Daily Express

Children harmed by gender ambiguity

- Virginia Blackburn

IWAS never a tomboy, always a girly girl who liked clothes from the outset. Nor do I remember any boys of the same age who liked dressing up in their mother’s clothing. But many such children did and do exist and in the vast majority of cases they moved on to the more traditiona­l pastimes of men and women. It was exceptiona­lly unusual for them to identify over the long term with the opposite sex. But that is what we are being asked to believe today. Children too young to have any formed opinions on anything are “identifyin­g” as transgende­r, so much so that the Dorothy Stringer School in Brighton (natch) has 40 children who don’t identify with their gender and another 36 who are “gender fluid”. When is this insanity going to stop?

Of course some people are genuinely transgende­r and they should be treated with compassion and given all the help they need.

But I simply do not believe that 76 children in one school have real transgende­r issues. Brighton also plays host to a charity called Allsorts Youth Project for “trans or genderques­tioning” children aged five to nine. It has 27 members.

Meanwhile, the number of children being referred to the NHS because they want to “change sex” has risen by 700 per cent in the past five years. Why are we doing this to a generation who do not understand the long-term involved?

The NHS has published a report saying that one child in eight has a mental disorder, suffering from conditions such as anxiety, depression and OCD. There are also alarming incidents of self-harm and attempted suicide.

Is it not just possible there is a link? If a child born into either gender is told they may belong to issues the other – thus underminin­g the most basic truth most of us know about ourselves – is it any wonder anxiety and depression set in?

We should drop this obsession with transgende­r issues, other than for the tiny minority to whom it really applies. The rest of them seem to be taking part in some huge and damaging social experiment. One which, in later years, they might not lightly forgive.

WHATEVER Julian Assange did or didn’t do, he (and the poor staff at the Ecuadorian embassy) has certainly been punished for it. He has been incarcerat­ed in the place for six years. The latest is that Assange has given away his cat because he was worried that the poor creature was “isolated” – a total coincidenc­e that in October the embassy laid down some ground rules involving his pet. No doubt we are supposed to find this heartbreak­ing and I certainly hope the feline has found a good home but it would take a heart of stone not to laugh.

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