Four Fingers Pointing Back - The Endless Fash-Smearing Of Feminists

This is a long story.

(In fact, this is far too long and you may want to see the streamlined version, here)

First, I'll give a little run down, then I'm going to have a pop at Billy Bragg and then I'll have a butcher's at who really has a problem with fascism.

In Defence Of Graham Linehan; Part Two - That Newsnight Interview

*See Part one

*Part 3 A Glinner of Cope

One day, this will make a great film. 

Great as in, genuinely batshit crazy, leaving audiences incredulous, asking did they miss something? Were those demented trans activists following a script created by the Church of Scientology and Annie Wilkes? Did they swear an oath of omertà? And was that a horse's head on Caroline Farrow's doorstep, or a real lawyer? 

Message boards will spring up, filled with flabbergasted future-people, wondering if there was some spore-based mind control parasite back then? Theories will emerge - it was unleashed ahead of the Trump administration, to make Q-ankers look plausible. Men are women, if they say so. Pah! Those deluded, turd-for-brains tarts. 

In Defence Of Graham Linehan; Part 1

Part Two That Newsnight Interview            Part Three A Glinner of Cope 

In the war between trans rights activists and feminists, the first descriptor you'll hear is 'toxic'. And it is toxic, with some obnoxious and sinister characters. 

So, if you had to guess, who would you would you pick as the worst? Deserving of relentless ridicule and abuse? 

Some are rapists, like Allison Woolbert and Karen Lawson or David Challenor. 

Sophie Labelle aka Assigned Male, who is a 'little', did 'diaperfur' cartoon characters based on photos of real life babies. 

Lorelai Bailey built shinigami eyes and has been accused of rape by multiple people. Jess Bradley, Lily Madigan and Eli Erlick (archived article here) have all been accused of sexual assault. 

Alok "Dark Matter" Vaid-Menon, who thinks little girls are 'kinky'? 

Dana McCallum, twitter engineer, who mocked women for fearing rape, then raped his ex-wife? 

Dana Rivers?

Eli Erlick still has a platform and is treated as if relevant, appearing on Vice debate panels and Doctor Phil recently

Keffals? 

How about India Willoughby - the racism, homophobia, the misogyny? 

Willoughby, who on Big Brother loudly castigated 82-year old Amanda Barrie, (after she'd already apologised for misgendering) shouting what I imagine is a mantra forever on cognitive loop:

"I am a woman. A real woman. A real woman, Amanda. Good, I'm glad it's sinking in, so I'm gonna say it one more time so it really penetrates - I. Am. A. Real. Woman"?

No, it would appear that the most hated is on the other side. 

-

I could continue listing bastards and firing references / ad homs into the void. I could bore a desensitised audience with the ferocious campaign of harassment, threats and insults from activists - and I'm gonna be doing a bit of that, anyway - but - this isn't about who is bad. This is about someone who is good. 

Unlike those above, Graham Linehan, aka Glinner, is not a racist or a misogynist, or a rapist. It looks unlikely he grooms unhappy kids and secretly sends them bathtub estrogen, or compiles vast hit lists of heretic women and, unless he's a truly evil genius, he's never annihilated an entire family. 

No. I'm afraid it's something much worse - Glinner is terf adjacent. A supporter of women. A feminist enabler.

Glinner was stupidly young when Father Ted became a hit. He'd already written for a plethora of comedy shows and I imagine having that meteoric success could confer some level of hubris. He was known as a left wing geezer and like most of us on one side of the political landscape, his reactions were likely reflexive sometimes. That's quite a prominent feature of the people on the Internet, and especially blokes. 

Perhaps he's been guilty, to a much lesser degree, of what he's now victim of, but the difference here is he's honest about that. He's made admissions and, in one notorious case, a full, unreserved and very public apology. 

What's also unlike those typical twitter brocialists is, he's had the courage to be unpopular among peers. That's a rare thing, especially to stick with it - this isn't a one-off edgy take. 

So, is it white-knuckle, cloud-shouting bigotry, or is it a matter of principle he feels compelled to make a stand over? 

Now here's the thing - Graham Linehan can be abrupt, dismissive and rude. He's also defiant, dogged and like anyone who stumbled into this debate, stunned at the ferocity, exasperated and increasingly angry. 

That anger doesn't remain in the confines of personal offence, however. It snowballs constantly. 

Because this is a complex and immense political and social project unfurling. It's authoritarian, dictatorial and censorious, and it's built entirely on shite. 

And since the day he woke up to this, Glinner has stood with women, with gay people, with sane transsexuals. He's been a huge force in exposing the madness and ceaselessly promoted others. 

A common accusation to anyone involved in resisting this project is that we've become obsessed, gone mad. 

It's impossible to counter, and at some stage you realise it's almost without exception a disingenuous, insulting insinuation, functioning like the accusations of hysteria once did. You can't discuss it because they won't meaningfully engage. They're being sly and cowardly, impugning your mental health, your rationality and it starts to feel like gaslighting. 

This is must be significantly harder when your accuser and you are well known, and they do it publicly.

Richard Herring, a former friend, strongly suggested Glinner is mentally ill in response to Alan Driscoll. (I'll get onto Driscoll later, he's sinister, nasty and pathologically fixated on Glinner). 

Anyway, when cornered, with the chance to defend his friend and tell Driscoll to stop being such a bunny boiler, Herring declines. He flees like terrapins slap into a Spanish river at the sight of humans. He uses an expedient, shitty ploy to excuse himself from the witchfinder specific. All under the guise of being a compassionate, thoughtful mate. 

So, what terrible things has he actually said about trans people? As for abusive bully - considering Driscoll's frantic, Glinnercidal fury it's difficult to take any other way than an all-consuming vendetta pursued through any proxy available. 

Most importantly, when has he been wrong? No one gives a shit about the 'choke on my girl dick' 'STFU terf' rhetoric, they laugh at the assault of Maria McLaughlin and minimise the sex offending larpers, but still portray Glinner as both wrong and abusive. When was this? 

The truth is, everyone knows how loud, influential and vicious TRAs are - that's precisely why there's a quiet complicity: Herring is attempting to save face by implicitly agreeing Glinner is behaving terribly, while hiding his scurrilous cop out behind a shield of an ostensibly cautious responsibility. 

And there's countless more like him, dismissing challenging information as worthless and deranged, whether generic, beardy panel fillers like Herring, or even the gleeful, professionally offensive. 

For example, Frankie Boyle: who joked that the reason Katie Price needed security because her autistic son wanted to rape her, but thinks Ricky Gervais joking about Bruce / Caitlyn Jenner is beyond the pale (all about context, apparently - only Boyle is smart enough to get it. That and punching up not down - it's well known that millionaire Republican Jenner is more vulnerable than a blind, autistic child).

Boyle knows being a savage, shark-eyed nihilist is his career, but that also trans politics must never be mocked - so he clutches his pearls and cracks jokes about the disabled, women, and raping women - because that is, genuinely, significantly less controversial. 

Boyle - one part overstuffed & threadbare upholstered chair, two parts ethical guidance scholar, 1,763 parts rape enthusiast

Same goes for the two pricks from Little Britain and the many more, who have all been highly controversial but are now meticulously sticking to mother's maxim "if you don't have anything nice to say, say nothing at all - unless it's Glinner". 

Speaking of mothers, there's the singer turned creator of Hallmark Cards Mothering Sunday jingles, Billy Bragg (seriously, have you heard this? If one of my children bought me that for Mother's Day, I'd probably have to slap them out) I'll get to him one day. Pompous wanker. 

Mind Your Pansexuals & Qu**rs

Time and again, you can be proven right, but you'll never get an acknowledgement. The focus recalibrates, the conversation moves on to the next outrage. 

Because, now we get to that embarrassing error, it's suddenly all about the tone. 

People think you sound too... Aggressive? Vociferous?  They also refuse to speak up while simultaneously attempting to shame you for taking a stand. 

"I know the kids with mastectomies and futures robbed of healthy, sexually functioning bodies, and rapists in women's prisons and changing rooms, I know it is quite bad, but look - you're all alone up there, like a nutter! It's embarrassing" 

"Okay, well once other people speak up, the weight's off my shoulders a bit. Back me up! Say something" 

"No. I really can't do that. Just get down and shut up" 

"You're a coward. You know this is wrong, you know it makes no sen.." 

"Jesus FUCK, are we still on this subject? Do you eVEr tAlK ABOUT OThEr tHInGs?" 

It's infuriating. People admit to the problem sometimes, privately - Sally Ann Dixon, Katie Dolatowski, Isla Bryson etc. But anything more than minimising the incidence, asserting trans vulnerability and a glowing reaffirmation of every other trans person is deemed too harsh. So is mentioning it frequently, even when there's a daily outrage. 

For Glinner, a number of the rifts which have occurred are around this - tone, or optics. Don't share and mock images men have put up on lesbian dating sites, for example. The misgendering is cruel. Stop talking like that. 

Occasionally, this comes from other gender criticals, and while I sometimes sympathise, it amazes me how much attention it can take. TRAs don't police each other like that. I know we're better than them, and don't ignore egregious crimes, but I also see the strength in avoiding friendly fire. 

Linehan perfects the head tilt on his Her profile (Glinner's writeup) 

Is the image above really more ludicrous than the real ones below that? We're not talking about transsexuals tentatively posting on dating sites with interest in women: we're talking about undoctored men becoming insulting and aggressive on a lesbian dating site, reporting them for prejudice, during a loud campaign to condemn 'genital preferences'. Isn't it about time this was exposed? Would people believe it without the profile pictures? Do these men deserve sensitivity? 

Any time Glinner's in the press it's the same - "anti trans campaigner" "Graham Linehan in 'transphobia' storm" - like JK Rowling, it's bias confirmation, vague claims and opinions which aren't examined or substantiated. Liberal sneer quotes, deliberately bad framing. 

It often won't assert that any singular thing he's done is transphobic, or why, it just suggests it within the confines of libel law. For example, reporting him as being permanently banned from twitter for transphobic harassment, when in fact the offending tweet was "Men aren't women tho"

Then, the obsession claim. 

Aside from the obvious pantomime villain click bait, it's an understandable accusation; trans activism and the politics around it does appear to consume him. 

I get that accusation, too. And even when making a conscious decision to lay off the trans stuff, I only need to mention it once again before another wave of the same denunciation comes down. 

Do you know what would stop me from going on about it? To not be surrounded by people ignoring it, or - worse - cheering the fucker on. 

Ironically, when I catch up with friends who acknowledge the madness enveloping our society, we're over the subject fast. 

It's the giant rainbow elephant in the room no one will admit to seeing, and each time I see it trampling people, or when they slyly throw peanuts to the ground or rail against smaller doorways (literal gatekeeping) I'll mention it. Being told to shut up is the least effective instruction. 

Glinner has said for years, he'll stop when others - especially women - feel able to speak. And clearly, when women are still terrified of being 'outed' as gender critical, when we can't even watch our own films without smoke grenades being thrown from the prams of wailing black pampers, that's not yet been realised. 

When people tell him to lay off while refusing to do anything themselves, or when he, like everyone with functioning observational skills, sees the constant bullshit, it's difficult to ignore, to not see as yet more complicity in an appalling assault on women's rights and reality. 

Add to that the unhinged abuse he's received and yeah, he'll be unlikely to let it go. Among many other things, some activist(s) went so far as to mock up a conversation where Glinner apologises for sending naked pictures to women on MumsNet. 

These people are the most dishonest and shameless on earth. 

Quote at bottom, in orange, is from Glinner's no 1 hate-stan, Alan Driscoll. Let that be your proof it's fake. 

Having lost so much because you refuse to give insincere apologies and then shut the fuck up will leave you angry, or 'obsessed' if you're a gaslighting wanker. 

Try telling anyone who's suffered a harassment campaign or injustice that they need to chill out and give it a rest. Refuse to look at the evidence that's all around you, that they beg you to look at - see how that goes. 

It's the equivalent to one bloke telling you 'cheer up, giz a smile love' when ten foot away he and his mates catcalled you with offensive gestures. It's enraging. 

If Glinner is to be condemned, why is that same standard never, ever, held for the regular proponents and rent-a-gobs - those I mentioned at the start, and the many more - who seem to suffer no consequences for their appalling rhetoric or acts?

Part 2 will look at a couple of media stitch-ups, and then I'll get onto some of the scandalously malevolent characters involved in defaming him. 

Please check out Glinner's fund raiser, and even better, contribute.

Graham is being sued by *the Scottish actor* who traded nude images to bribe people into submitting to the gender recognition reform bill, reported Ceri Black (further run down of his vexatious complaints by Ceri here) and Marion Millar to the police, and here's what he did to a non-compliant gay magazine!) 

An OBE; Belcher's Ballad (Trans Complaint Ecology #4)

Imagine this: your child - your teenage daughter, in fact - writes and performs a song for you, as a gift.

In it, she rails against discrimination you face, and declares her devotion to you. You are affirmed, praised and empathised with. She is fearful for you, and believes you need their unwavering support. 

Incredible, huh? How many have teen daughters who would do this - a song, in which you are described as a queen, a goddess?! 

And, most importantly, why? Why does she fell this way? 

Because you are trans, and your child thinks this identity means you are hated and conspired against. 

Maybe there have been negative consequences, attacks, which few know of, but having seen multiple examples of what Helen Belcher calls abuse, I'm having problems believing that. 

It looks to me that this identity, being trans, has been the foundational characteristic, almost a springboard to relevance and, some degree, of power. 

But back to you, with the song from your daughter - you're an affluent, extremely well connected, upper-middle class professional, now branching out into politics with a lot of support from your party's head honchos. 

But still, you constantly, gratuitously overplay the trans vulnerability card, and now your child writes this song. 

Personally, I'd feel pretty bad. 

The O.B.E

We began shitty January with uplifting news: Belcher has been awarded an OBE in 2023's New Year's Honours List, lauding his work for the 'trans community'.

When it was Kathleen Stock, we heard a lot about colonial back pats, boot-licking, establishment stooges etc. Teeth were verily gnashed by frantically fretful fannies. But, now it's Belcher's turn, the mood has changed. There is applause aplenty, and all are appreciative and congratulatory. 

Well, almost. Obviously, I can't fairly be described as happy, because I think it's an offensively gratuitous show of old boy's network-ism and utterly fucking redonculous. 

In true Belcher style, the award was of course an honour, but also chilling and ominous and bound to invite transphobic fuckery. If it was for anyone else, he feels there'd be 'just loads of celebration' and maybe he has a point. WHERE is his street party? Surely there are some tressell tables and bunting left over from the Queen's Jubilee? 

This is a familiar patter for Belcher, who's bombastic fragility and bellicose claims of vulnerability have become legendary in terven circles, and, I can only assume, in complaints' departments the length and breadth of the country. 

For example;

TRANSWOMAN FEELS ACCEPTED - BUT LIVES IN FEAR Of BEING MURDERED - that headline's a cracker, isn't it? It's also an accurate representation of what's inside, though.

In it, Belcher describes a life which gives absolutely no reason to be anything but happy - 

"Helen confirmed she faces more abuse for being a Liberal Democrat than she does for being transgender" it explains. That is, apart from when online, where Belcher apparently suffers "vile abuse" daily: “The bulk of the hate" apparently comes through the mainstream media. 

Which is telling. Thanks to relentless lobbying (AKA organisations involved with, or founded by, Belcher) the press are so ideologically captured/terrified that they will use female pronouns, or the descriptor 'woman' even for hulking great rapists. So, if this accounts for 'the bulk of the hate', I suspect the bar for what passes as hate is lower than a centipede's sphincter. 

"While she feels accepted by the community, Helen still lives in fear of being injured or killed "I’m worried about being murdered”, Helen exclaimed. "You get trans people who are murdered." 

Which, well, sets the bar at subterranean depths, possibly within a brisk waddle to the earth's core. Of course, "you get" trans people who are murdered. 

Further on in, Belcher also says he knocked on 9,000 doors canvassing and only one person had a trans-based objection. So, how does he justify comments like this? 

“If I get killed, I get killed and that’ll be the end. I won’t know anything else, but if my family gets attacked, I would have to live with that" he says with great magnamity, before claiming trans people are beaten up "often" in the UK. 

I wish I could reassure Belcher that transphobic violence is so rare in the UK, significantly more trans people have been convicted of murder than been murdered, and of those few, it's doubtful any were motivated by transphobia. At least 10% were committed by another trans person. 

And, most hate crime reports are non-violent incidents like misgendering or suspicion an offense (whether personal or criminal) was inspired by the other's prejudice, not roving gangs of qu**r bashers, not homicidal thugs and not even life-long lefty feminists talking to each other about the critical need for same sex spaces. Those genocidal maniacs. 

But, maybe it would be better to advise his daughter. 

If you read the previous blog you'll have seen just what a privileged position Belcher is in. 

It leaves me wondering, if he is so afraid, why make so many grabs for the limelight? 

Why become so well known in the town you live in, campaign for a role where your address becomes public knowledge?

Really, it's implausible he's unaware trans people are in the safest demographics, even in that country with supposed murder epidemic on transwomen, America. 

I cannot imagine a woman carrying on with this hysterical alarmism without the Internet erupting into coffee-spitting mirth and ridicule. It would see the birth of a thousand memes of a Big Red, Ficki Fiona or Cathy Newman genre.

Personally, using any opportunity - even when every measure of privilege has been afforded - to fabricate or exaggerate dangers and adversity I face, to relentlessly 'raise awareness' of my unimpeachable victimhood or martyrdom, would be far too humiliating for me. 

And I say this as a former heroin addict who begged (a very low-shame / high desperation threshold required for this sympathy-taxing pursuit) - I couldn't do it. I'd be mortified. And I've never met with government ministers several times a week to further my rights; been affluent or well connected. That's just audacity. 

It's impossible to prove, but I think it's simply a cynical ploy - after all, being analytical, astute and heavily involved in all the debate, Belcher must know the truth?

And, surely, he doesn't repeat this crap to friends and family, unnecessarily frightening them? 

- Belcher's Ballad - 

In one of my many online searches, I came across something which I found infuriating. 

It's one of Belcher's children (the one he said he feared growing to hate) with a song written for his birthday.

I am, of course, not going to link to it, and I would be horrified and thoroughly pissed off if this lead to people sharing it - so please don't. Belcher's political chicanery and feminist's objections to them should not impact his kids. If anyone known to the family sees this, I would suggest making it private. 

However, I feel compelled to comment on this. It's a startling sign of how the fear and pity propaganda permeates and how effectively and thoughtlessly it is propelled. 

It's a well executed and sweet song, and I find it unspeakably sad. 

During a child's adolescence, the parent is normally bolstering their child's confidence as they set out in the world. To flourish, young people tend to benefit from feeling that home, or at least their parents, are stable, safe and there for them. It's the age most people are rebelling, but this teenager yearns to comfort and reassure their parent. She's probably university age, but this near-adult child is being pulled back into the family, apparently worrying herself silly. 

 

She has a pretty voice and does a cute, quirky instrumental; it demonstrates a deep love and also concern. It's almost a lullaby and, aside from some unknown private tragedy, I find it dazzlingly disproportionate, painful, and, try as I might, I can't imagine the sentiment behind it is founded on anything but years of ingesting these theatrical, catastrophizing narratives.

The daughter seems sure her father requires intense emotional and moral support, and that she must provide it. She writes and sings a song to her father where he is the victim of multiple hardships and 'hate.' 

Belcher is called a queen, a goddess.  

🎼 "I'm not an angel

I can't make a sad song change its tune

I don't believe in miracles

but I will be there for you

🎼 When it feels that the whole world is conspiring

 And existence is nothing but tiring

Remember you are my angel

and one day you'll rise above it all

🎼 There is no limit to the hate that exists out there

As we set out on a journey that's not gonna be fair

But one thing I know, history has shown when fear breaks only love grows

🎼You are a queen

But no body knows

You must tell them so

....

🎼 I don't pretend to understand what it is you do

And I only see a fraction of what you go through

🎼 But I'm not naive

still I believe

As you fight on, I won't leave

...

🎼 And you are a goddess

they don't want you to be

but you must make them see

🎼 "When you feel like you're failing

you can always return to me

🎼 When your heart started breaking

I hope that you'll see

🎼 You are the only thing

 I want you to be

You have the power to make a difference so use it wisely

It is mind-blowing. 

I try to imagine, if my child(ren) wrote such a thing for me, I would be deeply moved, but mainly I'd be devastated that there was so much fear for me. 

I may have detailed my struggles here, but not to them. They get a heavily redacted and edited version, as and when it's necessary. Why set them up for fear and a victim mentality? Why set them off on their new lives as adults with one eye on you, praying you'll be ok? 

Children should not feel emotionally responsible for a parent. Children, of her age especially, are to be encouraged and helped to centre their needs as they venture out into the world, empowered.

I'm left with so many questions: would Belcher's son write this? Does his daughter know she is no one's emotional support person, and that facts exist which put these claims into perspective? 

If it ever came to it, can she stand her ground with a man who may cry helplessness, prejudice and sadness? 

Of course, we don't know what praise and gratitude Belcher heaped on his daughter in private, but on the post this is his response:

Not, even, a verbal reply.. 

It makes me angry. There is no need for her to feel like this, and almost all young women need guidance in learning to put their needs first. 

It's just a snapshot, though a painful one, of a complete 180° on the child/parent role: the child, desperate to comfort the parent. And after much reading, I do not believe Belcher is in any way disempowered, vulnerable or helpless - or feels that way. 

I think it's a cynical ploy. 

Trans Complaint Ecology #4 is here

Belcher Beginnings (Trans Complaint Ecology #3)

 

Now, I've confessed, in my synopsis of Cook, Neeves & Prosho recently, but it's another day, so - as happens from time to time, I've developed one of my macabre obsessions, and right now my melodramatic muse is... Belcher.

Helen Belcher

But it's not purely my bedeviled rubber-necking and gratuitous nosiness - as I wrote in Light The Beacons, I'm bitter and somewhat aggrieved by the incessant mithering which constitutes trans political activism. The complaints of Belcher and co seem pathetically transparent, vexatious and coercive. Certainly, it does not appear to be the work of someone powerless and oppressed.

It's more like a modern sequel to The Princess And The Pea. The princess, played by Emma Watson or another vapid dingbat, has discovered that offending legume under stacks of plush mattresses. After considering her options, she calls an ambulance-chasing shyster, gets diagnoses of lumbago, alien hand syndrome and Muchausen's by internet, and, now knowing it was all a conspiracy to test her, she wears an Ebay neck brace, forever. Safeguards, checking she was who she said she was is wrong, people.

That's how stupid I think burley Belcher looks when he tries his stunts - clarifying the law on women's toilets makes him blub on his toilet, googling asylum in Eire. Joan Smith scares him, and like Thatcher with the IRA, he will not share the same space or radio waves as her. Janice Turner is evil, killing trans youth. Describing a rapist as a man when he has the lady feels is bigotry akin to Jim Crow laws. Even a biologist couldn't be sure he's a man (by virtue of a hormone regimen). He - get this giant fucking whopper - is as likely to be raped as JK Rowling. 

It's astonishing, vast and mind-boggling; all of the organised complaint campaigns and clandestine meetings; cartel-like schemes where organisations subscribe for kudos, outsourced policies and style guides; legal plans on evading publicity and tacking trans rights legislation onto more popular reform; the (il)legal advice and industrial level trashing, silencing and misrepresentation of women: any illusion of a simple human rights project has long since shattered. 

Helpfully, Belcher - notorious leptoderm and zeitgeist stagehand he is - is such the accomplished campaigner and a key figure in today's activism, he's a good place to start as I decompress my fit-to-bursting psyche. And here, I'll introduce you. 

The CV:

Belcher isn't any activist. This is a fiendishly busy beaver, having the stamina and fortitude to keep a finger in every pie, to work every net. Still, marginalisation and victimisation dogs his every move. 

Born in Reading, (which yes, I agree, that is sad) he received a private, boarding school education, followed by university at Leeds. His name was Nigel - which really suits him. 

Later, he became a senior manager in system's analysis before starting his own company (Aurum Solutions Ltd), which he sold as a profitable company a few years ago (for a shit-load, I hear). 

"I run my own software company. I employ other people. I talk with politicians, civil servants, media big-wigs and other influential people. This year I’ve been asked to speak at a number of public events"- Busy Belcher on big-wigging and business 

The beginning of 2022 he was awarded an OBE for services to trans activism. Thank the lord for someone caring about the marginalised trans!

* He is employed by Baroness Liz Barker, who said of him: 

"There are now more LGB parliamentarians, sadly no trans MPs or peers yet, but I do hope that the brilliant campaigner Helen Belcher can break that barrier"

* Secretary of the informal Parliamentary Forum on Gender Identity (chaired by Baroness Barker)

* Sits on Stonewall's Trans Advisory Board

* Former chair of the LGBT + Consortium.

* The chair of TransActual

* The chair of the Ban Conversion Therapy Coalition

* Is involved with GIRES. helping deliver courses, building their first TranzWiki

* Co-founder of Trans Media Watch (TMW). He helped gain its charity status

* Gave TMW’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry

* Involved with lobby group Hacked Off, submitting evidence on their behalf to the Leveson Inquiry and subsequent report which claimed "transphobic discrimination in the press has reached fever-pitch levels" - this failed to get the law right on gender recognition and single sex spaces, invoking the mythical protected characteristic of "muh' gender identity".

* Gave evidence to The Women's and Equality Select Committee's inquiry into trans equality in 2015 and for the Joint Parliamentary Committee of Human Rights' inquiry into free speech in 2017

Belcher joined the Lib Dems in 2015, and the following year he stood for Wokingham town and then its Borough Council.

Since then he's been;

- Picked for the target seat of Chippenham in 2016 in the general election and again in 2017 and 2019

- Elected for Corsham Town Council in 2020 and is now deputy chair

- Elected to Wiltshire Council in 2021, and appointed to shadow cabinet.

- Was on the Joint Parliamentary Committee of Human Rights' inquiry into free speech

- Now he is running for parliament again, despite coming second in the party vote...

It doesn't appear Belcher is much involved in Mermaids, which is the only obstacle in a trans-establishment full house. He's defended them, a lot, though:

Via HuffPost, he wrote that Mermaids is:

"carrying out vital work that no other official body has the resource to do, and giving young people hope in a world that appears not to care about them” 

He also claimed that critics:

"do not want young trans people supported, or helped, or even advised."

We just despise certain children, not wanting them to make life altering decisions, having mastectomies or blockers that do massive harm and can leave them infertile and devoid of any ability to enjoy sex, for life.

He's given numerous statements in their defence, including the deliciously arrogant auto-tootsy-blasting that was challenging LGB Alliance's charity status:

 

“We fully support Mermaids in taking this action. The idea that an organisation which wants trans people to be second class citizens should be recognised as a charity brings the whole system into disrepute.” 

- Speaking of children, Belcher is on the Children's Select Committee, involved in child safeguarding.

- Ed Davey, Lib Dem leader, describes Belcher as a friend


- Infamous true empath, indigo child and budget Paltrow Layla Moran had some wisdom to impart during a Parliamentary debate re GRA reform, at least partly thanks to her friend:

 "I want to place on the record my thanks to my Liberal Democrat colleague and friend, Helen Belcher, whom I have worked with closely on this matter."

Perhaps in fact, Moran worked with Belcher very closely, or then again, maybe she was enlightened by her soul-gazing, because she also stated;

"I want to relay the story of a friend of mine whose spouse was asked to provide that certificate and found it deeply concerning. Their feeling was, “Who am I to stop my partner from defining who they are?” In fact, it stopped them from going through the process."

One of Belcher's bugbears, which he often cites, is his wife's alleged reticence over signing the Spousal Exit Clause, which he writes of here. 

The (real) Mrs Belcher's conscientious objection could have been quite a sabotaging blinder, however, as refusing to give permission on (apparently) the basis of Ms Helen's autonomy, actually scuppered the self defining! Awkward! You see, everyone? It's the only thing standing between Belcher and womanhood, and they were duty bound to reject it!

For more on the Spousal Exit Clause, and Belcher, look to Stilltish, who does a great synopsis. 

But yes, Belcher is, and has, a wife: in this piece "Coming out as transgender" 

(- ripped from a Guardian piece, but with added trans related style guide) he tells how he "married the first woman who went out with me" at the age of 29, which is both deeply flattering, of course, and a bit of a clue to Belcher's chaste and evangelical roots - 

Belcher was heavily involved in evangelical Christianity. The devil makes work for idle hands. 

Although, unusually, chose to join them. 

As a 13-year-old. 

As a choice.

Being the religious man he was then, I imagine that this courtship did not last years. His life appears to have been staid, devout and traditional.

Belcher has two children. It was (as it so often is) at a time of family change - after his daughter was reaching toddler-hood, - perhaps as his wife went back to work - that his innate woman-ness became an irrepressible burden. In Belcher's own words:

"When my daughter was nearly two I suddenly realised: “If I don’t do something to sort this out, I’m going to end up hating her because she’s going to become what I’ve always wanted to be – a woman."

What this says about his feelings towards women who are not his daughter goes unanswered. Why, particularly, would your own, baby daughter, evoke such a fear of resentful comparison? And what does he feel towards women who understand he is a man?

But, well done, I suppose, on the brave, sacrificial heroism. He did it for the kids, ladies and gentlemen. The same to his wife, of course, who did her duty in allowing this, after Nigel came home telling of a suicidal moment. It just forced their wedded hands, I guess. 

If you're new to all this clusterous fuckerous, you should read StillTish, or Glinner, Jane Claire Jones, The Lies They Tell, Maya Forstater, or Dennis Kavanaugh, or in fact any of the excellent gender critical or radical feminist dissenters. But, for the dinky, accidental readership of Panoramic Views, and those who enjoy a bird's eye on my crumbling sanity and embittered ramblings, hold tight. I'm having a moment...

Next time; Belcher's precarious, heroic existence, as told in a child's tribute song; OBElcher's Ballad