There’s a really good piece over at Conservative Home by the Tory MP for Workington Mark Jenkinson. It’s about trans issues and starts off by Mr Jenkinson saying that the phrase ‘trans women are women’ sounds innocuous but at heart is not. He said that this phrase, which has become something of a quasi-religious mantra among trans activists, seeks to erase distinctions between the sexes and by doing so disadvantages those groups like LGB who have only relatively recently been given full and equal rights.

Mr Jenkinson also said that the erasure of distinctions doesn’t affect him, a heterosexual man, but it does affect women who end up having to share spaces that have been legally delineated for females, with bodily intact males. Mr Jenkinson commented that those who are same sex attracted are being called bigots by trans activists for not wanting to be intimate with a member of the opposite sex. For me this goes against all concepts of informed consent when it comes to sex. We should be able to refuse sex with those to whom we are not attracted, that should be a basic right. But to tell a Lesbian that they have to treat a man with a penis who calls himself a Lesbian as a natal woman, which is what too many trans activists believe, then we have a quite disgusting form of sexual coercion and oppression starting to rear its head.

Recently Mr Jenkinson has been given somewhat of a ‘monstering’ on social media for standing up or women and for those who are Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual. He got this not for saying anything genuinely offensive or which might comprise incitement, but merely for stating biological facts.

Mr Jenkinson said:

I never considered that making a statement of indisputable scientific fact – that there are only two biological sexes, each with their own set of immutable characteristics – would cause such a stir. And then I see the Labour Party eating themselves alive over it, trying hard to lose the votes of the 51 per cent of the electorate that are female.

There is no doubt that gender dysphoria exists, but no-one is born in the wrong body – your body is exactly as nature intended. For some people, there is a definite disconnect between their brain and their body and, for a much smaller number, the only thing that will allow a full and happy life is cross-sex hormones or surgery. Those people need our support.

I am concerned that the upcoming Gender Conversion Therapy Bill will criminalise practitioners and parents that don’t simply affirm their child’s chosen gender. Data tells us that the majority of gender-dysphoric children desist into adulthood. We must stop prescribing irreversible puberty blockers to children – which not only have a significant impact on their lives if they desist, but which create further problems should they go on to have surgery to complete their transition.

I am an instinctive libertarian. Everyone should be free to live their lives, as fully as possible and in a way that makes them happy. Free to live with, sleep with and love whomever they wish. Neither the state or I have any business intervening, other than to stop serious harms. But when I see the direction we’re sleepwalking in, I can no longer stay quiet.

Mr Jenkinson then went onto discuss the situation in prisons and in the criminal justice system where male sex offenders who identify as women are being housed on the female prison estate and potentially bringing more risk to vulnerable female prisoners. He also laid into how de facto self ID was creating a situation where those rapists who identify as female are included as female in crime statistics. Whilst I acknowledge that both men and women can be sex offenders, I refuse to believe that we’ve suddenly had a jump in female rapists. According to Mr Jenkinson 436 ‘women’ were charged with rape but as rape is an offence that specifically involves a penis, he said that these 436 female rapists are male. What’s worse is if these men posing as women are convicted of rape then they are likely to be housed in the female prison estate and with very little monitoring as the prison service has only recently started to keep tabs on those transitioned prisoners and then only those with a gender recognition certificate.

I agree with Mr Jenkinson on a lot of his points. We do seem to be walking down a very troubling road and it’s a road where the main victims of the trans rights movement that too much of government seems to have allied itself to, will be women and LGB’s.