(LifeSiteNews) — The transgender movement has faced real setbacks in the U.K. over the past several years, but we should not underestimate how deeply gender ideology has been integrated into nearly all major institutions.
Optimism is warranted; triumphalism is not. The work of returning institutions to reality and rolling back the infiltration of the transgender movement will take years – not to mention relentless scrutiny and vigilance.
A few recent stories suffice to make the point.
The BBC, for example, just named a player withdrawn from the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations for failing to meet the sex eligibility rules for having high levels of testosterone as “Women’s Footballer of the Year.” The offense, of course, is the point. The BBC is using their influence and platforms to emphasize their opposition to the player’s original disqualification. As J.K. Rowling noted on X: “Presumably the BBC decided this was more time efficient than going door to door to spit directly in women’s faces.”
READ: Transgender movement has overplayed its hand and the world is finally getting wise to it
More seriously, the British Transport Police is “facing legal action” over new guidance that allows trans-identifying male officers to strip-search women, according to The Telegraph. The guidance states that police officers are permitted to strip-search people of the same sex as “either their birth certificate or GRC,” or “Gender Recognition Certificate.” Objections to this guidance earlier in the year were “temporarily withdrawn” after the Conservative government expressed concerns about women’s safety, but now, under the leftist Labour government, the guidance has been re-established.
Women’s rights campaigners are lobbying to have the guidance amended once again, stating their willingness to bring a “judicial review of the guidance” and have written to Chief Constable Lucy D’Orsi. Maya Forstater of the human rights charity Sex Matters stated in no uncertain terms that the guidance constituted “state-sponsored sex discrimination and sexual abuse,” adding:
Its guidance breaches the Human Rights Act, the Equality Act and PACE, the law that requires strip-searches to only be carried out by someone of the same sex. Abuse of position for sexual purposes is the largest area of corruption that the Independent Office of Police Complaints deals with and too many officers have been found guilty of sexual offences. The police say that lessons have been learnt and then adopt a policy of institutionalised sexual harassment and abuse of women. Not only are women more likely to feel humiliated and vulnerable when naked, but men are responsible for 98 per cent of sex crimes. It is well attested in the medical literature that for many men, cross-dressing is a sexual fetish. No woman should be degraded by being made to strip and bend over in front of a man. That is even more important when the man may be manifesting a sexual paraphilia.
READ: UK plan gives gender-confused women, lesbians priority for IVF over heterosexual couples
It is also worth noting that, according to BMJ Journal, there has been a five-fold increase of “transgender identity” claims in the U.K. since 2000 (I suspect that number is likely higher), with the greatest spike being among those between the ages of 16 and 29.
We know that trans identification among young people has, in many cases, taken the form of a social contagion – and as long as schools are pumping LGBT ideology into the minds of impressionable students and children are consuming vast amounts of trans influencer content on social media and online, this problem will continue.
Finally, a case at the U.K. Supreme Court will have enormous impact on every aspect of this debate. In a landmark case brought by Scottish campaigners, the court is essentially being asked to decide what a woman actually is. As the BBC put it: “At the most basic level, the case centres on what ‘sex’ actually means in law. Is it about biology and chromosomes set at birth, or does it tie in ideas of gender identity and the gender recognition process?” Both a win and a loss will transform the entire debate overnight.