I have come to dislike immensely the policies of Britain’s notably un-conservative Conservative Party Prime Minister Boris Johnson. I dislike his government because of his government’s failures during the pandemic, it’s failure to secure Britain’s borders, it’s failure to protect freedom of speech and its failure to implement a realistic energy security policy that does not rely on unreliable renewables.
However, there is one area and one area only where I need to dish out some qualified praise to the PM and that is on the issue of the gender identity cult. Boris Johnson has been among the few senior members of the higher levels of the political class to say what others are too afraid to say. Almost alone among his peers Boris Johnson has said what too many others in the political world are frightened of saying which is that biology matters and that children should not be railroaded into joining the Cult of Trans and ending up physically and psychologically mutilated along with saying that men should not compete against women in sport.
According to a report on the Guido Fawkes site Boris Johnson said:
“…There are complexities and sensitivities when you move from the area of sexuality to the question of gender, and there I think there are still things to be worked out… This is something that frankly, people like me… it wasn’t something I thought I’d have to consider in great detail. These are novel concepts, we’ve got to be clear about that… I don’t think that it’s reasonable for kids to be deemed so-called ‘Gillick competent’, to take decisions about their gender or irreversible treatments that they may have… I don’t think biological men should be competing in female sporting events… it just seems to me to be sensible.”
These are fine words. On the subject of women’s sport and the issue of ‘child gender transition’ Boris Johnson is speaking words that many if not the majority of people would agree with but who fear saying such things because of the bullying power of the trans lobby. Women’s sporting competitions should be reserved for natal women as it is all but impossible to remove the advantages that trans women who have gone through male puberty have over natal women. The inclusion of transwomen in women’s sporting competitions introduces a degree of unfairness that few if any natal women could overcome. Children, who lack the mental maturity to realise that messing with their endocrine system with artificial hormones or puberty blockers or going through radical and in some cases experimental surgery, might end really badly should not be treated as mentally competent to make a choice to embark on gender reassignment treatment. These are plainly common sense issues based on fairness and on the idea that women and children do require safeguarding.
Like I said they are the words that many of us would have hoped to hear one of the members of our political class speaking and I celebrate that. But my celebration is tinged with cynicism. Boris Johnson has made his statement on the gender ideology cult and its negative impact on society and on individuals about a month from the next local government elections, elections which it is expected that the Conservatives will get a hammering in because of the net zero nonsense and over concerns over the cost of living and the energy security problems we are facing. The Tories cannot afford to lose votes and it’s quite obvious to me that the Tory leadership, both its parliamentary and party leadership has realised that banging the drum for the Cult of Trans is a potential vote loser, especially among women. The Tories are faced with a fact that cannot either be denied or ignored and that is that women and girls make up 51% of the population and it’s probably electorally unwise for the Conservative Party to do anything that could lose any support among women at an election that might determine whether or not Boris Johnson holds the confidence of his party in his leadership abilities. Coming out on the side of girls and women and not merely repeating the disgraceful cowardice shown by the likes of Sir Keir Starmer and refusing to define the word ‘woman’, could be a bit of a vote winner for the Conservatives. It puts clear blue water between the Tories and those parties like the Lib Dems, Labour and the Greens who have sold their souls to the gender identity cult. On this issue at least the Tories have realised what side their bread is buttered on and that’s the women’s rights and child safeguarding side.
But, we should remember that this is Boris Johnson who is saying these words that are giving much needed succour to the gender realists and women’s rights campaigners who have for years been crying in the wilderness about the fact that biology matters. Boris Johnson is a man who has been described by the Leader of the Opposition as a stranger to ‘integrity, honesty, transparency and accountability’. We know from his journalistic life that he has been associated with incidents where his accuracy and honesty has come into question and his personal life is a mess of deceived and discarded wives and romantic partners. We knew much of this when we the British public elected him but many of us held our noses and voted for him as we considered him the best person, despite his many faults, to guide Britain out of the European Union.
Because we know much about Boris Johnson’s personality and also because politics can be one of the most cynical games imaginable, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that the strong words voiced about women’s rights and children’s safeguarding that Mr Johnson has uttered, might be the subject of a reverse ferret after the 5th May. Boris Johnson’s common sense words about the dangers of the gender identity cult might just be another piecrust promise, one that is easily broken, just as the multitude of promises by the Tories to control excessive and illegal immigration have been.
There are those of us who are or who wish to be compassionate towards the infinitesimally tiny number of genuine transsexuals that are out there. But equally I do not wish to see bad men in dresses use the gender identity cult to make women unsafe in toilets or changing rooms, or have children mutilated by doctors who adhere to the gender cult or see women made into second class citizens in their own sporting competitions and I welcome Boris Johnson’s words on this matter. However we should not forget that Boris Johnson’s decision to come out and say that biology matters might be just a large dollop of bullshit put out there to get women to get out and vote for the Tories. We should not naively dismiss the possibility that Boris Johnson’s welcome words on the gender debate might be worthless and no matter what the result of the elections on 5th May and we shall return to the situation where groups like Stonewall continue to call the shots on this issue within the corridors of power.
I have as usual read your article with great interest and appreciation, but I have concerns with your conclusions and largely disagree.
If you are politically conservative but liberal and want LGBT rights recognised you are already holding out against religious lobbies for instance who want LGBT rights minimilised and permission for discrimination by conscience written into laws, especially in the US.
In the decades long fight for LGB recognition one of the barriers surmounted was that same sex attraction was regarded as a mental illness. Fast forward to 2022 and there are lobbies pushing for Trans to be regarded as a mental illness and the identity of Trans people to be only verified by extensive medical and psychological scrutiny……get the point?
I personally feel that opposition to Trans rights is not a liberal movement and we’ll end up shooting ourselves in the foot and reactionary forces will close in ultimately if we try to split the sexual rights movements?
And how large is the issue anyway? A response could be to let them get on with it and focus on wider social issues?
Unlike sexuality gender dysphoria is indeed a mental illness similar to other mental illnesses related to body image issues. One way to look it is like this: If a person presented themselves to a medical professional and said ‘I hate my left pinky finger I want it gone, I don’t think tht it belongs to me’, in all likelihood the medic would do all in their power to treat the person with the aim that they accepted that their finger was indeed their own.
BTW Trans and associated conditions such as autogynephillia have long been recognised as legit mental illnesses. It’s not a case of groups lobbying for trans to be considered as a mental illness, it already is a mental condition.
I used to be extremely sympathetic to those who claimed they were trans but over time I’ve found that too many of the trans people I’ve been close to who’ve transitioned have not had the relief from whatever ails them mentally that they thought transition would bring.
There are valid arguments for seeing issues regarding gender as completely separate from those regarding sexuality which is why I’m in faovur of dropping the ‘T’ from LBGT. The T really does not belong.
It is I’m afraid a massive social issue. Lesbians are being criticised because they do not want to be coerced into being intimate with men and this is such a big problem that some Lesbians are now putting in maximum height preferences on dating apps in order to weed out men. The trans cult is damaging women’s sport by having trans competitors make sporting records that cannot be achieved by natal women. There’s also the issue of vulnerable children and teenagers being guided into medicalised transition that might not be the best path for them with the result that there are going to be a lot of young people who are going to be damaged and maybe wondering why didn’t the grown ups do something to stop the damage. There’s also the growing problem of dangerous men who by identifying as ‘women’ gain access to women’s spaces where they can endanger women.
‘Letting them get on with it’ is not an option when children’s safety and women’s safety and general fairness is at stake.
“I personally feel that opposition to Trans rights is not a liberal movement…”
But no-one’s actually opposing ‘trans rights’. They are opposing the trans lobby trampling all over the rights of everyone else.
Yes almost certainly vote catching bullshit. Nobody with half a brain would believe anything the fake Conservative party has to say. Manifesto promises mean nothing to them and are made to deceive the voters. Judge them by their acts not what they say because their acts have no resemblance to their words. I was a party member and activist for years and I have resigned in disgust please believe me when I say I know what I am talking about when it comes to this bunch of clowns.
Yes, thanks for answer. I’d also like to dispute if there is actually a ‘trans cult’ going on? The Media form so much of our perceptions, starting to think outside the box is interesting?
If one assumes that Nature, in all its complexity, has made both sexes ideal for each other (even if we cannot see the balance close up), these outliers should also be balanced. So where are the women wanting to transition to men? It seems to be all one-way: disrupting women’s sport, invading women’s changing rooms, etc. This alone shows there’s a hidden agenda.
Instead of asking women to define ‘a woman’, ask men, trans or otherwise, to define, “Who has a penis?” Watch them squirm!
One thing about all this is that it does demonstrate that at least some politicians recognise that the vast majority of us are still living in reality land.
I think they all do recognise it. It’s just that the others think there’s votes in denying it.
I think that Doris doesn’t have any real views on anything. Carrie, the real power behind that vacuous windbag is a female. So Boris is, as usual, is getting his thoughts via instructions from the boss. If Carrie changes her mind, unlikely in this case, Doris will be spouting the exact opposite tomorrow.
This is a curious assertion that the First Lady could have so much power? But then again, consider all possibilities?
She seems to be the one who is into all the green stuff. Net Zero is a ludicrous and extremist policy but we are getting it anyway. I suppose that we are stuck with it until the masses finally realise what it means in practice.