It used to be only the right that tried to censor things. You weren’t supposed to disrespect the monarchy, blaspheme against the Christian God, encourage homosexuality or use rude words on television. Now the left wants to censor anybody who questions liberal opinion – or uses the wrong terminology – on race, religion or sexuality. Since I instinctively agree with attempts to support groups that have long suffered prejudice, social exclusion, violence and disadvantage, I, like many others on the left, hesitated to criticise those who may be overzealous in such support. Now, I fear, too many of us have been silent for too long.
Suzanne Moore, one of the most talented journalists of her generation and a feminist pioneer, has resigned from the Guardian. Some months ago, she wrote a column defending an Oxford professor who was disinvited from a commemorative women’s liberation event because she had previously addressed a group that was deemed “transphobic”. Moore went on to explain her own opinion that, while gender is a “social construct” – girls don’t have to be feminine in a conventional way nor boys masculine – sex isn’t. “Female is a biological classification that applies to all living species… Even if you are a frog.” This provoked a protest letter, signed by 338 Guardian employees, which claimed the paper’s “transphobic content… interfered” with their work.
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