Physics teacher and trade unionist.
As professionals, academics, teachers and parents, we are anxious about the 25-fold increase in referrals of children to the NHS gender identity development service since 2009.
Christmas this year was a blessed relief from political campaigning. Brexit and Transgender Politics have threatened to take over my life over the past two years, but last week I averted myself from politics. That’s not a trivial exercise when, 90 days from a possibly cataclysmic exit from the European Union, our political leaders still appear to be wishing for a miracle.
Sir, As transsexual people we are dismayed by the escalation in harassment, threats and abuse directed at women and women’s groups in the name of “transgender rights activism” (“Trans lobby sent me death threats, claims professor”, Dec 6). In the past few years violent rhetoric on social media has spilt over into real life too often. After the harassment of Julie Bindel and the Working Class Movement Library, the physical assault on Maria Maclachlan and the recent use of “masked-up” tactics at a feminist meeting in Bristol, we are horrified by the intimidation and abuse directed at the human rights expert Rosa Freedman.
On Wednesday night [21 November 2018], Channel 4 broadcast a much-debated documentary examining the staggering rise in children being referred for consultation on gender re-assignment. In the last nine years, referrals for children to the NHS’s Gender Identity Development Service have risen some 2500 per cent.
[Transcript of the Speech I gave at A Woman’s Place is a Safe Port, a meeting organised by Woman’s Place UK in Liverpool on 25th September 2018 to coincide with the Labour Party Conference]
I am a transwoman but I am also a science teacher, and I do understand the reality of biological sex. It is the basis of the procreation of our species. There are seven and a half billion people on this planet and each has two biological parents – one female and one male – that’s real.
When equalities minister Penny Mordaunt launched the consultation on reforming the Gender Recognition Act she declared that “trans women are women”. Whether anyone really believes this remains to be seen. Yet our political leaders are willing to endorse this Orwellian thinking, and when it comes to the transgender debate, objective truth plays second fiddle to political expediency.
As the Government Consultation on reforms to The Gender Recognition Act 2004 comes to a close, we should reflect on what is at stake. As a transsexual person I have a particular interest. While I understand the superficial attraction of self-declaration, a procedure based purely on an assertion of our own feelings, any process lacking objective evidence is vulnerable to abuse.
Sir,
The compilers of the Book of Proverbs probably had more pressing concerns than gender identity when they characterised the wicked, the foolish and the wise, but the transgender debate today (letters, Oct 3 & 4) involves the same three kinds of people.
As ministers consult the public over plans to simplify the legal process for changing gender, it’s important to recognise the valid concerns that many women have about their safety. Removing medical and legal barriers to people who want to identify their own gender is welcome, but it involves a lot more than wearing new clothes and changing names.
Debbie Hayton