Gender-critical activist awarded BEM after campaign to protect children
A Gender-critical campaigner who says she was wrongly labelled “transphobic” will receive a British Empire Medal after being included in the Queen’s birthday honours.
Stephanie Davies-arai is the founder and director of Transgender Trend, a parents’ group that claims too many children are being referred to gender clinics for medical treatment.
Yesterday she said: “I’m really honoured and thrilled to be recognised for my work; it is a huge honour and I’m … very grateful to everyone who nominated me.
“I hope it indicates a change in opinion about the treatment of children with gender dysphoria and is a recognition of my work, which has been wrongly called transphobic or bigoted.
“What I saw was a one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with these children, which risks sending them towards a medical pathway.
“One of my concerns was the alternative wasn’t talked about. Silencing debate by calling evidence-based approaches ‘bigoted or transphobic’ is very dangerous.”
Transgender Trend claims that there is “no scientific basis” for labelling children transgender and that those sent to gender clinics suffer “irreversible lifelong effects” from their treatment.
It also points to figures it says show that many trans children first identify as gay and claims that “80 per cent of [gender dysphoric] children ‘grow out of it’ and come to accept and be happy as the sex they were born”.
The group was also one of several organisations that persuaded Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, to launch an NHS inquiry into the practices of gender clinics. Its findings will form part of a final report by Dr Hilary Cass due to be published this year. Responding to her award, Ms Davies-arai said that calling her views bigoted was “very dangerous”.
She also defended JK Rowling, the Harry Potter author, who has become a target for criticism and abuse by some trans-rights campaigners.
“She’s been very measured … but has been vilified – and publicly,” she said. But “she spoke out in a very reasonable way [and] showed great courage and … risked her reputation by discussing things openly and respectfully; we should be able to, especially when the matter concerns children”.
The novelist has been accused of transphobia by some campaigners because she said that some rights proposed for transgender people undermined women’s safety.
In 2020, she explained that her campaigns on women’s rights and the trans debate were partly motivated by personal experience of domestic abuse and sexual assault.
In 2018, Stonewall, the LGBT charity, said Transgender Trend’s views were “dangerous” for young people and “factually inaccurate”.