Debbie Hayton

For ten years, gender identity ideology ploughed through western societies. It started quietly, a decade earlier, when a group of human rights experts gathered in Yogyakarta, in Indonesia, and established gender identity as an innate human quality. They demanded that it must be protected in law and policy. If Wes Streeting signs off a clinical trial, he will be held responsible for any and all adverse outcomes. Surely he knows it Their 2006 ‘Yogyakarta Principles’ probably passed most people by, but they prepared the ground for subsequent campaigns to enshrine gender identity in legislation. The outcome has been terrible. Women’s sex-based rights became unspeakable and second-rate males barged their way into female sport. Transsexual people like me never asked for any of this.

Here is a philosophical question for our universities to ponder. Should the ‘D’ in ‘EDI’ extend to diversity of opinion? If it doesn’t, this acronym so beloved of HR departments and external ‘training providers’ shouldn’t be worth the candle. But heaven help anyone who speaks the truth about sex and gender within some places of education. Say the wrong things and the thought police might check your thinking and ensure that you are cancelled. Connie Shaw, a third-year philosophy, religion and ethics student at Leeds University is one of the latest victims. Back in October, Shaw wrote a blog in which she called out some of the more egregious examples of campus life. Not only that, her work was published by Graham Linehan.

Keir Starmer’s new Office for Equality and Opportunity – launched earlier this month – purports to ensure that ‘equality is at the heart of every mission’. The terrifying reality might be something rather different. One key immediate priority is a ‘full, trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices’. The government has said, ‘Conversion practices are abuse. They have no place in society and must be stopped.’ A ban on conversion practices could have a chilling effect on ordinary people across society But here’s something: they have already been stopped. Abusive practices are illegal, and there is scant evidence of them happening anywhere in the UK.

Kemi Badenoch has suggested that JK Rowling deserves a seat in the House of Lords. The Tory leadership contender said in an interview with Talk TV: ‘I don’t know whether she would take it but I certainly would give her a peerage’. Rowling certainly deserves credit for her tireless stand against the transgender madness. For more than four years, she has spoken out courageously, sometimes in the face of dreadful abuse, to say things that we once all knew to be true: that being a woman is far more than an assertion of a supposedly female gender identity. The Harry Potter author has been a key voice in a debate that has moved so far from the dark days of 2017.

Love them or loathe them, it’s hard not to have noticed Led By Donkeys. The protest group – made up, naturally, of four former Greenpeace workers – has taunted Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and David Cameron with its high-profile stunts. It is best known for projecting its protests – including one branding Boris a ‘liar’ – on to the Houses of Parliament. The group’s members seem mighty pleased with themselves. But what has Led by Donkeys actually achieved? It’s hard to say that the group has won anyone over to the cause. The group’s members seem mighty pleased with themselves An exhibition ‘Adventures in Art, Activism and Accountability’ has opened in Bristol to showcase the group’s exploits. It’s an underwhelming display.

Seven hundred and twenty-six plaster face casts of transsexual, non-binary or gender non-conforming people were unveiled yesterday in London's Trafalgar Square. Mil Veces un Instante (A thousand times an Instant) by Mexican artist, Teresa Margolles, sits proudly upon the Fourth Plinth around Nelson’s Column. The casts are arranged in the form of a Tzompantli, or a 'skull rack', that exhibited the remains of war captives or sacrifice victims, and the art is intended to draw attention to the rights of trans people worldwide. But is it really necessary? As another Transgender Day of Remembrance approaches on 20 November with its pseudo-religious trappings, this imagery is not what London needs. How and why did trans people become the focus of Londoners' attention on the fourth plinth?

The number of people applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) has reached a new record. Government figures revealed that there were 1,397 applications in 2023-24 and, of those, 1,088 were granted. Labour has vowed to simplify the process of changing gender, meaning that the numbers could rise further. Almost 200 applicants for a Gender Recognition Certificate were under 25 Is this something to celebrate? Or should we be worried? These are already big numbers for a life-changing process that was originally envisaged to serve a vanishingly small group of people. The stats from 2023-24 aren't a one-off: since the pandemic, the numbers have been growing year-on-year.

Hilary Cass’s review of gender identity services for children and young people put a stop to doctors playing fast and loose with the development of youngsters in Great Britain. Her report was welcomed on both sides of the Commons, and it was reassuring to hear Wes Streeting confirm that he intends to uphold the ban on puberty blockers to under-18s. Across the Atlantic, however, the issue is more divisive. So-called ‘red states’ are moving along British lines. Last year, Tennessee prohibited health care professionals from ‘prescribing, administering or dispensing any puberty blocker or hormone’ to children who claimed to experience gender dysphoria.

The Tavistock’s notorious Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) clinic in London – which prescribed puberty blockers to children – closed in March. Two replacement clinics have already opened in London and Liverpool. NHS England has now confirmed they will be joined by six more, starting with Bristol this coming autumn and a centre for the East of England by March 2025. The NHS is under immense pressure; should it really be spending money on these clinics? The correct number of NHS paediatric gender clinics is not one, nor two and certainly not eight; it is zero The waiting list for gender services is already enormous. There are currently 5,700 children in the queue for specialist gender care, including a child under the age of five.

Elon Musk is the richest person in the world but it's clear that money can't always buy happiness. The X/ Twitter owner spoke movingly of his family, in particular his eldest surviving child, during an emotional interview with Jordan Peterson. ‘My son Xavier is dead, killed by the woke mind virus’, the father-of-12 lamented. ‘The people who have been promoting this should go to prison,’ said Musk  Musk claimed that he had been ‘tricked’ into allowing one of his children who transitioned from male to female to take puberty blockers after hearing that the child might otherwise be at risk from suicide. The billionaire now appears to regret that decision bitterly and has vowed to ‘destroy the woke mind virus’.

The waiting is over. Anneliese Dodds has been named as minister of state for women and equalities, and will attend cabinet as part of her role. Meanwhile, Bridget Phillipson will be the official minister, tied into her Secretary of State for Education brief. It’s not the courageous change that some were hoping for: Dodds was equalities shadow to Kemi Badenoch in the previous parliament. Dodds needs to wise up to basic truths fast now that she is sitting round the cabinet table But let’s hope now she’s taken up the role that Dodds has worked out what a woman is, and her vision for equalities is – as Badenoch pointed out at the despatch box – ‘a shield and not a sword’. Then this government might get somewhere. Otherwise the omens are not good.