TRANSferring responsibilities

I've had many discussions with my teenage children about society's current obsession with gender ideology. They are as baffled about it as most adults. For their entire lives they have felt marginalised and excluded due to restrictive prescription diets, debilitating gastrointestinal symptoms and associated anxiety. So, you'd be forgiven for assuming that they were passionate about recognition for all. Except that is exactly what they do indeed want, but in a less individual way. They are well-placed to understand the difference between acceptance and belonging, versus the current "ME, ME, ME!" craving for individual recognition. Real acceptance has nothing to do with labels, with foisting your beliefs, sexuality or preferences on others. It comes from doing away with labels and focussing on what really matters - personality and belonging.

The Noughties saw the rise of the individual to stratospheric levels. Born of the 1980s, the Century of the Self was not, as Adam Curtis suggested, the twentieth century, but merely a product of it. Its parents were affluence and independence, but the coming of age of self-centred existence was without doubt the year 2000. Millenials who became parents had an entirely different focus from generations before, most had more time and money to lavish on their offspring, subscribed to the philosophy of indulgent pandering to their every whim with the justification that disposable income was to be disposed of. The long term ramifications of this went unnoticed at the time. 

Children saw their status and needs - individual needs - elevated beyond reason. Schools started to see even children from supportive, educated families behave badly as they expected lessons to be exciting and thrilling. Learning for learning's sake went out of the window, as children became totally reward driven. Even OFSTED expected lessons to be exciting, as learning for the sake of itself had all but vanished as the currency of attainment became devalued. But self esteem receives no boost from this reward system, and children have little control over it. There is no endorphin rush from the process and no sense of real achievement. 

This lack of goal motivation in a world of instant gratification has had an enormous impact on our mental health. Too few "see the point" in striving or working for something. Their echo chambers tell them the answer to this profound unhappiness lies within the individual - because after all hasn't their entire life been about them, rather than their place in a wider society? Cue the panacea of obsessing further about themselves, and descending into the trap of "gender dysphoria" in a perfect storm of fake news, misinformation and ignorance about the real world. Heartbreakingly, children are better connected than ever before, but have never been more lonely. The pandemic accelerated this trend but it was already happening https://www.familyzone.com/anz/families/blog/our-kids-more-connected-yet-lonelier . This makes them exquisitely vulnerable to the media's outpouring of "solutions", offering answers entirely disconnected from the cause of their pain.

This descent into instant gratification permeated adult lives too. Brands seized the opportunity to invent reasons to buy. If you could offer something unique for every occasion, gender, age then you are going to increase sales. We've seen family Christmas pyjamas, holiday-specific T shirts, hoodies for every stage of school - and every sports team. If you can define it, you can sell it. 

In many respects, the society of the late twentieth century showed positive signs as it neared it's close. The 90s movement in young adults saw a hugely positive campaign for gay rights with recognition of "feminine" boys and "masculine" girls, suggesting for a while that society was finally growing up. However our obsession with labelling, defining and putting kids in boxes has since taken us on a toxic journey from when children were children, to now identifying every like, action and choice as gender-based.

 

Gender branding permeated society with even colouring books stating a preference. The impact on aspirations was soon evident though, with significant negative effects on those it excluded. For example, the number of girls taking STEM subjects in school plummeted after a promising couple of decades where women had begun to stake their equal claim to maths, science and technology. By the early 2000s brands realised they had a problem. Having polarised childhood into pink and blue, they had left many children out, and needed more options. Campaigns such as "Pink Stinks" and "Let Toys be Toys" robustly advocated for those excluded from the pink and blue camps, as I discussed here. .  But the logical endpoint of that realisation is surely the acknowledgement that everyone is different, and that no one can be accurately or narrowly "labelled" or defined?

But instead of accepting narrow identification as too exclusive,  unrepresentative and not fit for purpose - certain groups decided to capitalise on it and increase the number of options. No box for you? Let's create another box! At the last count I believe we have 79 "genders". 

This was seized upon by young people who had felt constrained by unrealistic gender descriptors available to them. My youngest son summed up this dilemma quite well only recently. "Many people my age rejected the extreme options of pink and blue. Adults forgot to tell our generation that there were more than two options for representing male and female… They removed their choice and chance to be themselves & so young people have created new options."   

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

My children say so many of their peers dislike the roles offered by a generation they don’t relate well to, and feel constrained by. To be fair that's nothing new. But whereas previous generations responded with external rebellion- now it’s all internalised. Similar to Anorexia, gender identity is the new body control. People can identify as whatever they want with the world of social media endorsing this obsession of the self, where image is everything. 

Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash

So our social media addiction has compounded a labelling conveyor belt and children today are taught they must choose their gender, and that preferences can direct this choice. It's unscientific, misinformed and we have permitted a fringe ideology to take over. Stonewall used to support gay rights, now it pushes both these and women's rights to the margins. It is a nasty, intolerant, abusive cult. Children who haven't entered into puberty cannot know their sexual preferences for certain, and no child should be lied to about biology, or have certainties ripped from under them. We've created a generation of insecure, depressed and anxious children, parented by an over-indulged generation who genuinely believe they have the answers to society's ills.  What we need is universal acceptance, which ironically necessitates an end to judgement, labelling and coercive control. 

Sadly there is little sign of common sense or intelligence prevailing. Brands believe they are "saving us" and care nothing for the outrage when trans "women" advertise products such as bras and tampons. Driven by this need to obsess about the individual the Trans campaign for "acceptance" has become a crusade to infiltrate women-only spaces and destroy decades of progress for feminism. Not even men stealing women's sport is sufficient to wake people it up it seems. The very definition of sport is fair competition, which is why there are so many categories in the Paralympics. Much of the drive to push the Trans agenda comes down to funding. Stonewall has a trans billionaire offering grants to schools, universities and businesses who promote it, pushing for ubiquitous use of pronouns, gender neutral toilets etc. But  changing language which was intended to describe factual detail to pander to anyone's sensitivities is absurd. "He" and "she' are not optional descriptors, they inform and communicate about scientific fact. Identity is intrinsic. Demanding control over other’s perceptions and speech & attempting to alter material facts & shared language — which, unlike their thoughts/feelings, are not their exclusive domain — is not about identity. 

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

The Trans agenda is regressive, it's anti-women, anti-LGB rights and denies the wonderful spectrum of humanity. It seeks to classify and convert - there is clear evidence that paediatric gender identity services amount to conversion therapy. LGB youth, particularly effeminate boys and masculine girls, are being pressured into falsely identifying as transgender, thereby “transing away the gay.” How can anyone believe this is progress?

As Konstantin Kisin eloquently said at the Oxford Union recently, the problem with this "Woke" culture is that it convinces our young people they are victims, without agency. We've taught them identity and image is their life goal, not education and attainment. We've encouraged them to focus on the very aspects of themselves which they have little control over, precipitating a mental health crisis. Surely it's time to admit we have taken the wrong path? It's certainly time to resume our responsibility as parents, teachers, and adults. We've indulged young people long enough.