{"id":812136,"date":"2026-10-24T06:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T06:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/812136\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T06:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T06:00:14","slug":"trans-rights-support-gets-me-daily-abuse-says-doctor-who-writer-russell-t-davies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/812136\/","title":{"rendered":"Trans rights support gets me daily abuse, says Doctor Who writer Russell T Davies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tonia Antonazzi, a Labour MP who has been vocal about her views on protecting female-only spaces<\/a>, said she had witnessed the backlash Davies had experienced and felt for him.<\/p>\n

“I hugely respect Russell. He’s been a fantastic advocate for gender rights,” she said, adding that she believed Davies himself would not want to diminish anyone’s rights. <\/p>\n

“We must not lose sex-based rights. Many women feel silenced, that they cannot say they need to have women-only spaces.”<\/p>\n

She said self identification is important for single-sex spaces, sport, and changing rooms and also noted the importance of gender for data collection across public bodies. <\/p>\n

But Antoniazzi believes the conversation around gender identity needed to be an open one, without the threat of hatred or harm to either side and “shouldn’t be an us-versus-them”.<\/p>\n

She admitted that putting her head above the parapet made her susceptible to hate online, including death threats. <\/p>\n

“I ignore it rather than be a victim to it… as a female MP, I don’t want to be silenced.”<\/p>\n

In 2024, a tweet posted by the Gower MP went viral and resulted in her being a target for hate, “from people within my own party”, she said.<\/p>\n

She has now turned off comments on her Facebook page “because of foul comments” and said it was done to protect the well-being of her family, friends and staff. <\/p>\n

“The threat is real,” said Antoniazzi, alluding to the death of former Tory MP Anne Widdecombe<\/a>, adding that she is “super careful” about what she does. <\/p>\n

“I do have to plan ahead… I’m content in my small town, but other areas in my constituency I do sometimes think ‘I’m not going there by myself’ and I have to think about the security and staff I have with me.”<\/p>\n

If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues mentioned in this article, support resources are available via BBC Action Line<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tonia Antonazzi, a Labour MP who has been vocal about her views on protecting female-only spaces, said she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-812136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}