by Georgina Mumford, spiked
Lisa Nandy’s ‘Protect the Dolls’ t-shirt is performative activism at its most nauseating.
UK culture secretary Lisa Nandy is coming under fire for wearing a black t-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘Protect the Dolls’ at Wigan Pride on Sunday.
If you keep up with trans-activist trends, the ‘Protect the Dolls’ slogan might sound familiar. Celebrities such as Pedro Pascal, Tilda Swinton, Alan Cumming and Madonna have all worn t-shirts bearing the phrase. According to the t-shirt’s creator, a New York-born fashion-school grad now living in London, ‘the dolls’ supposedly in need of protection are transwomen. In other words, blokes.
‘In queer communities, “doll” is a term of affection, pride and belonging – a coded word that speaks volumes without explanation’, claimed a piece in Forbes when the t-shirt first appeared at London Fashion Week earlier this year. Apparently, the term is ’emotional, not clinical, protective, not patronising’. It seems this Forbes writer is oblivious to the patronising implications of likening women to ‘dolls’ – not to mention the threat posed to actual women and girls if they open their spaces to any man who decides to shove chicken cutlets down his shirt that day.
It is not surprising that Nandy is keen to protect the dolls. Ever on the ‘right-thinking’ side of history, she has consistently denied biological reality. ‘I think transwomen are women… so I think they should be accommodated in a prison of their choosing’, she once said of a man jailed for five counts of child rape, who later claimed to be a woman. She has also been happy for men to compete in women’s sport, claiming last year that it should be up to each individual sporting body whether to allow male-bodied athletes to compete in the female category.