Do people have a political and legal right NOT to be criticized?
That’s what’s happening in Great Britain now.
A mother of four who campaigns against “gender identity” ideology claims she was threatened with arrest and banned from leaving the UK after saying transgender women are “castrated” men.
In the words of the West Yorkshire Police: “Being different is not a crime. Nobody deserves to live in fear of abuse because of who they are.”
Based on this statement, a British woman has been threatened with arrest and with being unable to leave the country.
The implication of the police statement, combined with their threat to arrest the woman critical of transgenderism, is clear: “People who are transgender have a right not to have their feelings hurt. If you hurt their feelings, you will pay the price legally.”
Britain does not have a First Amendment. But toxic, bad and wrong ideas, if left unchallenged, will eventually override even the First Amendment. It’s not farfetched to imagine something like this happening in the United States, especially with militant political correctness continually on the rise.
Why can’t transgender activists hear the criticism? What are they afraid of? Why do they need the police to enforce silence and dissension of any and all opposition?
Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, the mother facing the harassment, states, “I am not part of a grooming gang or paedophile ring, I haven’t hurt anyone or abused anyone. I am a woman with an opinion.” She goes on, “This fight is not whether you agree with my views on transgender issues as much it is that you agree that I have a right to air my views, a right to voice an opinion, a right to free speech.”
Why are the police even involved? In what universe would it even occur to someone who doesn’t like your opinions to call the police on you? That’s the mindset of a totalitarian state. Is that where Great Britain now is, and where America also might be headed? The psychological mindset is already in place.
The bigger question — for all of us who still cherish freedom of speech — is this: How is there a right not to be offended? And if one group has a right not to be offended, enforceable by police, then what about the opposing group? Don’t they have the same legal right not to be offended? Don’t anti-transgender people have an equal right not to be criticized or disagreed with, the same supposed right as the transgendered persons? In practice, that is not presently the case. What justifies this double standard and discrimination?
No answer will be given because the question is never asked. And with the way things are going in Great Britain, the P.C. Police will soon be knocking at your door if you ask it.
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