Cartoon-Level Villainy

Rishi Sunak’s transphobic comment is not a surprise though.

Making a transphobic “joke” in front of the mother of a murdered trans girl — whose killers were ruled to be motivated in part by transphobia — is some next-level cartoon-style villainy.

Rishi Sunak made a joke yesterday about how Kier Starmer can’t even define a woman.

No one should be making transphobic comments in parliament (or at all) and let’s not lie to ourselves that had it been any other day, anyone else in the audience other than Esther Ghey, the response from the MPs would’ve been silence. The boos and jeers? They were for the media, for clout because any other day of the week, transphobic comments are normal in the current government (and in some of the shadow cabinet).

Rishi Sunak refuses to apologise for his comments, saying he was right to point out that Keir Starmer has backpeddled over the issues of trans rights.

And in that he is correct. Keir Starmer has back-peddled, and he is right to point it out. That’s not the problem.

It’s the way he did it, the words he chose, the smile he had when he decided that trans women were good for a put-down. Rishi Sunak punches down and while I’m not surprised, I am angry.