smashes the camera. She continues to keep hold of the TA’s clothing. Yes, this was a mistake. A mistake that resulted in the situation escalating. But grabbing hold of someone you are afraid of is a very natural reaction humans have in altercations and why if you want to train in martial arts for defense reasons, you need a teacher who knows grappling arts. She may have been grabbing the activist's cloths out of anger that they destroyed her property. It was probably a combination. If she was actually hit when they tried to grab her camera during the scuffle (it is hard to see) she is totally justified in holding onto the trans activist for self-defense reasons. (UPDATE- She was clocked hard in the face during the scuffle. See Miranda Yardley’s video below for clearer footage.)
5) Everyone should stand up to the shutdown of free speech and the physical intimidation that is coming along with it. If you are attending emotionally charged events, I highly recommend not engaging in utterly pointless debate with an angry crowd. Escalation is exactly what some of them are looking for. We have seen this go poorly on college campuses and during recent protests time and time again. We are seeing more and more of these situations escalating into violence and much of it by the left. Designate someone to document escalations ahead of time. And don’t stand around singing Que Sera Sera through a megaphone blocking the camera while someone is being assaulted…please. Awareness of your surroundings in these emotionally charged situations is very importent. Because of years of martial arts training, educating myself about violence, and personal experience teaching self-defense to men, women, and children, I have heard many many many stories of situations getting totally out of control, with serious consequences, even involving everyday people who aren’t usually violent. If someone falls to the ground at one of these out of control protests and gets a boot to the head, they could get a serious concussion, brain damage, or even die. It’s not worth the even small risk.
6) Watch the cowardly “LGBT media” refuse to cover this.
7) Women have the right to question if 6’ 6” trans women should play on women’s’ basket teams, if serial rapist males should be housed in women’s prisons, and if rape survivors should be forced to have an autogynephilic trans woman as her counselor at a rape crises center. And LGBT media sites such as Pink News need to stop inciting the insane, over the top, and patronizing hatred directed at these women for exercising the right to ask questions about how trans activism affects them because it does. I know there have been incidences of female radicals hurling online abuse at trans people. I’m the first to say women aren’t all perfect. However, from my extensive reading, it doesn’t come anywhere close to the culture of violent threats coming from mostly MTFs who are attracted to women. There are hundreds and hundreds of examples like the ones below and some more are here at TERF is a slur.
8) I hope everyone who supports these women continues to maintain the higher ground.
9) Again, there is NO EVIDENCE this woman threw any punches at these activists. She sheepishly turned away when they initially started trying to hit her camera and her. Grabbing the activist at the end isn’t justification for her having her face beaten.
UPDATE: Here is a link to Miranda Yardley’s video edited for clarification on Greg Herod’s Youtube channel video. This woman was clearly assaulted. There should be a prosecution. I’m curious what is in the man with the pony tail’s hand. (The video asks if it’s a gun- I don’t want to spread that rumor without knowing).
UPDATE: Here is footage of a young trans activist (who was actually shoved herself by one of the trans activists for trying to intervene) saying she is glad the woman got hit.
UPDATE: Maria MacLachlan, the women who trans actvists assualted covers the whole incident here. The courts ruled n her