How Janey Godley became one of the most iconic transphobe-fighters of a generation

Janey Godley supported the trans community until her dying breath (Picture: REX/Getty)

On hearing the news Janey Godley has died at the age of 63, the trans community weeps.

The Scottish comedian – who found fame from her infamous Trump poster and parodies of Nicola Sturgeon’s Coronavirus news briefings during the pandemic – revealed she had ovarian cancer in November 2021.

Last month, Godley announced she was receiving end-of-life care.

Now, has agent has confirmed her death, confirming this afternoon: ‘Janey died peacefully in the wonderful Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice in Glasgow, surrounded by her loved ones. She will be hugely missed by her family, friends and her many fans.’

Godley went through a lot in her 63 years. But even as she lived with terminal cancer, the Scottish comedian fought for a marginalised community she was not even part of until her dying breath.

Last month after sharing that she was receiving end-of-life care, Godley took to social media defiantly and wrote: ‘It doesn’t matter how many transphobes attack me in the last stages of my life, I won’t become them. I won’t think how they think. It’s a waste of their time banging on at me – I’m not going to be one of them.’

While many on their deathbed would perhaps use this time to wallow, or at least focus on themselves for their last weeks, Godley continued: ‘Sending my trans people pals all my love today.’

She took trolls down online and vowed to never back down (Picture: John Clark/BAFTA via Getty Images)

Even when Janey announced she was receiving end-of-life care, she continued to speak out against trans discrimination (Picture: janeygodley/Instagram)

Her selflessness in fighting for the trans community wasn’t due to a lack of her own personal battles. On the contrary: she had many.

The foul-mouthed, beloved comedian grew up in poverty in the east end of Glasgow and was sexually abused by her uncle David Percy for several years as a child.

Aged 21, in 1982 Godley’s mother Anne died after drowning in the River Clyde. She was found ‘face down’ after going missing for four days, and Godley was convinced her mother was murdered by a boyfriend.

Godley found out her mother had died on the location radio station, in between football scores, and the police hadn’t bothered informing her.

No charges were ever brought against Godley’s mother’s violent boyfriend and he died alone in 1995, just like her uncle.

‘Her ex-convict boyfriend took her there a walk and had been in court that year for trying to kill her but she defended him,’ Godley explained in a Medium article.

‘He walked free from her death only to go on and kill again and was finally found dead alone in a filthy flat in 1995.’

The comedian used her platform to champion the trans community when many women in her generation did the opposite (Picture: Carlo Paloni/BAFTA via Getty Images)

On December 31, 2010, Godley’s eldest brother Mij Currie died from a drug-related illness.

Leaving school with no qualifications, at the age of 19 Godley tied the knot with Sean Storrie in 1980, and in turn, married into his gangster Glaswegian family.

She was not well-received and was bullied by the in-laws. While she was still with her husband Sean when she died, the pair severed ties with his family and haven’t seen his brothers for 30 years.

This isn’t the first time Godley has stuck it to the man: aged 12, she threatened her abusive uncle with a red-hot poker.

‘He backed off because he’d never been confronted before,’ she told The Guardian in a 2019 interview.

In the 1990s, after years of abuse, Godley and her sister Ann Crawford got their uncle put in prison for his heinous crimes against them.

Around the same time, Godley got her uncle convicted, JK Rowling – a woman of the same generation – was stuck in what she claims to be an abusive marriage with Jorge Arantes.

Following the 2020 allegations, Arantes admitted to The Sun that he ‘slapped’ her but denied any ‘sustained abuse’. He added that he was ‘not sorry for slapping her’.

Both women seem to have been scorned by the opposite sex. Neither woman was ever LGBT, it seems. Or trans. But both are very publicly wrapped up in the hot political football that is trans rights.

This marginalised group of people – only 0.5% of the UK population – are being subject to disproportionate violence and vitriol for being who they are, all stirred up by their scapegoat status in the woke wars.

For some women, feminism has turned from fighting the good fight to denying trans rights, and the term TERF was born as the gender wars heated up in recent years – standing for trans-exclusionary radical feminism.

It’s a name given to a wave of feminists – largely of Godley’s generation – whose views on gender are considered hostile towards trans people.

While Rowling and Godley originally had seemingly nothing to do with the trans community, their public profiles became inextricably linked: one is the trans community’s most public critic, while the other is their greatest ally.

‘Women don’t get killed in toilets and changing rooms,’ said Godley in one of many X posts on the argument about whether trans women should be allowed in women-only spaces.

Godley continued: ‘Every week two women are killed in the UK by men they know- not one of these men gave a f**k about gender-neutral toilets.’

This is just a raindrop in an ocean of posts on social media that Godley bravely published over her career – saying no matter how much abuse she got, she would back down.

In 2020 she vowed just this, as Godley took to social media and directed a message to anti-trans trolls: ‘You can send me your abuse, you can troll me, tell me I am mentally ill, am a danger to children, am stupid, am unfunny, you’ll boycott comedy clubs, you can call me a handmaiden, you can keep sending me documents to read – you won’t change my mind.’

She certainly kept her word.

Godley was there for the trans community always. She was there, posting on social media when trans teenager Brianna Ghey was murdered.

‘I hope every single transphobe who hurts trans people online is hiding their faces in shame tonight,’ she said.

Even after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2021, Janey continued to be the trans’ community’s staunchest flag-bearer.

The trans community has lost one of their fiercest allies and friends (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Last year – after finding out her cancer had returned after getting the all-clear – Janey shared some abusive messages she had received from Twitter users in response to her campaign for trans rights.

One mocked her by saying she should ‘shave her head again even though it wasn’t required.’

Godley quoted the tweet and wrote: ‘Supporting trans people means gender critical women attack me over my terminal cancer. Are you really suggesting I didn’t need to shave my head as the chemo made me bald?’

She went on to say that showing support for trans people ‘means I get abuse over my cancer diagnosis.’

The comedian then shared a new message, bearing the trans flag, and wrote: ‘Despite the gender critics mocking me for my cancer diagnosis I won’t stop supporting trans people.’

In September, Godley posted a devastating update on her ovarian cancer, saying she would have to cancel her comedy tour because it had spread.

Someone wrote under her announcement: ‘Thank god you’re well enough to keep standing up for men’s rights though eh?!’

Janey replied with a sobering reminder: ‘I was raped as a child and this harassment of me because I support trans people is not a good look. Leave me alone you will not make me hate trans people by bullying me online.’

That’s not to say Godley was faultless. Her career came to a stand-still when historic tweets from Godley emerged, which were racist and ableist.

Gigs were cancelled, and she was stopped from fronting the Scottish government’s Covid campaign. She promptly profusely apologised, asked for forgiveness and fully took responsibility for the posts.

As she told The Irish News: ‘I’m deeply flawed like everybody else. Everybody is deeply flawed… But we’re all just getting by.’

But for a woman with a limited time left on this earth, she definitely did more than get by.

Waking up every day and deciding to fight under a banner that’s not hers, and soldiering on despite years and years of abuse, is remarkable.

Godley did the opposite of getting by – she was a hero.

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