Debbie Hayton, AGPs and those Evil Pronouns

The ferocious debate about Debbie Hayton and his (or is it her...) pronouns is a warning sign of potential pitfalls ahead. The Gender Critical movement needs to keep its eye on the prize.

“I have no desire to make windows into men's souls"

- Queen Elizabeth the First

The last week on social media has felt a little bit like, I imagine, the day after VE Day did. With crumpled party hats and raging headaches some gender critical activists behaved as if they thought the global menace of gender ideology had already been defeated. It was a tough old war, and a fabulous victory celebration and now we can afford to settle some scores and dredge up long-standing grievances. Except, of course, we haven’t won. And nowhere near it.

This outbreak of Maoist-style denunciation was triggered by the publication of an autobiography by Debbie Hayton (boo hiss) a trans identified male or ‘transwoman’ who went through full physical “sex change surgery” eight years ago. He later realised this was a mistake or at least his belief that he had ever been an actual woman was.

The publication of Hayton’s book led to interviews by Janice Turner and Andrew Doyle who both used female pronouns (boo hiss) for Debbie. This brought to the surface a barely-repressed loathing for Hayton and his/her pronouns that has been building behind the scenes for years.

Don’t get me wrong. I actually agree that we should try to use the correct sex pronouns whenever we can. What was troubling though was some of the tone and language used. While some people respectfully pointed out that Debbie himself no longer seems to use female pronouns others had a meltdown.