Lgbt

2020 was the year the tide turned in the trans wars

2020 will, of course, be remembered as the year in which Covid-19 was unleashed on the world. But it is one in which another menace – gender identity ideology – was put firmly in its place, in the UK at least.  Perhaps the tipping point was the deranged response to JK Rowling’s essay on sex and gender, which she published back in June. For taking issue with ‘language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’,’ Rowling suffered widespread and predictable condemnation. In a subsequent article, Rowling also expressed her belief that an ethical and medical scandal is brewing: ‘I believe the time is coming when those organisations and individuals who have uncritically embraced fashionable

Where have all the lesbians gone?

I miss lesbians. It is true that most homosexual men don’t have too many integrated in our lives, but most of us have a few. And we need them. They check our sometimes tenuous grasp of reality, they roll their eyes at our hedonism, they show us how marriages can last, and take care of us when we get sick. I generalise, of course. Many lesbians have little or nothing to do with men, including gay men. But there is a special chemistry between the men and women in the gay and lesbian worlds that it’s sad to see dissipate. Same-sex worlds can get unbalanced fast. We both need a

Andy Wightman and the limits of trans tolerance

Andy Wightman is — or, as of this afternoon, was — the most independent-minded Green member of the Scottish parliament. A staunch man of the left and pursuer of land reform and tenants’ rights, he nonetheless practises an increasingly old-fashioned respect for opposing views and those who hold them. One of the subjects on which he has sought to keep an open mind is that of trans rights. Under the leadership of Patrick Harvie, a sacristan in the church of identity politics, the Scottish Greens have taken a gender-fundamentalist line with scant tolerance for heretical thinking. Earlier today, Wightman resigned from his party, explaining: ‘I have been saddened by the

Should it be left to a teenager to fight back against gender ideology?

As we reflect on the Keira Bell case last week, spare a thought for another young person who is challenging an authority that has been bewitched by gender identity ideology.  A 14-year-old schoolgirl, known only as Miss B, believes sex is distinct from gender identity. Many others agree with her. But unlike those who have been silenced or learned to self-censor in what is so often a malicious and nasty debate, this teenager is not prepared to stay quiet. She is taking a stand against the College of Policing’s guidance on ‘hate incidents’, because she fears that the vague definition of ‘hostility’ used on the College’s website – that even includes the perception of ‘ill will’, ‘unfriendliness’ or ‘dislike’ – could