Categories
Transgender

The trouble with Joe Biden’s trans declaration

Today* is International Transgender Day of Visibility – just like the preceding 89 days of 2023. But, jesting aside, it has prompted an astonishing proclamation from the White House. ‘Transgender Americans shape our Nation’s soul,’ president Joe Biden has announced.

Really? Who did Biden have in mind? Maybe he was still entranced by Dylan Mulvaney, a self-absorbed social media influencer who shot to fame last March after documenting a gender transition. Since then, Mulvaney has relentlessly taken to TikTok chronicling each ‘day of girlhood’ in nauseating detail.

On day 222 of this egregious series, Mulvaney was invited to the White House to interview Biden. Trans privilege really does know no bounds, it seems. The president told Mulvaney:

‘I don’t think any state or anybody should have the right to [ban gender affirming healthcare].’

Joe Biden

He added:

You should have every single solitary right including the use of your gender identity bathrooms’.

Joe Biden

Does Biden understand the implications for single-sex spaces? Does he even care?

That was October. Now the president has issued his ‘Proclamation on Transgender Day of Visibility’. In it, Biden takes a shot at states such as Florida and Tennessee, which have stepped in to protect children from the sex-change industry. In his proclamation, Biden suggested that, ‘A wave of discriminatory State laws is targeting transgender youth, terrifying families and hurting kids who are not hurting anyone.’

Biden is scaremongering. What Biden calls ‘transgender youth’ are indeed being targeted, not by state legislators, but clinicians who have spotted a cash cow and advertise their services on social media to impressionable girls.

And terrifying families? It’s hardly terrifying to be denied experimental treatments involving drugs where the long term prognosis is unknown. Disappointing perhaps, but only because these youngsters were made promises that could never be delivered.

Language like Biden’s feeds into a victim narrative. It does not help children struggling with gender distress to be told that the president thinks they may be terrified. Rather, it may well drive them further into despair and detachment from mainstream society.

As for ‘hurting kids who are not hurting anyone’, what’s hurting those children is the insidious ideology that has told them that they can change their sex – and that their satisfaction in life depends upon access to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and sex-change surgeries. This is a tragedy.

Biden is not merely a fool, he is playing with fire. Under his watch, gender identity ideology has driven the United States apart into a great schism of so-called red-states and blue-states. In the former, laws are being passed to protect vulnerable kids; the latter, meanwhile, like the president himself appear to celebrate what has unfolded under his watch. State has been set against state. Blue California even passed a bill to make the state ‘a refuge for transgender youth and their families’.

This rift needs to be healed fast with cool heads and clear minds. But while America divides, Biden fiddles. Yesterday, gun control activists stormed the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville and a ‘trans Shaman‘ joined an occupation of the Kentucky legislature; the same day, Biden signed off his statement with hubris, ‘NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim 31 March, 2023, as Transgender Day of Visibility.’

What will Biden make of 1 April, I wonder? Some agitators in Washington DC are not satisfied with mere visibility. They are planning a ‘Transgender Day of Vengeance’ in the capital tomorrow.

‘We choose to fight’, organisers declared. A dangerous cocktail of self-righteous indignation, victimhood, and the perceived support from the president himself has the potential to create enough chaos to wake up even Joe.


Debbie Hayton is a teacher and journalist.

* This article was first published by The Spectator on 31 March 2023: The trouble with Joe Biden’s trans declaration.

Categories
Children

Report: most UK schools now pushing gender ideology

One in five don’t even offer single-sex changing rooms
Categories
Education

The real tragedy of the Nashville school shooting

Three children and three staff have been shot dead at a school in the United States. The pupils who died at the Covenant School in Nashville were all just nine years old. The attacker was Audrey Hale, a 28-year old transgender ex-pupil, who was armed with three guns, including a semi-automatic rifle. Hale was shot dead by police during the incident yesterday morning.*

Categories
Français

L’idéologie transgenriste divise les État-Unis

L’idéologie de l’identité de genre a eu un impact profond sur la politique britannique, mais elle est en train de déchirer les États-Unis. La rhétorique des États rouges et des États bleus pourrait difficilement être plus polarisée.

Categories
Sport

Why did it take Seb Coe so long to see sense over transgender athletes?

World Athletics has decided to protect women’s sport by restricting it to females. From 31 March, transwomen will not be allowed to compete in elite female competitions if they have gone through male puberty. Following yesterday’s* meeting of the World Athletics Council, Seb Coe – the governing body’s president – explained that the decision was ‘guided by the overarching principle which is to protect the female category’.

That decision should be welcomed by everyone, but why did it take them so long? Swimming’s world governing body came to the same conclusion last summer; world rugby got there in 2020. Athletics, meanwhile, dithered and fiddled with rules based on the level of testosterone in an athlete’s blood. Should the cut-off be set at ten nanomoles per litre, or should it be just five? Recently, two and a half was mooted. These appeared to be little more than arbitrary lines, set at a level somewhere between the typical male and the typical female.

Categories
GRA Reform

Trans activists are today’s Militant Tendency

If Keir Starmer wants to succeed, he must face them down
Categories
Sport

JayCee Cooper’s court victory is a loss for USA Powerlifting

Now the sport must allow trans athletes to compete with women
Categories
GRA Reform

Humza Yousaf’s gender muddle

The SNP’s ill-fated gender reforms shaped Nicola Sturgeon’s last days as First Minister, but if Humza Yousaf has learned from the experience, he is not showing it. The SNP’s crown prince – or perhaps clown prince – is tying himself in knots over the sex of a double rapist who has just been sentenced to eight years.

Categories
Children

Ireland backtracks on gender identity curriculum in schools

Students will no longer be taught that gender is on a spectrum
Categories
JK Rowling

JK Rowling is no transphobe – and I should know

Most authors would undoubtedly be satisfied with the legacy of Harry Potter: hundreds of millions of books sold, a film franchise, untold riches – and a place in the hearts and minds of children for generations to come. But after creating the fantasy of Hogwarts, J.K. Rowling did something even greater; she stood up for reality in a world where many do not seem to understand the difference between fact and fiction.