Having witnessed an horrific episode of ganging up and bullying last week, which drove a nice person off Twitter, I want to say something about how some self-appointed guardians of progressive morals behave towards others.

In this case the Tweeter in question defended someone they followed from an attack by a bullying gang. I do not follow the original poster, whose account is locked, so I don’t know what she posted. It might well have been an insult to transgender people and I certainly do not seek to defend that. I have seen many extremely nasty posts of that nature. I had, however, followed the woman who defended her for a while and I was shocked at the onslaught against her. This woman had committed the thought crime of not being sufficiently aware of the current nuances of gender politics. As far as I could see she came to the rescue of someone she considered a friend and was traduced for this loyalty.

Others including me were tagged into this bullying for our crime of being followers of one or the other of these people. I repeat, I am not a transphobe. I refuse to engage in or endorse insulting or name-calling on either side of that argument, nor do I want to deal with any of its issues here.

This is the the third or fourth time that this has happened and I want to tell the world unequivocally that I will follow whomseover I choose and I will not be bullied into unfollowing or blocking people on the orders or insinuations, the moral blackmail of others.

It’s held over one’s head like the most ineffective piece of playground politics ever. “I want my followers to know that if they follow X they can unfollow me right now before I unfollow them,” is the same as “If you’re going to be X’s friend, I won’t be your friend.” I’m fully aware that there are plenty of people around who still operate at this level of puerility, by the way. I’ve encountered it many times outside the world of social media.

After my initial indignation, my response is now “Do your worst. It’s your loss,” because, honestly, how is this even a threat? So I’m followed by one less tedious person. Let’s wait for my tears to begin, shall we?”

I’ve been on Twitter for 12 years now, well before this wave of gender-related witchhunts. Some of the people who have followed me for years sometimes say wicked, nasty things with which I would not want to be associated and I personally have seen this most from the gender critical side, as it happens. I’d plead with you to stop that now. But the act of following people is not an endorsement of their views.

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and I generally have a three strikes rule which also applies in the case of those who are consistently and gratuitously nasty about transgender people. On a more mundane level I can think of a couple of people whom I unfollowed because I wasn’t keen on them. It’s quite possible to behave maturely in these situations if one is mature. You just don’t reply to the post. Or mute or block if you choose.

We need to talk about these things and censoring ourselves for fear of being screamed at by one side or the other gets us nowhere in trying to negotiate some solution that will accommodate everyone’s fears and needs. I don’t have a solution, by the way, and I’m not sure one exists that will satisfy everyone in this polarised debate, but then, I’m not an expert.

Trying to educate myself and understand unfamiliar arguments however, means that I am accused of complicity with oppression. I’ve been called a bigot for having some sympathy with women who, suffering violence or abuse, don’t want to share private spaces with men. Whether that fear or belief is logical is immaterial. For a great many women, it exists. Not to agree 100% with someone does not mean that I disagree 100% with them or side wholeheartedly with their opponents, yet that is what these blockers appear to be saying. Accepting that someone might have a point is not the same as being a bigot.

I follow a lot of people who follow Farage or Johnson or Trump or similar egregiousities. They do this for a variety of reasons, perhaps because they want to deflate them with ridicule or simply because they want to know what people on the other side of the argument are actually saying. I block the excrescences, not wanting my timeline polluted, but are we to say, by the same token that the people who follow them for whatever reason are all racist bigots? That’s utterly ridiculous.

I claim the right to follow anyone I like and to tweet or stay silent as I see fit. I claim the right to unfollow rude, nasty people and people whom I find tedious. And no, my sympathy does not extend to those who spend their lives constantly abusing or picking fights from behind the shield of a vulnerable victim.

Currently our UK government is engaged in promoting its own culture war and seeking to silence the views of those with whom it does not agree or whom it finds inconvenient. This censoring and cancelling of people who fail to understand sufficiently the obscure complexities of gender theory only plays into the hands of the culture warriors. For me its supremely ironic that those who are so keen on the fight against the binary are so binary in their outlook. Just stop it.