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KEZIA DUGDALE: Joanna Cherry is many things but ‘cancelled’ isn’t one of them

Joanna Cherry supporters say she is being silenced over her views on gender and trans rights. The hundreds of thousands of people who heard them yesterday may beg to differ.

Joanna Cherry
Joanna Cherry's show at The Stand comedy club may have been cancelled, but she still has a huge audience. Image: Richard Gardner/Shutterstock.

I have a lot of time for Joanna Cherry. There, I’ve said it. We’ve met and debated each other countless times in the run up to the independence referendum a decade ago.

I’d like to think we always did so with a degree of mutual respect and courtesy. It made for a better debate that’s for sure.

She’s a King’s Counsel, a senior lawyer and therefore feverishly clever, studious and sharp. She’s also political and strategic.

Her finest hour was taking on the UK Government’s approach to Brexit in the Supreme Court and winning.

As a staunch supporter of the United Kingdom staying in the European Union I was full of admiration, and only wished the Labour Party had made the same effort to fight for what was right.

However, I profoundly disagree with her on the issue of trans right generally and the Gender Recognition Reform Act specifically.

The writer Kezia Dugdale next to a quote: "Joanna Cherry’s problem is not that she has been cancelled. It’s that she has grown to believe that when she speaks, everyone is compelled to listen."

I disagree with her on the principle of what she argues. And that’s healthy and to be respected, just as it was in 2014.

Increasingly though, I find her tactics around the trans rights issue to be cynical and manipulative.

And there is no greater example of this than her current spat with The Stand comedy club in Edinburgh.

Event is cancelled, Joanna Cherry is coming over loud and clear

The venue had been due to host her for a speaking event and has now retracted the offer.

In a statement published on its website, bosses said: “It has become clear that a number of The Stand’s key operational staff, including venue management and box office personnel, are unwilling to work on this event.”

They go on to say they will not compel their staff to work. And, therefore, it cannot go ahead because of these operational issues.

They have not said anything about the specifics of Ms Cherry’s views.

Nor have they criticised her, or made any sort of political statement.

They have simply said they don’t have the staff to cover the event and so it cannot go ahead.

However, this has led Joanna Cherry to declare that she has been denied her right to free speech; a declaration made on just about every local and national radio station yesterday and covered at length in columns reporting that she has been silenced.

Joanna Cherry speaks at a demonstration outside the Scottish Parliament, ahead of the vote on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill
Joanna Cherry speaks at a demonstration outside the Scottish Parliament, ahead of the vote on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. Image: Lesley Martin/PA Wire,

The event might have been cancelled but Joanna Cherry wasn’t – very far from it in fact.

She took the chance to highlight her views through the medium of this story, just as every canny politician would.

Joanna Cherry cancelled? Not from our TV screens or newspaper columns

In one interview yesterday she said: “Lesbian feminists and women such as myself are being prevented from speaking in public about our views”.

This is a literal quote from the teatime STV News bulletin watched by hundreds of thousands of people. Her views were being broadcast to, let’s say, the equivalent of Edinburgh, compared to the venue capacity of The Stand?

An operator yes, a martyr no.

While on the airwaves, Ms Cherry rooted her arguments for a gender critical approach to these issues in the fact that she’s a lesbian.

You could be forgiven for thinking we had anointed her our national spokesperson, when of course the reality is that there are many gay women who don’t share her views and don’t have the platform, or indeed the inclination, to speak up in the way she has and does.

There are plenty of gay women who chose not to walk towards the fire of language like “stasi”, “bending the knee” “cowardice“spineless” and warnings of “repercussions“: all words and descriptions which Ms Cherry has used in the last 24 hours against the people who disagree with her.

Trans people’s lives are not up for debate

The runner up in the SNP Leadership race Kate Forbes has lent her support to Ms Cherry via her own newspaper column.

In it, she says “When you believe in the strength of your case, you do not fear debate. It’s those without a case to answer who run from arguments… in a fair, free and respectful debate, the truth always wins.”

That’s a powerful bit of writing until you remember this isn’t some theoretical school debating club. It’s about people’s lives.

Kate Forbes speaking to a room full of reporters.
Joanna Cherry’s SNP colleague Kate Forbes has also weighed in after her booking at The Stand was cancelled: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

There are trans people who feel their very existence and identity are threatened by the words of people who share Ms Cherry’s outlook. They are not up for “debate”.

If the staff in the Stand are trans, or know trans people or just understand the above in their own bones, surely they have a moral right to withdraw their labour and hope a good employer would respect that?

If I was due to speak at the fringe about my support for gay marriage for example, I wouldn’t expect someone who shared Kate Forbes’ views to work behind the bar at it.

And if it turned out that most of the staff behind the bar wanted to down their tools rather than listen to me criticise their identity and beliefs? Well then I’d understand I had made a poor venue choice and make another.

Joanna Cherry’s problem is not that she has been cancelled. It’s that she has grown to believe that when she speaks, everyone is compelled to listen.

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