A columnist has hit out at the “institutionalised obsession” with transgenderism throughout 2017.
Writing for the Daily Express, Leo McKinstry pointed to a number of significant changes which have come about at the behest of a “tiny group of revolutionaries”.
And he warned that the Government is poised to make further societal changes to placate trans activists, at the expense of the rest of the population.
Disproportionate influence
McKinstry began his article by referencing calls this week by a branch of pressure group Action for Trans Health to abolish legal gender for everyone, end birth certificates and free all trans prisoners.
He pointed out that parts of the group’s “radical agenda” have already influenced Government policy, playing a “central role” in a Parliamentary inquiry into gender recognition reforms.
The columnist wrote that giving “official attention” to a group with such ideas “illustrates the dangerous stranglehold that the trans lobby has on our public life.
“We are living in an age of extremism where all common sense has been inverted and a tiny group of revolutionaries can dictate the social agenda.”
Silencing debate
McKinstry also made reference to the recent NHS survey which asked ten-year-olds whether they feel “comfortable in their gender”, plans to let people legally ‘change their sex’ without medical safeguards, and a decision by the Girl Guides Association to let boys who identify as girls shower with girls.
He added: “It is no surprise, given the state’s neurosis about gender fluidity, that the number of under-18s referred to the NHS’s gender identity service is rocketing up from just 97 in 2009 to more than 2,000 in 2016-17.”
Commenting on the ability of trans activists to exert such dominance, he said it is only possible because of their “aggressive determination to silence debate”, adding: “It is an insult to our intelligence”.
Government plans
This year, the Government is expected to move forward with its plans to ‘de-medicalise’ the process by which people legally ‘change sex’.
Ministers have committed to reviewing the Gender Recognition Act, saying that medical checks should be removed to allow for self-declaration of gender.
Similar plans have been tabled in Scotland, where ministers are already consulting on changing the law.
Both Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn are supportive, but women’s groups, therapists, doctors, academics, campaigners and transgender activists have challenged the plans.