Dangerous trans row ban on football fan defies basic rights

‘It is the latest example of a deeply divisive ideology’

- Stephen Pollard

THIS may annoy a lot of readers I'm a Spurs fan and have a season ticket. But it has never crossed my mind that I might be banned from going because I believe that science is real.

That, however, is what has happened to Linzi Smith, a Newcastle fan, who was told last October by the club that she was banned from its ground St James' Park until 2026 because her rejection of the idea that a woman can have a penis.

Her assertion that biology cannot be wished away was deemed unacceptable.

You might well ask what anyone's views have to do with a football club. The person behind me at Spurs might be an armed robber for all I know. So what? So long as he behaves himself at the match.

But the Linzi Smith story shows how warped so many organisations and institutions have become now they are held in thrall by the demands of an ideology that inverts logic, science and basic rights.

Actually that's not quite right. These organisations have decided to hold themselves in thrall no one is making them do anything. In this case, a trans Newcastle fan complained to the club that because Ms Smith has written gender critical posts social media, they felt "unsafe" having to "share a space" with someone they said was "openly transphobic".