Gender ideology is not about liberation – it is about coercion and control.
by Frank Furedi, Spiked, 11 November 2021
Transgenderism has emerged as one of the most influential ideologies of our time. It is shaping people’s behaviour and thought in pursuit of a specific political objective – the erosion of the significance of biological sex. And it is undermining long-held cultural assumptions about what it means to be a man or a woman.
Above all, it is an intolerant, coercive force – and it has been thoroughly embraced by political and cultural elites in both the UK and the US.
In the UK recently we have seen Labour Party leader Keir Starmer criticise one of his MPs for daring to say that ‘only women have a cervix’. And we have also seen Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer condemn a gay- and lesbian-rights group for criticising trans ideas, calling it a ‘hate group’.
Even members of the Conservative Party are now exponents of the trans ideology. Indeed, the prime minister’s wife, Carrie Johnson, used her sole appearance at the Conservative Party conference to urge her fellow Tories to fight for the rights of trans people – a thinly veiled rebuke to those in the party who are concerned about gender self-identification. It is clear that transgenderism is the new orthodoxy among members of the political class.
For our cultural elites, transgenderism vies with environmentalism as the cause of the 21st century. As sociologist Michael Biggs notes, the ‘transgender movement has transformed cultural norms and social institutions at breathtaking speed’. ... Continue reading >>>
