When people talk to me in private, I am generally a nice guy and pretty decent to get along with. I’m quite kind actually.

But frankly, the political views I have reached are the stuff of nightmares. I don’t hide it or deny it either, because whatever I might accept as true it still bothers me deeply. And after years and years of reflection, somehow I still come back to the system that produced the killing fields and the gulag. Even I’m not quite sure why at this point. And I have taken abuse online from every corner of the political spectrum at one point of another and, yeah, some of it is very well deserved and needed. A lot of it I’ve listened to even if it is unwelcome because I actually do care.

I support a system responsible for the deaths of perhaps 100 million people, principally due to famine, genocide, mass executions, purges and forced labour. I don’t pretend it “wasn’t real socialism” or engage in denialism. I’d get banned if I tried under MHOC rules.

So, the fact Solidarity has chosen to accuse me of transphobia and have stuck to that emphatically for more than two years, even though I am actually basically pro-trans and LGBT myself and have repeatedly tried to apologise of my own free will, will never cease to frustrate and astonish me. Of all the vile, repulsive and disgusting things I could be accused of and would actually be guilty of, they picked the one that is least likely to be true.