The Green Party’s Alison Teal has been suspended after Eddie Izzard using the toilet annoyed her.

The Green Party has a problem with transphobia, as evidenced when Alison Teal expressed support for an article complaining that Eddie Izzard used the women’s toilets to relieve herself at a Labour Party fundraising event in Sheffield where Izzard is campaigning for selection.

Teal tweeted in reference to a magazine article in The Critic by Jean Hatchet and said, “Powerful piece. The loss of women’s rights starts with looking the other way for an Eddie Izzard and ends with a society that doesn’t flinch at placing a male sex offender in jail with women.”

The tweet, which is still online, also included photos of Izzard.

That resulted in fellow Green members saying they would not campaign for ‘any candidate who discriminates against trans people’.

Teal, of course, denies being transphobic and even goes so far as to say that in not having these discussions, which we’ve actually been having for years, is offensive to trans people.

“Transgender people have my full support,” Teal said without shame.

“They have the same rights as anyone else and it’s vitally important we provide them with the best quality healthcare and all the provisions they need to lead a life of dignity and respect.

Green election hopeful in row over Izzard’s visit to ladies’ Daily Mail25 Nov 2022By Chris Brooke Shocked: Ex-councillor Alison Teal A LEADING Green Party politician has been suspended in a transgender rights row after comedian Eddie Izzard used female toilets. Alison Teal said a councillor had complained that her comments on trans issues were ‘ bringing the party into disrepute’. Miss Teal had expressed support on Twitter for a magazine article criticising Izzard, 60, who identifies as a ‘gender-fluid’ trans woman, for using female toilets at a Labour Party fundraising event in Sheffield. Psychologist Miss Teal has been selected as Green candidate for Sheffield Central at the next general election – the seat Izzard, 60, is hoping to contest for Labour. She quoted from The Critic in a tweet, writing: ‘Powerful piece. “The loss of women’s rights starts with looking the other way for an Eddie Izzard and ends with a society that doesn’t flinch at placing a male sex offender in jail with women.” Serious issues we must discuss.’ However, she faced a backlash ‘They are not helping anybody’ from colleagues with some pledging to ‘not campaign for any candidate who discriminates against trans people.’ Yesterday Miss Teal denied being ‘transphobic’ and said her sole interest was to protect the rights of women and children. She said she was ‘shocked’ by the suspension, insisting: ‘Transgender people have my full support. They have the same rights as anyone else and it’s vitally important we provide them with the best quality healthcare and all the provisions they need to lead a life of dignity and respect.’ She added that she wanted to ensure that where there were ‘intersections of needs of different groups that we have full and frank discussions about them’. Miss Teal stressed that current problems were caused by ‘ anyone who wants to present as a woman coming under the label of transgender,’ On the party’s disciplinary action, she said: ‘I just want us to talk about it and they really don’t because they say in talking about it it’s actually causing deep harm and offence to people who identify as transgender. By preventing conversation I don’t think they are helping anybody – they are making it worse by creating this horrible divisive mess.’ Earlier this year Miss Teal stood down as a Green councillor and slammed the party, tweeting: ‘We’ve seen the party move from being tolerant/thoughtful to authoritarian/dogmatic underpinned by racism.’ However, five years ago she was given a standing ovation at the party conference and won an award for councillor achievement after campaigning against contractors felling hundreds of healthy trees in Sheffield, – even getting arrested, The Critic article slammed Izzard for using women’s toilets before addressing an audience of 300 people at a fundraising event in September. Author Jean Hatchet, from the magazine, was in the audience and wrote that using the toilet while being watched by everyone there was ‘an arrogant assertion of power over women’. She insisted: ‘Women are right to stand firmly against the steady creep upon our right to single-sex space.’ A Green Party spokesman yesterday said it ‘does not comment on individual disciplinary cases’. But former deputy leader Shahrar Ali said: ‘ Our party will find itself in increasingly precarious position if we dare not stand up for brilliant candidates up and down country whose only “crime” is belief in female sex and defence of women’s sex-based rights.’ nMore gender-neutral toilets could be installed in Parliament under plans for a £13billion revamp of the Palace of Westminster. Internal diversity guidance obtained by the Daily Telegraph states any new buildings would have a target of ‘70 per cent gender-neutral toilets’. However, Parliament chiefs insisted last night that the plans, dating back to 2019, were now ‘under review’.
Daily Mail 25 November 2022

“I just want us to talk about it and they really don’t because they say in talking about it it’s actually causing deep harm and offence to people who identify as transgender. By preventing conversation I don’t think they are helping anybody – they are making it worse by creating this horrible divisive mess.”

Of course, when people like Teal say they ‘just want to talk about it’ what they actually mean is they want to talk, and they want everybody else to shut up and agree with them.

Teal had been selected to stand in Sheffield for the Green Party and seems to have appealed her no-fault suspension, which she says left her ‘shocked’.

In a statement, Teal also said, “It’s deeply regrettable that some of my former colleagues brought our political disagreement into the public eye and one has brought a complaint against me that’s led to my no-fault suspension by the Party.

“Using the disciplinary process to manage differences of opinion rather than engage in discussion is troubling and disappointing. Efforts are being made at the local level to address the need for dialogue and I continue to be optimistic that we can resolve our differences.”

The Daily Mail, who refer to a councillor that nobody had heard of before this issue as a ‘leading Green politician,’ report in their headline that Teal is “hopeful in row over Izzard’s visit to ladies” although they do not elaborate on that any further in the article.

They also quote Shahrar Ali, notorious for his views about trans people, as well as The Critic’s writer, Hatchet, who wrote that Izzard peeing in the women’s toilet was, “an arrogant assertion of power over women”.

By way of ‘balance’ the Daily Mail add, “A Green Party spokesman yesterday said it ‘does not comment on individual disciplinary cases’.”

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