Mick Hartley

Yes, Scotland's Sandyford Clinic has now paused handing out puberty blockers to troubled teens, but then, as we heard yesterday, Scottish primary schools are being bombarded with gender woo thanks to LGBT Youth Scotland. One step forward, two steps back. Victoria Smith at UnHerd:

There is progress here, certainly. Thanks to this belated return to ethical standards, some children who would have been harmed will be able to grow and thrive. Right now, however, many of them will not want to. The thought of being “forced” to go through the “wrong” puberty must be terrifying them. If the adults around you have spent most of your life affirming your own sense of wrongness, then how could the Sandyford decision seem anything other than barbaric? You’ve been told — by organisations visiting your school, by books in your school library, by teachers, parents and doctors — that the way you feel and behave is incompatible with the sex you have been “assigned”. Why, then, should anyone be barring your only escape?

The problem is not just that evidence-based medicine was abandoned in favour of cultural trends. Any return to basic standards has to go hand-in-hand with a serious critique of the culture. On the same day the Sandyford decision was announced, it was reported that “LGBT champions” are visiting primary schools in Scotland to teach children as young as four about gender identity. That is, to teach them that if they are gender non-conforming they may in fact be the opposite sex — there is no real “championing” of LGB in this entire enterprise.

It is not possible to reform “gender medicine” without addressing the incoherence, bigotry and cruelty of this ideology. Gender-variant children have always existed, usually growing up to be lesbian or gay. The “trans child” was constructed to validate trans-identified adult men and appease homophobic parents, before being championed by individuals more interested in appearing cutting-edge than engaging in the poorly-rewarded, unglamorous work of putting children first.

It is too late for those who were complicit to say they didn’t know. Now we must create an environment in which children bullied into fearing their own physical development can start to feel safe again. It’s time for the bullies to get out of the classroom and off the bookshelves. Back off and let these children grow.