UK

Gay actor James Dreyfus tries to lecture Labour MP Stella Creasy on misogyny. It backfires spectacularly

James Dreyfus and Stella Creasy.

James Dreyfus (L) and Stella Creasy. (Getty)

Gay British actor James Dreyfus sparred with Labour and Co-operative lawmaker Stella Creasy over women’s rights Monday night (7 December).

Dreyfus, whose Twitter bio says “not ‘cis'” and signed a letter supporting JK Rowling, traded barbs with Creasy after she described the moment a stranger mistook her daughter for a boy simply because she wasn’t wearing pink.

Creasy, a trans ally and MP for Walthamstow, explained why the situation was misogynistic.

But it’s apparently not misogynistic, Dreyfus insisted, saying that as a “gay man […] I have as much right to comment as you. Protect women’s and girl’s space [sic] and rights. There. I said it. And I’ll keep saying it.”

Anti-trans rights lobbyists in Britain have sought to position trans rights as infringing on women’s rights. The grinding, often combative debate over trans rights has seen single-sex spaces – and the manufactured threat trans people pose to them – reduced to a pinched battleground.

But the freewheeling view that allowing trans women access to women-designated spaces puts other women at risk has no evidence, top international human rights groups say.

James Dreyfus insists he has a ‘right to comment’ on misogyny as a gay man. Er, OK

The winding, days-long Twitter row began when Creasy tweeted about an exchange with a couple in a local café which left her “internally incandescent with rage” on 5 December.

Creasy overheard the pair “chatting about how my daughter looks like a boy as they were confused because she wasn’t wearing pink”.

“She’s smiling at them unknowing the dinosaurs that they are to try to control a one-year-old’s dress code.”

“First world problems, eh?” Dreyfus dryly wrote two days later.

Creasy, who, you know, actually is a woman, was having none of this and expertly schooled the actor: “It’s [a] slow drip of misogyny throttling freedom of women to be who they are starting on a one-year-old.

“[To be honest], if you don’t get why [that] holds us all back I’m glad for you as it’s tiresome to have to deal with men who think they have [the] right to comment all. Oh, I see what you did there.”

The Thin Blue Line star proceeded to affirm his “right to comment [as a gay man on misogyny]” as well as linking the website “TERF is a slur” (it’s really, really not, by the way).

“There is a point here about protecting the freedoms of women and the lived experience of misogyny you seem determined to miss so extraordinarily,” Creasy hit back.

“I suspect little point in continuing this dialogue. I wish you well and please don’t contact me again.”

Yet, Dreyfus did. After being effortlessly shut down, he tweeted her again 20 minutes later. “And here we have it, folks. ‘You don’t agree with me. Don’t contact me again.’ From a politician,” he tweeted. 

“Infantile, Stella Creasy. Plain infantile.”

As James Dreyfus tagged Creasy in the tweet, the replies his tweet drew automatically tagged her as well, forcing her to wade into the simmering mentions the day after (8 December).

She wrote: “James, you’ve spent most of today writing tweets about me and copying me in – I had asked you to stop and would ask that whatever you think about my mental capacities and competency you respect that wish.

“Thanks.”

Dreyfus disputed this. “I don’t copy you in”, he tweeted. “I reply to people tweeting me. You asked me never to contact me again and I have respected your wishes.

“Now I no longer wish to hear from you. So kindly respect mine. Thank you.”

After vowing to not speak to her ever again, he added just 15 minutes later: “I can’t respond to people who copy you in, I’m afraid.

“Best solution is to block me so I can exercise my right to free speech, without causing you further obvious ‘distress’.”

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