The blue-on-blue row between Blunt and Townsend over trans – and big questions about free speech and public service.
by Charlotte Gill, Conservative Home:
Yesterday, readers of this site may have spotted an interesting article in UnHerd, titled “Inside the Tory trans civil war”. It documents a dispute between Lisa Townsend, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey (and a columnist for ConservativeHome) and Crispin Blunt, the Conservative MP, both of whom, it could be said, represent opposite sides of the trans debate.
Townsend believes that gender and sex shouldn’t be conflated, and that self-identification creates risks in women’s spaces. Blunt, as Bartosch puts it, “believes that it is discriminatory to exclude those who are male but identify as trans from women’s services and spaces.” As well as being Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on LGBT+ rights, he is the MP for Reigate, Surrey (in other words, he and Townsend share a patch).
Their disagreement on trans issues came to a head when Townsend retweeted JK Rowling (see below) with a supportive comment. Blunt phoned Townsend to complain – as he had done previously when she had taken part in an interview criticising Stonewall – to make his feelings known.
But this time, after she yet again did not heed his advice, he wrote a complaint letter to the Chair of the Surrey Police and Crime Panel.
Here is an extract from it:
“The PCC’s messaging propagates dangerous myths that trans women represent a physical threat to cisgender women and, in its refusal to recognise individual’s gender identities, fundamentally undermines the dignity of trans people.”
I’ve caught up with Blunt and Townsend since UnHerd’s piece was published, to explore the matter even further. Here’s what they said:
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