Killing Charlie Kirk was not the answer, and should appall all of us, but I can understand the feeling of relief and considerable schadenfreude for people belonging to communities he so gleefully vilified by the very gun violence he was a relentless apologist for.

off the back of his speaking tours and the proceeds from Turning Point USA, and while everyone has a right to earn a living, I doubt Kirk would have been such an outspoken advocate for 'free speech' if it hadn't proven so lucrative for him.

(instead of actually going to college) with his interest in free speech only an afterthought justification for his continued inflammatory rhetoric and hatred of the 'liberal bias' further education tends to inspire in people. Nor was it some charitable crusade- Charlie Kirk was a multi-millionaire

 If any other demographic were alienated from political debate and engagement by his toxic views and bullying tactics, that was no problem for Kirk, and that's because he wasn't really a 'free speech activist' at all- his politics came first, founding Turning Point USA when he was eighteen

They were essentially a showcase for his beliefs and talking points where his more extreme and outrageous takes could not be effectively refuted or fact-checked, but would find the ears of potential sympathisers to his prejudicial worldview.

His events were, in both intent and effect designed to provoke controversy and mobilise one specific demographic; white, right-wing young men.

Charlie Kirk was the poster boy of a sophomoric political discourse that equated managing to bamboozle some semi-informed student in a campus debate or on the internet with winning a serious political or ethical argument

 Nevertheless, I do want to push back against the narrative that Charlie Kirk was some martyr to free speech or honest broker in political debate....

You did very well Medhi- I can't even stand to listen to the disingenuous shit spewed by Israeli mouthpieces, and i'm not even Arabic (shock). For you to put yourself out there (on Piers Morgan's show, of all people) and not use swear words exclusively shows a masterclass in self restraint.

As I (and others) have pointed out- if someone does not have to disclose their HIV status to a sexual partner, then there's no justification for requiring trans people to out themselves when the only damage done is to a man's ego. If he wants to sue for emotional distress, fine, but it's not rape.

I'm really not. I'm defending what a bunch of transphobes who aren't secure in their own masculinity want to call 'rape' in the same way they want to call a US marine murdering a phillipino trans woman after having slept with her 'self-defence'. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing...

Is the British government and legal system so institutionally bigoted and so empowered they feel they can so openly villify and dehumanise a minority who already suffer a staggering rate of hate crimes and suicide? Will they be satisfied until cis people can freely murder transpeople with impunity?

I remember the fallout from 'There's something about Miriam' the ill-advised reality show where men attempted to court the beautiful model Miriam Rivera not knowing she was a trans woman. The male contestents felt similarly aggreived but there was no suggestion that it constituted sexual assault.

The only damage done to the claimant was some embarrassment because he thinks having sex with a transwoman is something to be ashamed of and it would only be so for as long as this country continues to treat trans people with the institutional inhumanity that has become so appallingly common here.