Pose star Indya Moore: Misgendering trans people shouldn’t be criminalised

Pose star Indya Moore speaks at PaleyFest in Los Angeles, which ran March 15-24 2019.

The Pose star and transgender actress Indya Moore has said that no-one should be criminalised for misgendering trans people.

Speaking to a reporter at the PaleyFest TV festival on Sunday (March 24), the Pose star said: “I think instead of criminalising people for being ignorant, we should provide education.”

The actress, whose full remarks were published in a video in the Belfast Telegraph, said she wanted to abolish prisons, explaining that mass incarceration was a problem “all over the world,” before adding that “people shouldn’t be criminalised for being ignorant, just like trans people shouldn’t be criminalised for existing.

She continued: “I think we need to have patience and respect for one another. It makes me sad that… that there is a culture around criminalising people to teach them lessons.

“I think that’s ineffective, clearly. And I just think that people need to make more space for trans people to be visible.”

“It’s very laboursome for trans people to go around having to constantly justify our existence.”

— Transgender Pose actress Indya Moore

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She then added: “I think also it’s very laboursome for trans people to go around having to constantly justify our existence.

“But I also think that that’s part of the hard work that comes with existing while marginalised and fighting for your right to live and breathe your next breath in the same space as other people who don’t have to experience the same levels of oppression you do.”

Comments from Pose star Indya Moore come after misgendering controversy

Last week, the CEO of British trans children’s charity Mermaids criticised “incorrect” media reports which claimed police were investigating a woman for “misgendering” her daughter.

A front-page Daily Telegraph story on March 20 alleged that Surrey Police was investigating former Catholic Voices spokesperson Caroline Farrow for “using the wrong pronoun to describe a transgender woman” on Twitter.

The story, which was picked up by a string of other outlets, alleged that Mermaids CEO Susie Green had made a complaint after a Twitter exchange in which Farrow “was accused of using the wrong pronoun in an exchange over Ms Green’s transgender daughter.”

However, Green clarified to PinkNews that her hate crime report was related to tweets from Farrow that accused her of “child abuse” and of illegally “mutilating” her trans daughter.

Farrow had claimed her comments were a “Freudian slip,” telling Victoria Derbyshire she “didn’t do it with malicious intent and was referring to her daughter as a son in the past tense, before she had her gender reassigned.”

Green withdrew her police complaint in order to be able to speak out about coverage of the issue.

Surrey Police then dropped the probe, as local media reported.