As many, I remember when Sarah Everard was murdered in March 2021. Despite the Covid pandemic, vigils were organised across the country, mainly taking place online.
A Northampton a vigil was “organised…to make streets safer for women” and to “speak about Sarah Everard’s disappearance in south London”.
The most infamous of these vigils, which saw a number of women arrested by police, was held at Clapham Common where Sarah Everard was murdered.
Overall it appeared to me at the time that these vigils were a chance to come together to highlight the threat women face on a day-to-day basis. Ellie, who attended the Clapham Common vigil at the time said that “it’s dangerous for us to be out as women, regardless of the pandemic, so we wanted to be here”. One sign at the rally stated “We are the 97 percent” – referring to a survey that had been conducted a short while earlier, finding that almost all British women had endured harassment.
Last Saturday a child was murdered. We’ve come to know this child, who was stabbed to death, as Brianna Ghey. Even though two arrests have been made, nothing is clear about the motives for the murder and police have specifically asked to “avoid speculation online and be wary of sharing misinformation relating to this case”. Yet, this is exactly what is happening!
India Willoughby was one of the celebrities who weighed in, casting a stone of blame by sating that “the hideous, stinking Gender Critical movement have blood on their hands. ‘A targeted attack.'” in a Twitter feed. She specifically blamed the UK Government, JK Rowling and Ricky Gervais.
An opinion piece in Vogue by Raven Smith yesterday Day concluded “you don’t need to be Colombo for this to feel like a transphobic murder” without explaining the statement, beyond the writer’s vague musing about “how well feminism itself is served by splitting hairs about what it means to actually be a woman”. Smith even went so far as to say that she did not “want to use her [Brianna’s] death to score political points”, yet seemed to proceed to blame single-sex refuges for not helping her.
Elsewhere in the UK the first vigils ‘for’ Brianna were held last night. Some attendees at such a vigil in Warrington suggested that “The media’s hostility towards trans people has led to this”, with one placard expressing a similar temperament reading “your policies of hate are killing our trans youth”.
Other vigils are planned across the country in the following days. Some of these vigils feel very appropriate and ‘neutral’, including a candle lit vigil being held in Sheffield tomorrow at 8pm, which is being held to “honour the life” of the murdered teenager. The aims of some other vigils do not seem to be quite so neutral, but rather speculative.
One such event, which will be held in Brighton later today, seems to have concluded a hatred of transpeople at the heart of the murder, wanting to highlight the “countless trans lives lost every year to rampant hatred”.
The vigil in Brighton is not the only one seeming to link the murder with Brianna being trans. A similar vigil in Hebden Bridge tomorrow, which makes a much vaguer connection, intends to “help…create a safe space where trans, non binary and genderqueer people can feel safe, protected and supported”, encouraging attendees to “light a candle in memory of Brianna and the countless other trans lives that we lose year after year”. I have no question that the intention of the people organising these vigils are kind and good. At the same time it seems important to not allocate blame in a black and white manner and provide context as well as the best available statistics when talking about the number of trans lives ‘lost’ (either through homicide or suicide presumably).
Even national newspapers are publishing articles that suggest similar conclusions. Yesterday, the Independent for instance, published a piece suggesting that “this kind of tragedy was waiting to happen” and goes on to say that “anyone who followed the Conservative leadership contest will have seen the candidates vying with each other to stoke ‘debate’ over trans people’s lives“.
It does not feel that there is a debate over trans people’s lives. What I do see and hear are debates about women’s rights and trans rights and where they may clash (i.e. the perceived right of one group may clash with the perceived right of another), which is a completely different thing. #NoDebate however, is not the answer. We need to be able to have debate and be able to accept that it is very unlikely for the different sides to agree on everything. Thus we need to be able to find a compromise that works for all to the best extent possible. In order to facilitate a climate in which we can have these debates, it is useful, for both sides, to not stoke the fire. Not just the fires of ‘trans rights vs women’s rights’ as if it was a battle, but also the fires of fear. In particular the fear that transpeople may may feel at the moment about their safety. Unfortunately in this case, the fire has already been stoked.
Any murder is abhorrent. Bearing in mind the fact that a recent ‘Trans Murder Monitoring Report’ found that 2021 saw the highest number of murders of transpeople ever recorded, with 375 killed globally, I can understand the concern. However, the question remains, was hatred of trans people the (main) motive behind all these murders? Have the murderers stated / confessed this was their (sole) reason for the murder?
According to the same report 96% of the victims were transwomen, 58% worked in prostitution and 43% were European migrants (43%). Looking at these statistics, we need to ask this: what roles do misogyny, xenophobia and other factors play in these murders?
