Just Because You’re A Minority Doesn’t Mean You’re Right
Terry ta’ Bormla has filed yet another police report. Not over an attack, not over a threat — but over a joke. And not even a joke about her, but a general comment about trans people made on a comedy podcast. This is what now passes for criminal activity in Malta: someone says something you don’t like, and you run to the police hoping to get them punished for it.
We need to get a grip.
The idea that offence is in and of itself a form of violence is a deeply corrosive one. It misunderstands the nature of speech, the purpose of comedy, and the way adult society is supposed to function. You’re allowed to be offended. You’re even allowed to say so publicly. But you’re not entitled to have your offence enshrined in law or treated as a legitimate reason to silence others. That’s not how free societies work. And if we keep encouraging this warped sense of entitlement, we’ll end up choking what little public discourse we have left.
The thing is, I don’t blame Terry entirely. She’s not the cause of this phenomenon — she’s just the latest, loudest, and least self-aware symptom of it. For the last decade or so, we’ve been fed this idea — mostly by people who consider themselves progressive — that if you identify with or advocate for a marginalised group, you get to set the rules for everyone else. And not just moral or social rules. Legal ones, too. You’re allowed to dictate who gets cancelled, who gets platformed, who gets investigated, and who gets fired. Because your cause is righteous, and anyone who disagrees is hateful. That’s the logic.
It’s the kind of ideological creep that lets someone dress up narcissism as activism, and confuse disagreement with abuse. And it’s enabled not just by online mobs, but by the political establishment, media operators, and cultural institutions that have lost the courage to say: “No. This is nonsense.”
Let’s be clear — being part of a minority doesn’t automatically make you right. With all due respect to Skunk Anansie, identity isn’t a substitute for argument. And wielding it like a weapon doesn’t make you noble. It just makes you unaccountable.
That’s the real problem here. It’s not just about Terry, or trans rights, or one podcast episode. It’s about a growing refusal to tolerate difference — not just differences of identity, but differences of opinion, of tone, of humour. The people who claim to be the most inclusive are often the ones least able to accept that others may see the world differently. They use the language of inclusion to justify exclusion. They preach tolerance but practice moral absolutism. And they’re given far too much airtime.
Take Bajd u Bejkin. Whether you like their style or not is beside the point. They made a joke. That joke offended some people. That should have been the end of it. Instead, we got public outrage, media pressure, threats of job loss, and a grovelling apology — all because a group of self-appointed moral gatekeepers decided that their feelings were more important than anyone else’s freedom to speak.
The last time this happened, JD Patrick — one of the podcast’s hosts — ended up quitting the show altogether. Not because he broke any law. Not because he bullied anyone. But because the mob wouldn’t let it go. The backlash wasn’t just loud — it was sustained, coordinated, and backed by Malta’s performatively progressive establishment. When comedians need to disappear for things they said on a podcast, you know something’s broken.
To be fair to him, it’s not easy standing your ground when the mob comes for you. It’s even harder when politicians start circling, hoping to squeeze some likes and shares out of the drama. The entire establishment — from social media personalities to MPs — lined up to signal their outrage. Not because they genuinely care about the issue, but because it’s become politically convenient to posture as a progressive, even when what you’re really doing is enforcing conformity.
And that’s the most galling part of this whole affair: the total inversion of what progressivism is supposed to stand for. These people don’t want diversity — they want obedience. And they use “sensitivity” as a cudgel to beat people into silence.
Meanwhile, the actual substance of the joke — whether it was funny, thought-provoking, tasteless, or poorly timed — gets completely lost. But here’s the thing: in comedy, if it’s not funny, it dies. No one laughs. No one repeats it. That’s how comedy self-regulates. You don’t need the police, or public outrage, or a thousand smug thinkpieces. You just need the audience to stop laughing. But if people are laughing, if the joke is landing — even if it offends you — then maybe, just maybe, the problem isn’t the comedian. Maybe it’s you.
If Terry ta’ Bormla really wants to be taken seriously, she should start by not taking herself so seriously. The rest of us can tell the difference between a joke and a threat — and we’re tired of being told we can’t.
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