Freedom of Speech

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Friday 10th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as a member of a minority, I am particularly pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kirkham. This is an extremely important debate that strikes at the very heart of the kind of country and society we are. I will introduce my personal point of view.

Recently in your Lordships’ House, we discussed freedom of speech and expression during Questions. I was particularly struck by something the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, mentioned, which was a reflection in relation to Salem. He was, of course, referring to the witch trials of Salem. As someone who is trans inclusive and has continually defended the rights of trans people to become themselves, defending trans men, trans teenagers and trans women in particular, I too have felt that it is like Salem. I will not regale your Lordships with some of the unpleasant accusations levelled against me because I have dared to defend and support trans people and their right to be themselves—their right to be treated equally. But I have noticed that the attacks on those of us who support trans equality have been particularly nasty. Organisations and institutions that defend trans equality have equally been targeted and attacked.

Individuals who voice pro-trans views in the public sphere are frequently attacked by those who wish to silence them. On social media every day, people who advance reasonable views in support of trans people are often harassed in the most vicious ways. Organisations that support trans people and their families and others that support wider equality, including trans inclusion—organisations such as the Girl Guides; Mind, the mental health charity; and the National Trust—are all attacked and piled on to because they support LGBT+ equality.

So yes, I agree that it feels like Salem. I want all sides and those in the middle to be recognised as suffering for what we believe, but it should not have to be like this. Just because I have an opinion does not make me right and it does not make me wrong. I have an opinion on this issue based in principle and in law, and in the defence and promotion of equality.

The absence of trans voices from this debate has not helped matters, but can one honestly wonder why trans people have hesitated before engaging? The defamation, stigmatisation and misrepresentation of trans people—trans women in particular—and the depiction of them as a threat are deeply toxic and place them in dangerous territory. Fears about trans people have been whipped up, often without a shred of evidence, in your Lordships’ House and the other place, and by a biased and partisan media eager to grab controversy. This helps no one—certainly not the vulnerable, nor those in fear of what they are told might happen to them. This misrepresentation diminishes every single one of us.

We are not helped when the media and members of the Government indulge in and stoke up so-called culture wars. None of us is helped by this, because what I do know is that when the rights of one minority are diminished it is not long before the rights of other minorities are attacked and diminished. The history of the 1930s so painfully reminds us that we must speak out. We must have the courage to stand in the shoes of the others.

That includes standing in the shoes of those who feel that they are threatened. So I stand in the shoes of that trans woman and I imagine what it must be like to be her—to face the misrepresentation, defamation and dehumanisation reported in the media, regurgitated in bars and whispered on the streets as she walks along them. I wonder what it must be like to live with that kind of hatred daily. I stand in her shoes and I know that I would not want it to happen to me, and if I would not want it to happen to me, how dare I allow it to happen to others? Therefore I will not be silent, which would be easy in such a heated and whipped-up moral panic, and I will not acquiesce. I want my voice and the voices of others to be respectfully heard.

Of course we must take note of the contemporary challenges to freedom of speech but, importantly, we must also recognise our own individual responsibility in recognising and exercising the right to freedom of speech in ways that promote the freedom for us all to live our lives without fear. Freedom of expression is without question the lifeblood of a democratic society and, because of this, the right to freedom of expression, as our own human rights law recognises, comes with duties and responsibilities.

This means that we should never use freedom of expression to extinguish the freedoms of others, especially those so often unseen, misrepresented and shamefully unheard. The Constitutional Court of South Africa recently reminded us that speech is powerful:

“it has the ability to build, promote and nurture, but it can also denigrate, humiliate and destroy.”

That court eloquently reminded us that hate speech is

“the antithesis of the values envisaged by the right to free speech—whereas the latter advances democracy, hate speech is destructive of democracy.”

For this reason, I am very pleased that this week the Law Commission made recommendations to strengthen the protection of trans people from the hatred that they are too exposed to. I end by reiterating that we all have a responsibility to exercise our cherished right to freedom of expression in ways that promote and do not diminish equality. Equality threatens no one. The rights of one reinforce the other.