Oh Katie, just because you love gays, it doesn’t mean we love you…

Oh Katie, just because you love gays, it doesn’t mean we love you…

This week really got me riled up. It has been confirmed that gay publisher Iain Dale has agreed to put controversial columnist Katie Hopkins first book on the shelves in our high-street stores. So as you may have guessed, this has made me somewhat angry. Not just because it’s her, but because it goes against everything that the LGBT community stands for. Being non-heterosexual is obviously primarily what binds the LGBT community together, but we may be forgetting that we are still trying to prove to the world that, aside from sexual orientation, we are the same as everyone else. We are still fighting to be ‘normal’. If someone with as great a sphere of influence in our community supports Hopkins, surely this goes against everything that we stand for?

My blood began to boil a couple of months ago when Britain’s self-proclaimed ‘Biggest Bitch’ decided to use the worldwide Women’s March protest as a platform for her commentary. We saw demonstrations from over a million women, united from countries all over the world, to fight for human rights, women’s rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, the environment and even our own LGBTQ rights. Hopkins branded these women as “a million pussy-marchers,” as well as stating that “possessing a vagina is a matter of biology, not a political argument.”. She even goes on to say that she wondered what exactly it was that women saw as being unequal?

It may seem somewhat ridiculous to label her as misogynist, being that she herself is a woman. But let me tell you female misogynists are on the rise, just look at the U.S. How did so many women vote for a man who is clearly all for male supremacy, as well as publicly anti-feminist and discriminative. Kudos to her though, Murdoch literally pays her to be ‘Britain’s Biggest Bitch’, so I imagine this may act as enough of a motive to keep those click bait headlines rolling.

In the same week that Hopkins sits smirking over her book headlines in every déclassé publication on her coffee table, she also manages to defile yet another more honourable citizen. Writing for one of the United Kingdom’s most widely read tabloids, you would have thought Hopkins would try somewhat harder to keep her writing even the slightest bit more politically correct. Yet nobody could have foreshadowed her comment to Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, labelling her the “Ginger Dwarf from the North”.

It isn’t out of the ordinary for her to publicly antagonize people over her social media platforms, and it is impossible for us to ignore the events which have taken place over the last 21 months. We have witnessed a member of our community, non-binary transgender Jack Monroe, experience the most horrendous ordeal, including a relationship break up as well as receiving multiple death threats as a result of two tweets the columnist wrote. With the success of the libel case where Monroe triumphed against her, it was proved that Katie had committed an unlawful act and had to pay damages of almost £300,000. Proving that her work is not only unjustifiable, but also illegal.

How can Katie find this acceptable, in the 21st century when the western world has progressed so far from the place it used to be? It seems like only yesterday that sexism, genocide and racism were normal features of dayto-day life. Even to love the same-sex was considered to be a crime, punishable by electroconvulsive therapy. It hurts that the gay community I associate myself with seems to be applauding a character whose opinion is so disgraceful yet seemingly influential.

Her inclination is to be difficult; she gets paid to have an outrageous opinion. But even in her work, does she really have to go against peace, love and happiness? I know first-hand just how hard it is to admit to friends and family who you really are, yet she writes in another one of her columns that she hopes for her son to be gay. Why? As it would make her feel ‘more savvy’ - publically pressuring her own son to be homosexual for her own personal gain.

If you are gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans, do not love Katie Hopkins for the wrong reasons. See her for the woman she really is. Isn’t it still below the belt for our community to honour Katie just because we have not had to deal with her imperious, tyrannical outbursts? It doesn’t mean that we should be the ones that feed into her pocket. After all, what does that say about us?