MISINFORMATION is rife in this modern world and it’s only getting worse. In the past week we’ve seen two major news stories in which misinformation has played a key role.
There were the racist riots in England and the north of Ireland following misinformation that the alleged murderer of three young girls in Southport is a Muslim immigrant – and the onslaught of abuse received by Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif following misinformation that she is transgender.
I worry, however, that both of these stories have been framed by some outlets as being a direct consequence of misinformation – a framing which I think disguises the real causes, and the real threats to marginalised communities.
Let’s look at that second story first. There was outrage following the success of Imane Khelif in a boxing match against Angela Carini at the Paris Olympics, in which Carini conceded the match following particularly strong punches from Khelif.
It emerged that Khelif, like many women, has naturally elevated testosterone levels, but nonetheless had successfully passed the rigorous so-called “gender eligibility tests” to perform in the women’s category at the Olympic Games.
An absurd moral panic ensued, with major figures such as JK Rowling (below) posting on Twitter to call Khelif “a male”, “he” and attempting to insinuate that Khelif was transgender.
Some news outlets globally also described Khelif as transgender, despite no evidence for this claim beyond some bigoted misinformation-laden social media posts, and before we knew it, we had politicians and UK Cabinet members racing to provide legitimacy to what was nothing short of a racist, transphobic and misogynistic hate campaign.
Images were spread – including by other competitors Khelif would have to later go up against – depicting Khelif as a monstrous devil, and activists such as Rowling who purport to be “defenders of women’s rights” were quick off the mark to post the most horrible abuse against a woman of colour who had faced oppression her whole life for being a woman who wanted to be a boxer.
There are numerous reasons why some women have higher testosterone levels, and it’s not entirely uncommon for some women to have testosterone levels higher than the male average. Does this provide athletes with these higher levels a “biological advantage”?
Perhaps, but Khelif passed the relevant testing enforced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and regardless of this, the idea that Olympic athletes don’t have a huge range of biological advantages is absurd. American swimmer Michael Phelps has a long wingspan and a lower-than-average rate of production of lactic acid.
Most professional basketball players are above average height. It’s just that there only seems to be outrage when the advantage is hormonal because it gives people an excuse to abuse women and transgender people.
Khelif was born a woman, has always been a woman, and has never identified as transgender or intersex. But here’s the thing – even if she was transgender, she would not be deserving of the horrendous abuse she’s received in the past week.
She passed the relevant tests by the IOC, meaning her testosterone levels were in the acceptable range for her to compete in the women’s category, and if any other athlete who was transgender had passed this requirement then this would mean any “biological advantage” they might have due to their trans status would be diminished as a result of hormone therapy.
The vicious abuse received by Khelif was brutal, and while much of the focus in rebutting it was against the misinformation that she was trans, it’s critical that we’re clear that this abuse would also have been unacceptable if the athlete in question was in fact transgender.
Similarly, the far-right riots across parts of the UK in the last week have also been put down to misinformation following the horrible murder of three young girls in Southport.
Social media accounts with huge followings claimed that the perpetrator of the attacks was a Muslim immigrant, and this has been widely attributed in the mainstream media as one of the triggers of the riots.
But here’s the thing – even if the accused perpetrator of the murders was Muslim or an immigrant, the Islamophobic and racist violence which was followed would’ve been equally reprehensible.
Collective punishment is a war crime for a reason, and it is utterly vile to hold anyone accountable for the actions of someone else for any reason, not least because they happen to share their religion or the colour of their skin. While the misinformation surrounding the Southport murders may have heightened the violence, we cannot allow it to become the scapegoat.
The far-right have been frothing at their mouths for an excuse to carry out pogroms against people of colour, asylum seekers and Muslims, and that they happened to choose this moment to do so shouldn’t be used as a distraction from the real causes of this hateful violence.
Racist, Islamophobic and transphobic rhetoric has been repeatedly platformed by politicians and media outlets, and the far-right have been pandered to instead of rejected by our political class. These race riots came just weeks after a General Election in which Labour candidates stood on a platform to “take back our streets”.
The abuse against Khelif came after both Keir Starmer and his Health Secretary, Wes Streeting (above), repeated transphobic talking points.
The UK Government has refused to call the riots Islamophobic because they’re scared it’ll alienate their Islamophobic voter base, and the attacks on hotels housing asylum seekers came just days after a Labour MP complained about one of the besieged hotels in Parliament.
I don’t deny that the causes of the emboldening of the far-right are complex, and of course go well beyond this Labour Government to decades of poisonous rhetoric from politicians across party lines, but Labour’s shift to the right has emboldened these racists by helping to mainstream and legitimise their reprehensible views.
Misinformation is a crisis, and it’s incumbent on all of us to take steps to tackle it, but it cannot be treated as the sole root of bigotry.
For as long as our political class are emboldening bigots of any kind in their quest for votes and power, marginalised minorities will not be safe.
