Two days ago, Police Scotland Greater Glasgow posted an appeal for information about a missing woman, Amy Campbell. She hasn’t been seen since the middle of March and was reported missing on 4 April.
As you’d expect from a missing-woman appeal, there are hundreds of comments. But those comments, by and large, aren’t expressing concern for her welfare. They’re misgendering her and posting anti-trans slurs because they believe she’s transgender.
The worst aren’t the obvious bigots. The worst are the people trying to pretend their bigotry is just – you’ve guessed it – reasonable concerns: if the police were serious about finding Amy, they argue, they’d make it clear what genitals she had at birth. Many of the people posting this have the “gender critical” signifiers in their usernames or bios.
Imagine seeing a police post about a missing woman and thinking the right thing to do is post “that’s a man” or an anti-trans slur. Imagine doing that and thinking the world is better with you in it.