No, trans activists aren’t forcing anybody to do anything

Today’s shock-horror trans story is a case study in how certain newspapers deliberately misrepresent stories to make their readers hate trans people. You’ve almost certainly seen it, or read someone’s hot take on it.

The story is this.

In June, two people on the internet posted two tweets that asked whether the logos on the packaging on one brand of sanitary products might upset trans men – that is, people transitioning from female to male – or non-binary people who were assigned female at birth. As they pointed out, many trans men and non-binary people have periods too: one of the posters knows this because they are a trans man.

The company had a look, said “oh, we hadn’t thought of that” and made a minor change to the packaging.

That’s it.

Except, of course, it’s not. Those two tweets became “pressure” that “forced” the company to “ban” its packaging, which somehow is all trans women’s fault because reasons. Cue yet more anti-trans hatred, most of it directed towards trans women, across social media. It’s become so ludicrous that I’ve seen trans women angrily posting about it, saying it’s crazy to suggest that trans women have periods, even though nothing in the story has anything to do with trans women and nobody’s suggesting anything of the sort.

Both of the posters have of course already been hounded off social media by irate Daily Mail, Sun and Telegraph readers.

“Two people on the internet got mildly miffed about something that most people didn’t even notice” is not and should not be a news story, let alone part of a campaign to demonise minorities.


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