“If there was a 1,000 per cent rise in six years in any other field,” said one doctor, “there would be a major inquiry. Instead no one asks why.”
The Times
From Topshop’s cave-in on changing rooms to the SNP’s guidance for schools, there is a mindless rush to appear right-on.
Travis Alabanza is a performance artist who, in the tradition of Leigh Bowery, Boy George or Bowie, dresses to astonish and subvert. Blue lipstick, beard stubble, fab shoes, frocks, mad hair, attitude. What Travis isn’t, however, is a woman.
Yet when Topshop in Manchester wouldn’t allow him to try on clothes in the women’s fitting area, he exploded on Twitter: “Not letting me use the changing room I decide is shit, sort it out.” Within hours Topshop declared all customers “are free to use any fitting room located within our stores”.
Note: Topshop hasn’t built solid, separate unisex boxes as in, say, Urban Outfitters. They are just permitting men — any man — to walk into a flimsily curtained space where giggling teenage girls check out a friend’s new dress in their bras. Topshop’s female customers were baffled. Why sacrifice our privacy and safety? (When the US company Target adopted this policy, predatory men exploited it to snap photos under cubicles.) Why not create a discrete space for the few “non-binary” people like Travis to change?
Fair question. But the current trans movement is doctrinaire, uncompromising. Led by mainly older trans-women — ie born men — it won’t acknowledge women’s rights or feelings. It fights for two principles. First, “self-definition”: a person is the gender they “feel” inside, so a trans-woman “is” a woman even without physical change or while retaining male genitalia. Second, “affirmation”: everyone must acknowledge this inner gender identity. Hence the right to waltz into women’s private spaces is sacrosanct.
For months, researching the rise in referrals to gender clinics of teenage girls, I’ve been shocked at how the trans lobby, abetted by a cowed LGBT movement and deluded politicians, are prepared to sacrifice the wellbeing of children to attain those two goals.
This week the Scottish government published its transgender guidance for schools, drawn up solely by activist groups such as Mermaids. If Justine Greening implements a highly contentious women and equalities committee report, such rules will apply everywhere. On changing rooms it states: “If a learner feels uncomfortable sharing facilities with a transgender young person, they can be allowed to use a private facility . . . or to get changed after the trans young person is done.” So if a girl objects to showering with a male-bodied pupil, she must go elsewhere or wait outside. For overnight trips: “If a transgender young person is sharing a room with their peers, there is no reason for parents of the other young people to be informed.” So you have no business knowing if your daughter is sleeping alongside someone born a boy.
It recommends schools allow a child to change gender without parental consent. Moreover, if parents are not wholly behind a child’s decision: “It may be useful to approach the local authority for additional guidance”, ie report them to social services, perhaps to question custody.
As in the US, trans kids are now an industry that makes careers
This craze to expedite gender transition in children goes against all clinical advice for “watchful waiting”. The young brain evolves, children change their minds, puberty is troubling for many reasons. Yet the Scottish guidance allows no one to dispute a child’s view, maybe acquired on Reddit and Tumblr, that he or she is in “the wrong body”. Or to suggest that a child may simply be gay. The apparatus of medical transition, a hormone regime causing sterility, plus surgical removal of healthy tissue, is seen as wholly positive. PE teachers must tolerate girls using binders to strap down their hated breasts “which can lead to shortness of breath and can be painful during physical exertion” because they have “a positive impact on a young person’s mental health”.
We are being ordered to endorse a practice reminiscent of Chinese foot-binding or the Victorian tight-lacing craze where girls fainted to achieve the tiniest waist. Should we also hand out fresh razor blades so self-harm wounds don’t go septic? Or “affirm” anorexics’ delusions that they are fat?
In my research I heard from teachers, doctors, parents and trans-folk aghast at children being pushed towards drastic treatment before they can possibly understand how it will affect their future relationships and lives. None would speak out publicly: like Topshop, they feared being labelled transphobic.
Because how quickly we transition kids is the new measure of an enlightened society. Announcing proposals to let 12-year-olds change their legal gender, the SNP equalities secretary Angela Constance boasted that “Scotland rightly has a reputation as one of the most progressive countries in relation to LGBTI rights.” This proves the SNP is more right-on than even Corbyn Labour. Meanwhile the Tories, in a cynical pursuit of youth votes, push for legislative changes they don’t even grasp. “Being trans is not an illness,” said Theresa May recently, “and it should not be treated as such.” So why does it require surgery, drugs and lifelong patienthood?
Looking down at your male genitalia and thinking you're a woman is not an illness!!!!????
While trans children are a liberal totem, 50 more are being referred to London’s Tavistock clinic every week. “If there was a 1,000 per cent rise in six years in any other field,” said one doctor, “there would be a major inquiry. Instead no one asks why.” Because trans kids are becoming, as in the US, an industry that makes careers, brings Children in Need and Lottery grants, humanitarian prizes, plaudits, MBEs; it provides a legion of photogenic young foot-soldiers to help secure older trans demands, and for the private clinics, who’ll put your 13-year-old girl on testosterone, it is a mighty cash cow. But in a decade, when our adult children turn to ask, “Why did you let me do this? Why didn’t you stop me?” we may wonder if this was progress or child abuse.
I have been calling it child abuse for years. Unfortunately, the day will soon arrive when I will not be able to speak what is true and obvious.
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