Questioning the shibboleths of transgender politics

 

Guest Post by Adrian Morgan

I am fed up with arguing with trans-activists, the so-called "LGBT" community, and the foolish well-meaning "liberals" who defend them. I am fed up with being lectured that it is fine to have children being encouraged to think of themselves as "transgender". I am fed up with the aggression of men who who merely announce that they are "women" demanding to be accepted as such or - more outrageously - for such men to call themselves "lesbians" and then expect to be treated as such.

I am not against transsexuals, but I am against trans-activists and their aggressive treatment of women who want to have "women only spaces." Facebook and Twitter have bought in to this notion that anyone critical of trans-activism is somehow a purveyor of hate. Stonewall, in the UK, is currently making a load of money from its guidance to businesses on how to respect its "LGBT" employees. Employment law in the UK already protects gay men and women from discrimination. The Equality Act 2010 also states that transsexuals should be free from discrimination. Stonewall is presenting employment guidance on the law, when what it has been peddling is not about the law at all. And the main alterations Stonewall are demanding from employers are to do with accommodating transsexual workers. Actual figures on transsexuals are hard to come by. One transsexual person on a political group here has said that they number 0.5% of the population. There are far more gay or lesbian people than there are transsexuals (who have had surgery).

 
There is little that gay or lesbian people have in common with trans-gendered people. The most fundamental part of biology is one's sex - gay or lesbian people accept the sex they were born with. Trans people do not accept the sex assigned to them when they were born. But despite this Stonewall (currently making a profit from pretending to be experts in employment rights) and also the UK government, in its Government Equalities Office, conflate the two. Surgically transitioned trans-women are certainly far fewer in number than the current vocal activists who merely "self-identify" as women and have working male sexual organs.

I cannot accept the idea that a child can be put by adults onto a path that labels that boy or girl as transgender when that path stereotypes them in the eyes of teachers and other classmates, and ultimately leads towards puberty blocking drugs and surgical transition. But that has been happening, and the trans-activists' agenda is to change society, and not changing society by appealing to people's humane impulses. Arguing against discrimination is a noble cause, but activists who go around attacking women and feminists, calling them "TERFs" (and - as happened to J. K. Rowling on Twitter, demanding that she suck "lady dick") are dividing society. However, social media giants take the side of such activists, and act punitively against those who believe in the rights of women, and the rights of those who do not wish to be lumped together with aggressive trans-activists who self-identify as women but are biologically male.

 
I have had to dissociate myself from friends I have known since my teen years, after they criticised my stance on trans issues. Two individuals, now living in Maryland, said they were supporting their neighbours who were helping their five year old "transgender" child. This liberal-minded married couple, who are now grandparents, would never see themselves as coercive or assisting in child abuse, but just labelling a child of five as being "in the wrong body" is a form of psychological abuse - in my opinion.

I have learned from political groups that merely questioning the validity of the shibboleths of the trans lobby, and the LGBT lobby, leads to receiving personal insults, demands to know my "qualifications" and having myself tarred as a transphobe. I do not think I am a trans-phobe. I support the rights of adult men to decide to become trans-women, and women to become trans-men, and for them to live without fear or discrimination.

 
But we are reaching a point now - because of social media, Twitter-storms and cancel culture - where striving to attain rights is no longer about having a persuasive argument, one that appeals to common sense, notions of justice and human compassion. It seems that critical theory now governs the means of change, and all protests now can get violent, and abusive, and will receive little criticism in the press, as long as the protesters claim to be "progressive". Hounding people online, or - as in the case of Andy Ngo in Portland confronting violent Antifa activists - actual violence is now viewed by many bodies as "acceptable".

 
The mantra borrowed from Malcolm X, who borrowed it from Frantz Fanon, "by any means necessary" is now regarded as legitimate for any cause. Antifa enjoy violent confrontations, Extinction Rebellion have taken civil disobedience to shutting down cities, BLM have not condemned rioting and destruction of buildings at their protests in the USA, and though Twitter and Facebook can remove Donald Trump from their platforms, those who oppose the people who threatened J K Rowling and others have had their accounts restricted or banned.

 
When there can be no reasonable discussion of any "social issue" without people being labelled, disrespected and insulted, those with a long memory who lived through older quests to achieve rights for people are now being silenced. Not just because they are tired of receiving insults and stereotyping, but because the small spaces they occupy on social media threaten to "cancel" them, leaving them with no platform. And so the mob wins, ably assisted by the pseudo-liberal folk who make money from social media.