On Saturday morning, I shared a very blandly agreeable tweet:
This is the core theme of our campaign: that we need to think in terms of what is best for our community. As I said when announcing my candidacy, life here in the Isle of Man is about our shared community, our shared teams, which are important for all of us. Douglas East is the heart of our island, and the home of many of our community organisations. But many of them are struggling.
Rather than support this effort to build a shared community, a small group of unhinged political ultras have demanded that I “delete” the tweet. One such fanatic wrote to me, saying, “the context of your tweet demonstrates a problematic use of the language that can further compound many issues face by transgender individuals whose pronouns are not taken seriously and who suffer as a consequence.” After I told them that I would not be deleting the tweet, they went on to say, “I have informed you of it’s problematic nature and am now considering it an offense against gender-non-conforming people.”
This is a dumb and absurd interpretation of my tweet. My tweet is very clearly making the point that we need to think in terms of “us” and “our” community, instead of the selfishness of the current culture. Interpreting my tweet as a reflection on transgender people is absurd. It is a dumb interpretation that has no relationship to reality.
I will not be deleting the tweet, and will not be cowed by political ultras who demand the deletion of even incredibly bland words of people they disagree with. Instead, I will continue to build an inclusive community that is welcoming for all of us. This includes continuing my leadership of efforts to enable people of any gender to play netball.
