pro-life action
THE ABOLITION OF boys and girls by LIAM GIBSON
F
ew people ten years ago could have predicted the speed and ferocity with which transgender theory has taken hold of the public imagination. This theory insists that gender is a social construct and that human beings can have a gender identity radically at odds with their biological sex. While the media fawns over celebrities who decide to raise their children as gender-neutral, public figures who question this ideology are denounced as bigoted and “transphobic”. And although they receive far less attention, in the last five years dozens of academics and university students have faced similar accusations often resulting in them being subjected to harassment or facing disciplinary action.1 Many members of the medical profession have also spoken to journalists off the record about their reservations regarding the policy of automatically affirming all cases of gender dysphoria. Not surprisingly, however, they are fearful of voicing those concerns publicly.2 Yet, despite the power of the transgender lobby, concerns over the effects of the current policy among
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the political and medical establishment seem to be growing. In June, leaked documents indicated that the British government was backing away from plans to allow “trans” people to change the sex on their birth certificate without a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria. And in May the National Health Service quietly adjusted its position on prescribing gonadotrophin-releasing hormone analogues or “puberty blockers” to children, acknowledging that the effects are not fully reversible as it had previously claimed.3 While the entertainment industry seeks to normalise transgenderism, the effect of social media and the internet has been described in terms of social contagion, a phenomenon recognised to spread mental health problems such as depression or eating disorders within peer groups.4 But it is also likely that transgender ideology within schools has had a considerable impact. When primary schools, including Catholic primary schools, encourage pupils to question their “gender identity” then rush to “affirm” those who show signs of confusion, it should come as no surprise 3
