by Michael Deacon, Telegraph
How can any Western Left-winger champion LGBT rights while cheering on the rulers of Iran?
The Green Party’s ruling body has just been bolstered by a fascinating new appointee. Eleanora Folan is a white trans woman – i.e., a male – who has voiced eager support for “the Iranian resistance, whose courageous fight against the imperialist dogs of the USA has utterly humiliated the Great Satan. Inshallah Iran will fully repel US imperialism”.
Personally, I’ve never quite been able to understand how it’s possible to champion LGBT rights while sympathising with the aims of Islamic fundamentalists. But since so many Western progressives nowadays seem to think an “Islamo-Left alliance” is perfectly viable, I wonder whether they could answer the following question.
Should trans women be made to wear the burka?
I do hope this important topic will be debated at the next Green Party conference. In Islamic culture, women are expected to dress modestly, by concealing their hair, body, and, in some countries, face. Some party members may therefore argue that, as trans women are indisputably women, they too must cover up.
I can see why trans women might be reluctant to demonstrate their solidarity in this particular fashion. Then again, it would offer one advantage. If they wore burkas, no one could possibly mistake them for men.
Sadly, however, it seems that the Green Party’s efforts to become a broad church, or broad mosque, may be doomed. This week, Liz Spencer – the mother of Hannah Spencer, a Green MP – complained that the party had been hijacked by people who have little in common with the gentle environmentalists of old. She said: “It’s not what the Green Party used to be – nice people who wore hemp shoes. That opened the door for lots of less-than-nice people to enter. And no one was primed for it.”