Should Helen Joyce’s Comments Surprise Us?
On 6/3/2022, Pink News ran an article with the headline “‘Gender critical’ author Helen Joyce says she wants to ‘reduce’ number of trans people: ‘Chilling’” discussing comments anti-transgender writer Helen Joyce made during a recent interview. During the interview, she says that the transphobic movement in the United Kingdom should focus on convincing politicians as opposed to convincing the average person and says on people who undergo medical transition “the fewer of those people there are the better.”
Some might call this statement eugenic in nature, just as a Twitter used named Sally Hines did. When Helen Joyce heard about this, her first response was to threaten to sue Sally for defamation. If said lawsuit is going to happen, I am not sure, but I am going to say that the fact that Helen was unable to state how the sentence was defamatory is quite telling.
With that said, some did try and defend Helen’s statement from Sally without resorting to claiming slander — but those excuses commonly made little sense. Bev Jackson, a co-founder of the LGB Alliance, replied to Sally’s tweet with the following:
