Gross Daily Tele Article Compares Belle Gibson To Caitlyn Jenner, Says They’re Both Frauds

If you were feeling cosy and smug after the Logies last night, unfortunately now is the time to come crashing back to earth. Today The Daily Telegraph ran an opinion piece by Tim Blair (who you may remember from mocking victims of domestic violence), which compared the “denial of reality” of disgraced wellness blogger Belle Gibson and former-Olympian, reality TV star and transgender advocate Caitlyn Jenner.

The piece heavily criticised the shaming of Gibson, suggesting that Jenner has made similarly fraudulent claims — to be clear, he means by transitioning from being a man to a woman — but has instead been celebrated for it. To recap: this article compares a transgender person’s experience of transitioning to someone who faked brain cancer to make money.

It all starts by describing Caitlyn as “a 66-year-old man who has lately taken to wearing frocks” who is an “outspoken toilet advocate” and merely a trivial person who is doing strange things that the public is “meant to be fine with”. Blair, who continually uses Caitlyn’s old name in a pretty disgusting show of mocking prejudice, claims that if Caitlyn can identify as female, then people shouldn’t be so upset that Belle Gibson ‘identified’ as a cancer sufferer. “Why does Jenner win awards for courage while Gibson is damned as a fraud and pursued through the courts?” he says.

Hm, let’s have a little think about that one. Could it be perhaps because right now, Belle Gibson is facing $1 million in penalties over her misleading book and app The Whole Pantry, which advocated ‘natural methods’ over conventional medicine to treat serious illness? That she sold a lie to cancer sufferers and their families? That she has been accused of “unlawful fundraising appeals” including soliciting donations for charities like the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre that she never paid and you know, she lied about curing herself of brain cancer by eating vegetables?

Belle Gibson didn’t ‘identify’ as anything. She manipulated people into giving her book deals and money.

Why does The Daily Telegraph call itself a "newspaper" when Belle Gibson is damned as a fraud? pic.twitter.com/tyJIxj44SM

— Jenny Noyes (@jennynoise) May 9, 2016

that tim blair thing was not an attempt at satire, give me a break. it was using a story to attack other minorities.

— Bec Shaw (@Brocklesnitch) May 9, 2016

News just in: Tim Blair has confirmed that he's a bad human being. "I am not pretending. I really am bad."

— Damon Young (@damonayoung) May 8, 2016

But ho, why stop there! In an entirely successful attempt to make this article as chock full of dogmatic prejudice as it possible can be, the writer then confusingly compares poor old Belle Gibson to Rachel Dolezal (remember her?) who he argues was “celebrated” for her bravery in faking her race (um, I don’t think that’s what happened, does this person have a Twitter account?). Then he compares Gibson’s experience to that of mixed-race Indigenous Australians. Wait, what?

“If young white woman Gibson had claimed she was Aboriginal, Australians would be expected to believe her,” he writes. “Locally there are any number of people claiming full Aboriginality despite minimal or absolutely no Aboriginal background. It is enough that they ‘identify’ as Aboriginal.”

What an amusing comparison (keep it up Blair — these kinds of jokes always went well for old mate Andrew Bolt!). Just for the record, people with “minimal” Aboriginal heritage can still identify as such. A transgender person is not ‘faking’ their gender identity. We can laugh at how woefully inept and patently incorrect this article is, but the thought that some people still feel comfortable marking transgender people as ‘fakers’ is significant.

In Australia, transgender, gay and bisexual people are more than three times more likely to suffer from depression than heterosexual people. LGBTI Australians still have the highest rate of suicide of any group in this country. We’re not at the point yet where we can laugh off articles like this as ridiculous.

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