The unravelling of a cult

The Cass review is a welcome blow against trans-mania

Photo: flickr.com / Ted Eytan

So, the reviews are in. Well, the review is in. And it should be looked upon as a seminal moment in the struggle to defend biological reality and the safety of women and girls.

I am speaking, of course, of the landmark Cass review, which was published to great attention last Wednesday.

Dr Hilary Cass OBE, a former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, had been commissioned by NHS England to look at gender identity services provided to under-18s. This followed a sharp rise in the number of patients questioning their gender, and the expression of concern by certain brave souls that it wasn’t altogether a good idea to inject these young (and often emotionally-vulnerable) people with puberty blockers or opposite-sex hormones, to call on everyone from medical practitioners to schoolteachers to parents to ‘affirm’ their chosen identity, and eventually to lop off their healthy bodily parts with a surgical knife.

Dr Cass found that the evidence on medical interventions for young gender patients was ‘remarkably weak’ and that these individuals had been ‘let down’ by a lack of research. ‘The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.’

She went on to say that the ‘toxicity’ of the whole gender debate meant that professionals were ‘afraid to openly discuss their views’.

So there we are. A movement rooted in pseudo-science has been exposed for having pushed an agenda that failed – and likely caused harm to – many young people. The trans cultists (for that is what they are) have much to answer for. In the name of ‘progressivism’ and ‘tolerance’, they peddled dangerous fantasies and tried to shut down anyone who dissented.

Not content with society’s general acceptance that people should be entitled to dress and present as they wish, and to live a life free from hostility or harassment, the demands became ever more extreme and extended to reform of the law to allow for gender self-identification, compelled use of ‘correct’ pronouns and punishment for ‘misgendering’, the right of biological males to use women’s single-sex spaces (such as toilets, prisons and refuges) and compete in women’s sports, lesbians being open to sexual relationships with individuals possessing male genitalia, and so on.

It was an attitude that ultimately elevated feelings over facts (an approach that public policy should never indulge) and threatened to unpick the hard-won rights – and compromise the security – of an entire sex class.

And though the campaign of the cultists may not exactly have hit the buffers, it has, thanks to Cass, at least been derailed.

What this all means, of course, is vindication for all those who for a long time have been trying to highlight the dangers of militant gender ideology and who have been attacked and ostracised for their warnings. I think of Labour MP Rosie Duffield, frozen out by her party (which happens to be my party, too). I think of Professor Kathleen Stock, hounded out of her job at the University of Sussex. I think of Father Ted writer Graham Linehan, blackballed by the entertainment and media industries. I think of JK Rowling, subjected to rivers of abuse on social media and elsewhere. I think of all those with a much lower profile who have been coerced into remaining silent or bullied and harangued (and worse) if they were brave enough to speak out. They all deserve an apology.

In their courage, these people have forced the debate into the open and helped to ensure that what is in fact a mainstream view throughout the country is now properly reflected in the national discourse. The period when to publicly express a ‘gender critical’ view would be to invite opprobrium and hysteria may be passing.

Back in 2017, while a member of the executive council of the Fire Brigades Union, I publicly questioned the merits of the case for gender self-identification. The reaction was bordering on deranged. I was the subject of a hit piece in Pink News, which managed to find a transgender firefighter willing to accuse me of having ‘incited hate’ and demanding that I be investigated by police. One local fire and rescue service even saw fit to issue a statement assuring ‘our transgender staff and communities’ that it did not support my comments. If such a response appeared over-the-top at the time, it seems utterly wild now.

We hear much talk these days about a ‘culture war’. Well, the trans cultists launched a culture war against science and reason, and the Cass review shows why their opponents were right to fight back. The whole scandal should be a wake-up call. Never again should adults in positions of influence – be they doctors, politicians, celebrities or whoever – tell children that they were ‘born in the wrong body’. Treat people with compassion and understanding, sure. But facts matter. Biological reality matters. Women’s safety and security matter.

Trans-mania may finally be facing a reckoning. And not a day too soon.

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