Julia Gasper

Julia Gasper is an English specialist in eighteenth-century French literature and a right-wing political activist affiliated with the English Democrats. She used to be a member of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). A vociferous critic of LGBT rights, she has generated strong controversy in the British media for her comments regarding LGBT people, which have widely been deemed homophobic and transphobic.

In 1987 Gasper obtained a D.Phil in English Literature from the University of Oxford after studying at Somerville College. Her thesis examined the Protestant plays of Elizabethan English playwright Thomas Dekker.^[1] She has since published a number of books on eighteenth-century French literature, including Theodore von Neuhoff, King of Corsica (2012), and The Marquis d'Argens (2013).

In 2012 Gasper was selected as UKIP's Parliamentary candidate for Oxford East. She was scrutinised for her anti-LGBT blog posts by LGBT-themed news service Pink News, whose readers she then asserted were mentally ill. When The Sunday Mirror exposed further anti-LGBT comments that she had made on a UKIP members forum, she was denounced by party leader Nigel Farage and stepped down from her position. Changing her allegiance to the English Democrats, she unsuccessfuly stood for them in the European Parliament elections, 2014 and for Oxford City Council in a local by-election. She meanwhile continued to attract strong criticism for her public condemnation of LGBT rights issues.

Political career and media attention

UKIP candidacy: 2012–13

In early 2012, UKIP selected Gasper to represent them as their Parliamentary candidate for Oxford East, while she also began campaigning to be elected onto Oxford City Council.^[2] Asserting that "My central message is to take back control of this country", she campaigned on a platform of promoting the UK's removal from the European Union, opposing "mass immigration", abolishing university tuition fees, and increasing the state pension.^[3]

However, during her campaign a resident in the area discovered a blog post which Gasper had authored in 2010, and concerned about its contents, contacted LGBT-themed news service Pink News, who proceeded to report on it. Stating that homosexuality was not an orientation but a "form of behaviour", in her post Gasper suggested that same-sex attraction was a choice, before criticising gay people for "complaining constantly of persecution" and being insufficiently grateful to heterosexuals. Asserting that legal support for LGBT rights had "gone too far", she condemned same-sex marriage and the adoption of children by same-sex couples as "wholly unacceptable" and claimed that there were strong links between male homosexuality and paedophilia.^[2]

Later that month she complained that readers of Pink News had threatened her, declaring that they should be forcibly institutionalised under the Mental Health Act. In doing so, she compared her situation to that of Salman Rushdie during The Satanic Verses controversy.^[4] Roweena Russell, the former chair of the International Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Youth and Student Organisation, emailed Gasper to discuss the latter's comments, to which Gasper asserted that Russell too should be institutionalised.^[4] Russell proceeded to publicly condemn Gasper, stating that "As a long-term political activist I'm disgusted she used this kind of language. Using mental health as a slur on top of everything else she's doing is just unacceptable. I really can't believe it."^[4] A UKIP statesman commented that while the party did not endorse Gasper's views on this issue, it did uphold her right to hold and express them.^[4] The general election was held in May 2010, with Gasper coming fifth with 2.3% of the vote; 1,202 votes had been cast for her.^[5]

UKIP leader Nigel Farage asserted that Gasper's "war against homosexuals is unacceptable".^[6]

In January 2013, The Sunday Mirror revealed posts that Gasper had made on a UKIP members forum. Here, she had condemned LGBT rights as a "lunatic's charter" while asserting that some homosexuals prefer sex with animals and that "As for the links between homosexuality and paedophilia, there is so much evidence that even a full-length book could hardly do justice to the subject."^[6] The newspaper characterised these comments as "extremist and offensive" and highlighted that the forum itself contained many homophobic and racist statements from UKIP members.^[7] Writing in The Observer, Nick Cohen described Gasper as an advocate of "dumb prejudice" and asserted that she was one of the UKIP members who "you wouldn't want exercising power over your life or anybody else's."^[8] When The Sunday Mirror asked for comment, Gasper stated that "I'm not going to talk about them. It's none of your business."^[6]

Amid the ensuing scandal, the forum was shut down, Gasper made to resign from her position as chairman of UKIP's Oxford branch, and a number of her supporters also removed from the committee.^[7][9] A party spokesman stated that she had stepped down "to avoid doing herself or the party any more damage",^[7] while UKIP leader Nigel Farage condemned Gasper's "war against homosexuals" as "unacceptable".^[6][7] The party stated that while her resignation would be welcome, she would not be forced out of UKIP.^[9]

She subsequently lambasted UKIP as being "plagued with transsexuals", a reference to the transwomen Nikki Sinclaire and Kellie Maloney, both of whom have served as candidates for the party. Asserting that she refused to recognise transwomen as women, she declared Maloney to be "absolutely grotesque" and added that her transition was "totally barmy – and how pathetic that he [sic] can do nothing better with his [sic] life."^[10]

In November 2013, she was then criticised for authoring an essay titled "The Myth of the Homocaust", which she uploaded to her academia.edu account. In this, she claimed that LGBT rights activists had fabricated the extent of the Nazi persecution of homosexuals.^[11] Olivia Marks-Woldman, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, criticised Gasper's claims as "disappointing", adding that "Whilst it is important to recognise the differences between the ways the Nazis persecuted different groups, this shouldn’t lead us to question the fact that thousands of gay men suffered appalling persecution because of their sexuality."^[12]

English Democrats candidacy: 2014

Disillusioned with UKIP, Gasper proceeded to switch allegiance to the English Democrats.^[11] In April 2014, she publicly declared that there are "far too many" gay people in the Houses of Parliament, stating that it was out of proportion with the number of homosexuals in the population as a whole; she deemed this a "violation of democracy".^[13][14] In the same post, she called for Grindr to be banned as a threat to "public health".^[14] When questioned by the BBC, party spokesman Steve Uncles defended Gasper's "personal opinion", which he asserted was based on a traditional, Christian understanding of sexuality, and further added that she was "factually correct" in her claims regarding the number of homosexuals in Parliament.^[13]

The following month, she commented on the resignation of Brendan Eich as CEO of Mozilla after it was revealed that he had financially supported a group campaigning to prevent the legal recognition of same-sex marriage in California. Gasper claimed that Eich had been "victimised by a queer mafia that takes a vindicative pleasure in bullying and abusing people" and that this "Homo fascism is a threat to fundamental human rights."^[13][15] Among those whom she accused of being parts of this campaign were U.S. President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, the Labour Party, the United Nations, the European Union, Amnesty International, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the Bishop of Buckingham Alan Wilson, Pope Francis, the actor Daniel Radcliffe, all European and American universities, and media outlets such as The Guardian, The Daily Mail, and The Huffington Post.^[15] The following day, she attracted further attention for condemning World AIDS Day as a celebration of HIV/AIDS and homosexuality, asserting that it "congratulates" people for "spreading the disease".^[11][16] Several days later, she claimed that in campaigning for the legal recognition of same-sex marriage, "queer thugs and gangsters" had "used violence, threats, censorship, abuse, and every form of dirty tactic"; she commented that she hoped that "a twinge of guilt[...] kills them".^[17]

In May, Gasper stood as the English Democrats' candidate for the South East region in the European Parliament elections. There, she gained the support of 0.76% of the electorate, with 17,771 votes.^[19] Following this failure, she returned to her blog to argue that there were "far too many homosexual comedians on TV", focusing her criticism of Graham Norton, "the horrid little Alan Carr", and "the unctuous Stephen Fry[...] portly, preening and self-satisfied."^[18] She also posted that homosexuals were not persecuted anywhere in the world, and that claims to the contrary, such as those regarding the murders of Matthew Shepard and David Kato, were "fraudulent".^[18]

Following the resignation of Laurence Baxter, the Labour councillor who represented Quarry and Risinghurst on the Oxford City Council, Gasper stood in the by-election as the English Democrats' candidate for the seat. The election saw a turnout of 38%, with Labour candidate Chewe Munkonge proving victorious; Gasper came last with 43 votes, behind candidates from the Conservative Party, Liberal Democrats, and Green Party.^[20][21][22]

References