A member of the Hackney SuperReSisters, a self-professed women’s rights campaign group, has said she felt “unwelcome and unsafe” at the vigil held for Sarah Everard in London Fields on Saturday night.
The comments came in reaction to pictures of a poster at the London Fields vigil, appearing to accuse some feminists of being “TERFs” (trans-exclusionary radical feminists).
The ReSisters describe themselves as “fed up East London women whose uniting factor is that men are never women”.
The group told Hackney Post that the “dehumanisation” of women made them easier “to abuse, torture and kill”.
Data from the Office for National Statistics from 2017 suggested that 28 per cent of people who defined themselves as trans were the victims of crime compared with 14 per cent of cisgender people.
An account called “Millennial Stargazer” on Twitter accused Hackney ReSisters of being “transphobic” and “belittling to those who don’t subscribe to their worldview”.
The ReSisters told Hackney Post that the chants of “fuck the police” and “no justice no peace show that the vigil was hijacked for political means”.
“It just wasn’t the time or place for political statements,” the ReSisters said. “It was a vigil for a murdered woman. The sign was a clear message that women like [us] were not wanted.”
Dr Jane Hamlin, president of the trans charity the Beaumont Society, told Hackney Post that while “TERF” was not a term she used and saw as not conducive to the movement as a whole, she felt some elements of the feminist movement were too willing to exclude trans people such as herself.
“Take the reforms to the Gender Recognition Act [2004], for instance – that was hijacked by people opposed to the rights of trans people,” Hamlin said.
“People were opposed to this stuff because they thought it would open up women-only spaces for men who were trans only for a day or two. This was nonsense because no one had proposed that.
“In some parts of the trans community there is great hurt about this because [people] are accusing men of hurting women.”
Hamlin said she was willing to have an “intelligent” conversation with people about their concerns on such matters.
She said what had happened to a “minority of the debate” was a shame as “so many feminists fall over themselves to explain how welcoming they are”.
The SuperReSisters reject such notions. “Simply wearing a t-shirt with the definition of ‘woman: adult human female’ is dangerous,” they said.
Hamlin has responded by saying that she believes trans-exclusionary feminists are doing damage “to everyone, not just the trans movement” by holding such views.
Transphobic hate crimes quadrupled over the five years up to 2020.
In spite of the SuperReSisters concerns, the London Fields vigil otherwise passed without incident and the scenes at the Clapham Common event were not repeated in East London.
