#lgb alliance is a hate group

[enbycrip]

So given the Rowling stans crawling out of the woodwork to say they are still allies - or worse yet, community members - while still plastering Potter stuff all over their online presence by saying they “separate the art from the artist” after the latest acknowledgment that she is trying to swing Labour in an even more transphobic direction, a short primer on what “death of the author”, which is the origin for that less provocative phrase, actually means.

“Death of the author”, in extreme brief, is an academic construct that was developed at a time when the author as the sole arbiter of meaning in a text was very privileged in the discourse to help people understand that any interpretation of a work is valid *as long as it can be supported by textual evidence*. Your interpretation of a text, as the reader, is as valid as the author’s *if* you can produce just as much, or more, evidence from *within the text itself* that supports your interpretation.

This is particularly useful for students within an academic context.

It is *not* in any sense a reasonable justification to say that one is not *actively supporting* a living artist/author/creator, particularly one who has gained huge cultural influence and financial wealth, by buying and actively promoting their work.

Genuinely, I wouldn’t engage with work from a dead very bigoted artist without acknowledging their bigotry.

If I write about or produce a story set within the Cthulhu Mythos, you had better bet that I am acknowledging Lovecraft’s horrific and pervasive racism and misogyny and the effects of that within the Mythos.

If I write about or do some sketches that acknowledge Degas as an influence, you can bet that I am acknowledging his rampant racism and antisemitism and the fact that his familial wealth which allowed him to have the financial freedom to create the art he did was built on plantation slavery in the Caribbean.

If I write about or paint something with Klimt’s ethereal goldwork as an influence, you can bet I’m writing about his deeply abusive sexual relationships with the women he drew and painted, that he used sapphic eroticism in his work while sexually abusing working class sapphics he paid to model for him, and acknowledging that he had the freedom to produce that work because he got the women in his family to tend to his every whim and perform all his domestic labour for him.

That’s the basic acknowledgment you undertake while engaging with the work of someone deeply bigoted - *even* if they are not directly benefitting from your engagement with their work because they are deceased. The material conditions around how a work is produced and consumed are *always* relevant to that work, because otherwise we miss why, for example, privileged people have the time, resources and cachet to create art and have it be consumed *as* art, while other people never have the resources to do so or have the work they create relegated to categories like “domestic crafts” if it is acknowledged at all.

So just saying “I can separate art from the artist” while financially supporting a living bigot who continues to use your money and the cultural cache you are giving her by doing so to wreak genuine damage on the queer, especially trans, community - that’s basically both completely meaningless and incredibly disingenuous. Particularly when said bigot is *actively* attempting to parlay that financial and cultural influence into making an already very transphobic, racist and disableist political party who are, according to current polls, likely to be running the U.K. shortly, into supporting more actions that *will* materially harm trans people.

[sibrownphoto-tumbl]

Wonderful work from our trans siblings.

Given who the LGB Alliance are one wonders if the speaker meant the crickets or our siblings.

Oh, yes. I’m an old queer man, one who owes his life to a much missed trans woman friend. If that, and my support for inclusivity bothers you; please let the door hit you inelegantly on the arse as you flounce off.

The group released approximately 6,000 crickets from bags hidden on their persons which they snuck through security just before a talk on the “dangers” of medical transition. They made sure to spread the crickets (which do not infest and pose no danger to humans) across the entire hall, in order to ensure the conference could be safely brought to an end. The speech was postponed and later speeches were cancelled.

[elierlick]

Six trans youth activists released thousands of crickets on the LGB Alliance's event in London, causing the anti-trans hate group to shut down their auditorium. Hope to see them face the other 9 plagues soon!

[worstdykeever]

not enough people are talking about the fact that a bunch of homophobic TRA 'activists' released thousands of LIVE CRICKETS at the LGB alliance meeting. these people were part of the 'trans kids deserve better' group that was lead by a trans identified man. however, the man decided to only have trans identified women release the crickets because he didn't want to get his hands dirty. the 'activists' were sent home and no charges were pressed. how is this not considered a homophobic hate crime ?

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Andrew Doyle

Published: Oct 14, 2024

It was hardly a plague of locusts, but it was disruptive nonetheless. During the annual LGB Alliance conference at the Queen Elizabeth II centre in Westminster on Friday afternoon, teenage activists unleashed thousands of crickets into the auditorium. The inconvenience was only temporary. The crowd simply relocated to another room and the event went on as before.

As those responsible were apprehended, many people were struck by just how young and posh they were. By this point, it should surprise precisely no-one that anti-gay activism in its current form is a predominately bourgeois pursuit. The symbolism of the crickets was, of course, deliberate. It was an attempt to dehumanise those in attendance, to suggest that they were akin to parasites, vermin, spreaders of disease, a common trope of those who seek to demonise minorities.

The perpetrators were children, and so it would be unwise to speculate too much on their motives. It is likely they were being manipulated by the group that has claimed responsibility, calling itself “Trans Kids Deserve Better”. As Bev Jackson, co-founder of LGB Alliance said on my show last night:

“Trans kids do deserve better. They deserve better than to be told lies that that they might have been born in the wrong body. They deserve better than to be told that these hormones and surgeries that they are clambering for will somehow solve all their problems. Many are on the autism spectrum. Many are struggling with their sexual orientation. We know that. They deserve better than to be told that we hate them. And they deserve better than to be labelled trans when they’re going through all the turbulence of adolescence, when your feelings about yourself are in constant flux.”

Irrespective of the intentions of the teenagers involved, this was anti-gay activism. To attack a group of lesbian, gay and bisexual people who have assembled to discuss the ongoing threats to their civil rights could hardly be defined in any other way. Likewise, to refer to groups such as LGB Alliance as “anti-trans”, “transphobic” or “hateful” - as activist media outlets such as the Metro and the Guardian have been known to do - is also an anti-gay strategy. In order to address a problem, one needs to label it accurately.

Gender identity ideologues are, by definition, anti-gay. They are campaigning to force their pseudo-religious belief-system onto the rest of society, one that claims that same-sex attraction is a myth, and that a mysterious spiritual sense of “gender” is the defining feature of homosexuality. Even if they have convinced themselves that they are “pro-trans” and “compassionate” and “progressive”, the implementation of their demands would result directly in the demolition of gay rights. And so “anti-gay activism” is not only an accurate description, it also cuts to the heart of what is at stake.

The trans activist movement in its current form is dominated by this belief in a material and stable “gender identity”, what one trans campaigner explained to me as an “essence of male or female”. This is a departure from the theories of Judith Butler, who posits that “gender identity” is an illusion created performatively and repetitively in accordance with societal expectations. For all their deification of Butler, the trans rights movement is insistent that she is wrong on this key point, and that an individual is “born trans” when there is a misalignment of body and “sexed soul” (to borrow Helen Joyce’s phrase).  

This belief is wholly incompatible with the struggle for gay rights, which has always been predicated on the notion that there exist a minority of people who are innately attracted to their own sex. Activist groups such as Stonewall now argue that “homosexuality” is based on gender rather than sex, meaning that it is possible for a man to be a lesbian. He may have been born male (or “assigned male at birth” to borrow the voguish parlance), but his “gender identity” is female and this should be the salient factor when it comes to sexual orientation.

It is no easy feat to explain the contortions of logic on display here. Lesbian dating apps are now replete with men who claim to be women, many fully bearded and bepenised. Likewise, sex clubs for gay men now routinely admit women who have had their breasts removed and believe themselves to be male. The gay male hookup app Grindr even prohibits its users from filtering out women. As the company’s website puts it:

“When designing gender settings on Grindr, it was important to us to not further perpetuate discrimination and harm for the trans and nonbinary community. For this reason, we allow filtering based on gender - you can specify that you want to see men or women - but this will include all men or all women, because trans men are men and trans women are women.”

In other words, a company that has made a fortune from gay men’s sexuality is now shaming its customers for being gay.

The situation is so confusing that we now have mainstream celebrities such as Billy Bragg effectively campaigning against gay rights without realising it. He is not homophobic (as far as I’m aware) and yet he is assiduously promoting a movement whose end goal is the eradication of homosexuality. Bragg’s 1991 song Sexuality included the lyric: “Just because you’re gay, I won’t turn you away”. Perhaps a more appropriate version would be: “Just because you’re gay, I’ll have you surgically corrected in order to better conform to heterosexual paradigms”, although it wouldn’t scan or rhyme.

This is why to grow up gay in 2024 is considerably more risky than during the time of Section 28 in the 1980s. We have gay conversion therapy being promoted by the NHS in the form of “gender-affirming care”, and children who are gender non-conforming (and therefore statistically far more likely to be homosexual in later life) are being medicalised and shamed for their orientation. Moreover, the very organisations that were originally established to fight for gay rights are now actively working against the interests of gay people.

To release bags of insects into a gathering of homosexuals is the kind of tactic we might once have seen from neo-Nazis and extreme religious fundamentalists. Just because those responsible now claim to be “on the right side of history” does not justify their behaviour or make them any less regressive. These are the new reactionaries, espousing a particularly toxic form of anti-gay ideology because it has the approval of the corporate, media, political and managerial class. Homophobia never went away, it just took on a fresh disguise.

==

[ Source. ]

Gay men are not allowed to filter out women from their dating pool.

[werewolf-cuddles]

#also go see if you can find a uk place to donate#since trans folk over in the uk are more affected than others by jkr's bs

Good addition that deserves to be on the post itself instead of hidden away in the tags.

Anyway, last thing I wanna say about the wizard game, because quite frankly I'm tired.

All of the anger and vitriol being thrown around on both sides has only helped the game's visibility and sales. As far as the publisher is concerned, all publicity is good publicity, and the games sales have definitely not been hurt at all.

At this point, getting angry at people over it isn't going to accomplish anything, so my suggestion would be to do one or more of the following instead;

Donate to a trans-specific or trans-supportive LGBT+ charity (e.g. Mermaids, The Trevor Project, Stonewall, etc.)

Promote indie games made by trans developers

Call out transphobia when you see it, and stick up for trans people both online and IRL

Getting mad at people over the internet isn't going to accomplish anything good. It's only going to keep the game trending, keep it in the public eye, and keep the sales of it high.

You may as well just channel that outrage into something productive instead.

[lil-tumbles]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Trans Kids Deserve Better (@transkidsdeservebetter)

Trans Kids Deserve Better released 6000 crickets into the far-right LGB alliance conference, disrupting it enough to get the last speech cancelled! All kids are safe and home, but they are launching a fundraiser - above is an insta post they made about this fabulous action.

EDIT!!! Just Giving closed their campaign without giving them adequate time to respond after a mass reporting by LGBA terfs. If you donated previously, your donation has been refunded - please donate at their new link!! (See below) https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/tkdb-crick-kids?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaZ0EAURLRUodAYkaS10vH1o8z__gyw5X6GJALIiG7uTv81e8SAFoxvW5U0_aem_0hbyrSYaEG1CZj2ZnfkwXw

They lost the 5k they had raised for trans kids. Please help them get it back.

If you want to show support and can't donate, please share their fabulous action, and post crickets in support with TKDB tags/messages of support/link to the fundraiser or their site. Go! Post crickets! They flooded the conference hall; now let's flood social media in support of these incredible kids!

[ayeforscotland]

The university of Edinburgh has just elected one of the founders of anti-trans hate group, LGB Alliance, as its rector.

This doesn’t surprise me because after all my time at that fucking university I have very few positive words to say about it.

[messrsrarchives]

hi robyn 🫶🏽 i hope youre ok and this is ok to ask but i just went through the pdf thank you! i had no idea hogwarts legacy was bad too but it seems obvious really so thank you for that but i had a question about the 70k thing my question is... actually all of it, what does it mean and what was the money for? i can google if you dont want to answer but i thought id try here first and say thank you as well 🫶🏽

HI HELLO !! this is always okay to ask 🫂 i'm really glad it was helpful and yeah hogwarts legacy is always a bit of a controversial one because people love the game but yes, her IP. but anyway !! politics time (p.s i'm not an expert, just a sad trans politics student)

For Women Scotland is a transphobic pressure group who, like many politicians and public figures like jkr, hide behind the guise of "protecting women" to be transphobic but do very little to actually protect women outside of going "trans people are bad" (noting here too that the LGB Alliance - anti-trans queer organisation - were in support of this, and JKR has donated to them and spoken at their conferences)

in 2018 there was a proposed amendment to the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act:

essentially, it would have changed the legal definition of a woman from "a female of any age" to also include "a person who has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment"

in simple normal human words - trans women who has a gender recognition certificate would be legally recognised as women.

there was actually more before this where the original amendment said that having a GRC would mean trans women are treated like "real" women, FWS fought against this and won this case, so the scottish government changed the amendment to say the above instead so that trans women were simply classified as women.

FWS obviously were still very against this and said it would "erode women's rights in law", claiming that including trans women was "unlawful" - scotland is still under england's power for certain matters and FWS said that this was a matter for westminster to decide, not scotland, because it goes against the UK equality act of 2010. (see also: Gender Recognition Act 2023, scotland proposed a bill that would give better protections for trans people, Westminster blocked it.)

a judge from scotland's supreme court set up a hearing, FWS lost this.

on feb 16th this year, FWS got permission to appeal this to the UK supreme court and started a crowdfunding campaign to cover the legal costs

shortly after this, JKR donated £70,000 to the campaign. FWS confirmed that the "JK" that donated was her, and the comment left on the donation was "You know how proud I am to know you. Thank you for all your hard work and perseverance. This is truly a historic case."

the case was heard november 26th and 27th, but supreme court cases take a LONGGGG time and it's incredibly unlikely that we actually hear the final verdict until hmmm i wanna say as early as march of next year, but JKR donated to the crowdfunding campaign to get this case appealed, and has long-standing, close connections with organisations that are on FWS side.

but because i love yapping, let's say FWS win, what happens:

scottish government amends the act so that trans women are not a part of this

potential rewrite of the guidance around gender recognition certificates - as much as i hate to say it, jkr is infact right, this is a historic case and the ECHR are involved,,, could lead to big backlash against getting these certificates (which already has backlash in the uk)

many organisations (including Sex Matters, very transphobic) want to take this further to ensure a distinct separation between "real women" and "trans women" in alll areas all the way down to public funding

adding here! amnesty international intervened as a third-party with their own points that you can read here

also gonna note here: jkr recently spoke out about trans police officers performing searches and Sex Matters as well as FWS have said that no matter the outcome of this case, this is their next priority. not gonna yap too much about this here because it's a different thing but jkr has close ties to this whole thing and is very clearly on the side of many transphobic organisations.

sorry omg this is so long but that's, shockingly, a short overview of the case and what the £70,000 donation from JKR was spent on. there's a handful of lesbian organisation involved on the FWS side, a lot of third-partty interventions and i was going to add some articles from people who were at the hearing but i can only find incredibly transphobic ones that call this "the darkest day for women since the first world war" and i would love to know if they have a hobby in their free time. maybe knitting. perhaps reading a history book. or like,,, current news regarding women's rights worldwide,,, america. poland. afghanistan. congo. palestine. sudan. the list goes on really. violence against women has been declared a national emergency in the uk and i'm no expert but i think it's safe to say that this hearing that affects the 0.01% of the UK population that actually have GRC certificates is not the darkest day for women since the first world war.

and jkr should really get a hobby. maybe attend a writing class.

[sophieinwonderland]

If you ask me, ofc it's lateral aggression. CDD systems and endos are lumped in with each other by virtue of history, terminology, and how they're viewed in society, whether that's a good thing or not. A key component of lateral aggression is internalized bigotry. The LGB Alliance internalizes queerphobic narratives, but rather than applying it to themselves, they dump it on a scapegoat--transgender people. It allows them to think of themselves as "the normal ones" while still holding the harmful beliefs society has pushed on them. Just for a different group.

Similarly, CDD systems are subject to horrible systemic ableism, medical abuse, and toxic inner communities policing for "fakers". It's not hard to see how that narrative is being pushed on endos of all kinds, especially when you factor trauma responses into it. "Oh that's not me. I'm the good kind. *They're* the ones you're looking for." Is a key component of lateral aggression.

This is a legitimately great point, and has changed my mind on this. I had been on the fence about whether it was lateral aggression or not, while leaning towards not. But yeah, when you put it that way, the hate is pretty much entirely based on scapegoating and subjecting people to the same prejudice they've experienced.

So yeah, I'm definitely firmly on the side of it being lateral aggression!

While still being bigotry.

[literallyautistic]

Oh but they do "research" it's just that they find misinformation and take it as fact, did you know in the UK an anti trans hate group known as the LGB alliance was given charity status

what i don't get is when terfs say shit like "oh if you're gnc people will come up to you and force you to transition."

nah fr. do they forget that trans GNC people exist?

[vintage-bentley]

Unfortunately your post about "gender ideology" somehow ended up on my dash, but I'm going to engage in good faith.

I am gen z as well, but I am trans. I don't believe you're a genuinely hateful person, just misunderstanding. The fight for trans and LGB rights as you would call them are inherently linked by history. The first gay rights movements were spearheaded by trans and gender nonconforming people. Groups like the LGB alliance who would like to convince you otherwise are trying to sow unnecessary division by pitting a once unified community against each other with an "us verses them" mentality. At the end of the day, bigots don't care about the difference. Once they're done coming for us, they will come for you.

The truth is, we just want to live our lives, same as you. The "gender ideology" scare going on today is *extremely* similar to how gay people were persecuted in the past (ie, "they're pushing it on children", the whole groomer panic, etc etc).

Also, you'd be hard pressed to find a trans person in real life who thinks having a genital preference is transphobic. I don't feel the need to deconstruct this idea here because it's already been done so many times, and if you're really curious about it you can look into it yourself. No one is forcing you to have sex with trans people. Just respect our existence.

This is getting long, but honestly if I can convince one person that we are not the evil monsters TERFs make us out to be, it will have been worth it. You can also just delete this, I can't control what you do. I just wanted to reach out and try to level with you, because I genuinely believe you're not a hateful person.

Wishing you a happy pride and nothing but the best, with love. ❤️

The thing is, that gay and bi people who were actually at the grassroots movements say that they did it themselves. For example, Fred Sargeant (who was attacked by trans protesters at a pride event that exists largely because of his activism). I have no doubt that people who would be considered trans today were there…but they would’ve been homosexual or bisexual, not heterosexuals claiming to be gay. From what I understand, that’s why trans people were grouped with LGB people to start: because they were a subgroup of LGB people. But today, what it means to be trans has completely changed, and has completely moved away from having anything to do with LGB.

Sexuality is based on sex, trans identity is based on the idea of gender. These two things have nothing in common, and actually directly contradict each other. A homosexual is a person who is exclusively attracted to the same sex, and who completely lacks attraction to the opposite sex. No matter how much a female person identifies as male, a gay man can never be attracted to that person. No matter how much a male person identifies as female, a lesbian can never be attracted to that person. The idea of gender identity tries to overwrite this fact, therefore erasing the reality of homosexuality.

There’s also a big difference in the way LGB people and trans people speak to the next generation. With LGB people, it’s “it gets better, you’re perfect just as you are, don’t feel like you need to change”. With trans people, it’s “it gets better, but only if you change yourself”. Which includes telling lesbians to transition into “straight men”, and gay males to transition into “straight women”. Aka conversion therapy. So even the ways we go about inspiring others is contradictory.

In other words, the progress that trans people want to see is very different from the progress LGB people want to see. Whenever LGB people, specifically homosexuals, try to put emphasis on our needs (example: recognition of sexuality being innate, unchangeable, and based on sex not gender), we are faced with backlash from the trans community. So many of us have decided it’s best to go our own way so that we don’t have to deal with the concept of gender overshadowing us.

And of course we know that bigots don’t like us either. That’s why many LGB people such as myself are very much opposed to allying with conservatives, especially the religious ones. Because the LGB community is so vast and diverse, you’ll of course see some allying with the right. Just as you’ll see some trans people allying with the right. I don’t think either are being very smart in doing so.

Just because LGB people don’t ally ourselves with trans people doesn‘t mean our only other option is homophobes. Our other option is to ally ourselves with people who support us and agree that our sexuality cannot be changed, or identified into or out of, because it is sex based.

You don’t just want to live your lives. Just wanting to live your lives would be doing what you need to do to be at peace personally, and not expecting anyone else to get involved. It wouldn’t be expecting everyone to change their view of what sex and gender are. It wouldn’t be expecting homosexuals to accept a change in the way we define our sexuality. It wouldn’t be expecting women to redefine our sex as an “identity”. It wouldn’t be telling women we need to accept male people in the spaces our foremothers fought to carve out for female people only. It wouldn’t be telling women we can’t discuss women’s issues as such, because we’re expected to believe that men can get periods or can need abortions. It wouldn’t be shutting down female-only shelters. It wouldn’t be throwing a fit when lesbians try to create spaces just for homosexual females. I could go on.

What the trans community is doing, is trying to force their view of gender onto everyone else. That’s not okay. And as I already mentioned, goes directly against the interests of LGB people, especially homosexuals. If somebody wants to take all the steps they can to live as the opposite sex, that’s none of my business and I don’t care. It becomes my business when they then expect me to believe that they actually are the opposite sex. In the same way that it’s none of my business if a Christian wants to believe that Jesus is the son of god who they need to repent to…but it becomes my business if they expect me to believe the same.

Also, I’m very tired of the “nobody is forcing you to have sex with trans people” argument because nobody said that was happening. We obviously know that nobody is holding us down and forcing us to have sex with trans people. We also know that there is a lot of pressure on homosexuals to at best feel guilty about our lack of attraction to the opposite sex, and at worst pressure to “fix” this. Even the term “genital preference” that you used is an example of this—because our exclusive attraction is not a “preference”. A preference is “I like [X] best, but if it’s not available I’ll have [Y]”. That is not how homosexuality works. There is no other option for us except for the same sex. Stop calling our sexuality a preference.

Lesbians will never be attracted to trans identified males. Gay men will never be attracted to trans identified females. The trans community has proven repeatedly that they have a very big problem with this, and have let homosexuals know. Just look at the term “cotton ceiling”, where trans identified males consider female homosexuality to be a barrier holding them back. To many trans people, “respect our existence” means “change your sexuality to include us”.

I’m more than happy to respect the fact that trans people exist. I already do. Just don’t expect me to play along with your belief system.

“TERFs” don’t think trans people are evil monsters. We just see a concerning amount of misogyny and homophobia in your community and are calling this problem out so it can be fixed. Unfortunately, many trans people consider this transphobic, because misogyny and homophobia are essential to upholding their beliefs about gender.

[decispark]

June is Pride Month

As we enter Pride Month, here are some reminders:

You are valid no matter what you identify as.

Trans men are men, and trans women are women. Trans rights are human rights.

Non-binary is NOT women-lite.

The A in LGBTQIA+ does NOT stand for Ally. It stands for Asexual, Aromantic, and Agender.

BIPOC and disabled LGBTQIA+ people are still part of the community, and are still valid.

Support LGBTQIA+-owned businesses, creators, artists, and writers.

Do NOT support corporate pride.

Do NOT support LGB Alliance, as they are a trans hate group.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Andrew Doyle

Published: Apr 11, 2024

Get ready for the excuses. For years now, those who have sounded the alarm over the dangers of ‘gender-affirming’ paediatric treatment have been monstered as ‘bigots’, ‘hateful’, ‘transphobic’ and even ‘fascist’. Now their concerns have been entirely vindicated by the Cass Review, and those most responsible for the monstering are already attempting to wriggle their way out of accepting responsibility. We can expect much more of this as further revelations come to light.

Take Stonewall, the charity most culpable for spreading this toxic ideology. In a statement posted on X yesterday, it appeared to endorse the review’s findings, even quoting approvingly Dr Hilary Cass’s plea ‘to remember the children and young people trying to live their lives and the families / carers and clinicians doing their best to support them’. What can one say about such serpentine sleight-of-tongue? Perhaps the actor James Dreyfus – one who has felt the full wrath of gender ideologues – put it best: ‘The absolute fucking nerve of these people.’

Mermaids CEO Lauren Stoner is another in the running for the Brass Neck Award, appearing on Sky News to claim that ‘we’re not medical experts, we don’t advocate for any pathway’. Mermaids made the same claim last year in the tribunal it initiated in a failed attempt to strip the LGB Alliance of its charitable status. Yet in leaked emails it was discovered to have given advice to the now disgraced Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock Clinic. Most notably, Mermaids had offered support in the drafting of an NHS service specification, including details on how ‘[puberty] blockers will now be considered for any children under 12′.

Mermaids’ website currently claims that ‘puberty blockers are an internationally recognised safe, reversible healthcare option’, even though there is mounting evidence of the dangers of these drugs. One of the findings of the Cass Review is that there is no evidence for the efficacy of puberty blockers. Rather than being a ‘pause’ in which young people can take time to figure out their ‘gender identity’, in almost all cases they lead on to cross-sex hormones and, in some cases, irreversible surgery.

During Stoner’s interview for Sky News, she was also quick to remind us that Mermaids has ‘been supporting trans young people and their families for nearly 30 years’. What she neglected to mention is that until the arrival of former CEO Susie Green – a woman who took her son to Thailand on his 16th birthday to have him castrated – Mermaids actually offered sensible advice to parents of children who were struggling with their gender. A leaflet produced by the charity in 2000 is more in line with the ‘watchful waiting’ approach favoured by many paediatric therapists. ‘Gender-identity disorders in infancy, childhood and adolescence are complex and have varied causes’, it said, before stating that ‘the majority of cases the eventual outcome will be homosexuality or bisexuality but often there will be a heterosexual outcome as some gender issues can be caused by a bereavement, a dysfunctional family life, or (rarely) by abuse. Only a small proportion of cases will result in a transsexual outcome’. That even Mermaids once held this position shows the extent to which gender-identity ideology drives well-intentioned people away from the truth. It’s also a reminder that this belief-system has taken hold remarkably quickly.

Both Mermaids and Stonewall were mentioned by Tavistock whistleblower Dr David Bell as being chiefly to blame for the current climate of making ‘people afraid even of listening to another view’. To this we might add groups such as Gendered Intelligence, the LGBT Foundation and the online Pink News, which has published defamatory pieces about those who have objected to the rise of this ideology. These groups, while claiming to advocate for LGBT rights, have tried to intimidate into silence anyone raising questions about the irreversible surgical malpractice that has left many young people sterile and eliminated their sexual function.

And what of the private practices, those who evaded the NHS’s recent ban on puberty blockers? We shouldn’t be surprised that Dr Aidan Kelly from private clinic Gender Plus appeared on Novara Media to argue that the evidence demanded by Cass is neither deliverable nor desirable. Host Michael Walker seemed to think that the figure of approximately 1,000 patients in 10 years prescribed puberty blockers was too low to merit concern and that ‘some of these issues have been politicised to a degree that they don’t need to be’. One wonders how many instances of testicular atrophy, increased risk of cancer, osteoporosis or impaired brain development in healthy children should be considered acceptable? Why are we even countenancing ruining young people’s lives through the unevidenced, experimental and ideological medicalisation of problems that almost certainly require a psychotherapeutic approach?

Novara Media might want to start preparing its own excuses too, given that it published an article in December 2021 offering advice on how to deceive medical professionals in order to be prescribed opposite sex hormones. ‘I’m not suggesting you tell any especially big fibs’, the article says, ‘but maybe finesse your story into one that’s likely to be received with the least amount of confusion (and bear that in mind with the psychiatrists too)… You’re not here to make friends, you’re here to get hormones. Don’t feel bad about it.’

This kind of duplicity has been widespread. Dr Hilary Cass has revealed to the British Medical Journal that children have been ‘coached on what to say and what not to say’ in order to be prescribed puberty blockers. ‘They’re told not to say they’re unsure about their sexuality, not to say they’ve been abused, because it’s so high stakes at that point’, she said. We have known for a long time that the overwhelming majority of children referred to the Tavistock were same-sex attracted, and that gender nonconformity in youth is a reliable predictor of homosexuality in later life. This has been confirmed in the final report by Dr Cass, which found that 89 per cent of girls and 81 per cent of boys referred to GIDS (Gender Identity Development Service) were either homosexual or bisexual. The NHS has been practising gay conversion therapy in plain sight.

We also know that those who have suffered abuse are disproportionately represented among these patients. One study cited in the final Cass report shows that at least one in five children referred to gender services have suffered sexual or physical abuse. In other words, rather than experiencing some kind of esoteric mismatch between body and gendered soul, most of these kids are simply gay or troubled. And yet they are being coached to lie about their actual problems to satisfy the expectations of ideologues. These people have an agenda, and if a few children have to suffer then so be it.

Throughout the Cass Review, the lack of evidence for all of these treatments is continually emphasised. The very notion of ‘gender medicine’ is underpinned by the belief that we each have a ‘gender identity’, what Helen Joyce has described as ‘something like a sexed soul’. In this, she is supported by trans campaigners like Julia Serano who calls it a ‘subconscious sex’, or the barrister Robin Moira White who on my show, Free Speech Nation, said it was an ‘essence of male or female’. This amounts to a faith in the supernatural, and is a key doctrine of the new state religion of gender. It goes without saying that people are entitled to their beliefs, but the idea that a metaphysical hypothesis should form the basis of NHS practice is, on reflection, extremely bizarre.

One of the reasons why this has been allowed to happen is that so many have been duped into accepting that this quasi-religion has some basis in science. This is largely down to the influence of WPATH (World Professional Association of Transgender Health), a body established in 1979. It’s recognised as the leading global authority in ‘transgender health’, and has pushed for the normalisation of the ‘gender-affirming’ approach. Its ‘Standards of Care’ have formed the basis of policies throughout the Western world, including in the NHS, and it is explicitly critiqued in the Cass Review for its ‘lack of developmental rigour’.

In early March, the credibility of WPATH was shattered when internal messages and videos, which had been leaked to journalist Michael Shellenberger, were made public. A full report was written by journalist Mia Hughes for the Environmental Progress think tank, entitled: ‘The WPATH Files: Pseudoscientific Surgical and Hormonal Experiments on Children, Adolescents, and Vulnerable Adults’. The files revealed WPATH’s general lack of ethical and professional standards. There are messages proving that surgeons and therapists are aware that a significant proportion of young people referred to gender clinicians suffer from mental-health problems. Some specialists associated with WPATH are proceeding with treatment in the knowledge that no consent has been secured from either the children or those directly responsible for their wellbeing. They have also withheld from patients details of potential lifelong complications, or continued down this path knowing that the children do not understand the implications. But then, how could a pre-pubescent or even adolescent child fully grasp the concepts of lifelong sterility or loss of sexual function?

The revelations of the WPATH files should have been the end of ‘gender-affirming’ care, but so deeply-rooted is the ideology in all our major institutions that it was always going to take a lot more. The BBC has yet to report on the WPATH files, which is perhaps to be expected from an organisation that has actively contributed to the promotion of gender-identity ideology. In one BBC film, a woman is seen telling a group of children that there are over a hundred genders. I have sent five requests to the BBC press office over a period of more than a month to find out why the WPATH Files have been ignored. I have yet to receive a response. But for those who are interested, I presented a two-hour special on the subject, which can be seen here.

The problems do not end with the BBC. Politicians on both sides of the house have been complicit in the spread of gender-identity ideology and its destructive consequences. When Liz Truss tabled a debate on her Health and Equality Acts (Amendment) Bill in March, a motion which raised concerns about the social transitioning of children in schools and how private companies are evading the NHS ban on puberty blockers, Labour and Conservative MPs spent four hours filibustering about ferrets in order to prevent the discussion. Their ignorance of this ideology has made them its cheerleaders.

We should not expect many of these people to admit that they were mistaken. The psychological consequences of accepting that one has been complicit in gay conversion therapy and the medicalisation of healthy children is perhaps too much for many to bear. Since the Cass Review was published, Scottish Green MSP Maggie Chapman – a woman who has criticised biology textbooks in schools for stating that sex is binary and who has suggested that children as young as eight should be able to transition – has already decried its contents. ‘Trans Healthcare is vital to protecting and supporting the rights and lives of trans people’, she posted on X, adding that her party ‘will oppose any moves to increase the age of accessing gender-affirming care to 25’.

Of course, the Cass Review makes no such recommendations. Rather, it says that ‘NHS England should establish follow-through services for 17- to 25-year-olds at each of the regional centres, either by extending the range of the regional children and young people’s service or through linked services, to ensure continuity of care and support at a potentially vulnerable stage in their journey’. This kind of moderate caution is certainly commendable given that the adult brain is not fully developed until the age of twenty-five. Of course, it’s too late for some. One detransitioner posted the following on X: ‘Had the recommendations from the Cass Review been implemented when I transitioned, in particular the recommendation of waiting until the age of 25, I would never have transitioned. I grew out of gender dysphoria by the age of 22, but had my genitals amputated by then.’

Although MPs sought to prevent a debate on the problem of private gender clinics, perhaps the Cass Review’s criticism of these clinics for pressurising GPs into prescribing the drugs will change all that. Not surprisingly, the practitioners are defiant. A statement from GenderGP has vowed to ignore the recommendations of the Cass Review and continue with its unevidenced ‘gender-affirming’ approach according to the WPATH Standards of Care. The revelations from the WPATH Files mean nothing to the high priests of this cult. And let’s not forget that the current version of the WPATH Standards of Care includes a chapter on ‘eunuchs’ which urges medical practitioners to perform castrations on patients who so identify.

Undoing the influence of such pseudoscience is going to be a long and arduous process. The ideas are too entrenched, which explains why even the Cass Review has adopted some of the language of the ideology (eg, ‘cisgender’, or references to sex as ‘assigned at birth’). Besides, too much is at stake for individuals who have promoted these beliefs. Already commentators like James O’Brien are blaming the ‘toxicity’ of those who have tried to warn people of the dangers over the last decade. We can expect similar revisionist attempts from others who have failed to speak out, and no doubt ‘the culture war’ will be blamed by those most responsible for waging it.

Ultimately, those responsible must be held accountable. Starting with Stonewall. Whereas the charity once fought for gay people, it now works against them. There should be an investigation into how it was allowed to maintain its influence in major institutions even after its shift away from gay rights and towards an unwittingly anti-gay agenda. Any government departments and quangos still associated with Stonewall should sever all ties immediately.

Both the Conservatives and Labour ought to ditch their commitment to a ban on ‘trans conversion therapy’ and recognise that this will effectively stymie the therapeutic efforts of medical practitioners to support gender nonconforming children. Moreover, there should be a ban on private clinics who intend to persist with WPATH guidelines in spite of Dr Cass’s recommendations. Above all, we need to ensure that the wellbeing of children is never again sacrificed on the altar of ideology.