Transgender rights shake-up affects us all

Allowing people to switch their gender without a doctor’s certificate will have a far-reaching impact

Justine Greening is a libertine cross-dressing as a conservative. The equalities minister wants a shake-up of trans rights that would make it far easier to change one’s gender. This is not only a revolutionary thing to do, it is politically stupid. It was not in the Tory manifesto; actual conservatives will hate it. The Government is picking a fight with its own supporters, and for what? To impress its friends at dinner parties.

Under Greening’s proposal, adults will be able to switch the gender on their birth certificate without a doctor’s diagnosis, while people who don’t think they have a gender at all can alter it to read “x”. Transgenderism will go from being a medical issue resolved privately in consultation with a doctor to a lifestyle choice endorsed by the state. It amounts to a cultural revolution – dreamt up and implemented without democratic endorsement and with precious little thought given to its effects.

If it affected just trans people, I’m sure we’d all nod it through. Conservatives respect liberty. If anyone wants to redefine their gender, that’s their business, and if the law stands in the way of someone’s happiness, I’d prefer that it was changed. Biology is a curious thing; historical evidence shows trans people have always existed. In parts of modern India, when a baby is born, the Hijra women – a sort of third sex – will show up at your door and demand payment in exchange for a blessing. If they get wind that the child is intersex, they’ve been known to claim it and raise it as their own.

Life is messy and the individual should navigate it with free will. But it’s precisely out of deference to the complexity of the human experience that we cling on to certain principles – principles that reflect not just our ideals but the realities of our nature. Biology is one of those realities, and it helps define us as men and women. Because biology is so vital, if you try to rewrite the principles to please one tiny minority, you impact upon the lives of absolutely everybody.

Take language. Transport for London bosses have told staff that they must now use gender neutral terms when talking to passengers: “Good morning ladies and gentlemen” becomes “Good morning everyone”. A tiny change? Maybe. But think about the thinking behind it: you are no longer a woman or man but part of a genderless mass. Your identity, which is just as important to you as it is to a trans person, has been subtly rewritten. Meanwhile, the British Medical Association has advised some of its staff that pregnant women should not be called “expectant mothers” but, instead, “pregnant people”. The reason? To avoid causing offence. We are rewriting the foundational principles of our society out of embarrassment.

These are the more abstract effects of the trans reforms, but what’s striking are the ways in which it impacts upon practical, even mundane things. If Greening gets her way, it’ll be much simpler for a man to redefine as a woman – winning the right to access women’s loos, women’s changing facilities, women’s hospital wards and (here’s where we get back to the awkward matter of biology) women’s sports. The average man has longer and larger bones than a woman, and a higher ratio of muscle mass to body weight. So it was no great surprise that in March Laurel Hubbard placed first in a heat of the Australian International weightlifting contest in Melbourne. Laurel used to compete as Gavin, and was the largest competitor in the category. Some applauded Hubbard’s success, others were sceptical. Two-time Olympian Deborah Acason said: “If I was in that category I wouldn’t feel like I was in an equal situation. I just feel that if it’s not… why are we doing the sport?”

In a few years’ time, saying something like that will get you banned from the game. The trans revolution, which has been amplified by social media, has been almost universally accepted by our political elite. In the UK, many Tories are simply terrified of being called “nasty”. But some are true believers, and they are the ones calling the shots.

It is no coincidence, I’m sure, that since 2014 the role of minister for equalities has been twinned with that of secretary of state for education. Shaping young minds makes the liberals’ long-term goals easier to achieve. For instance, the Children and Social Work Act 2017 imposes relationships education on children from the beginning of primary school up. What constitutes relationships education is up to the education secretary to decide – which just happens to be Justine Greening, the equalities minister. As guidelines are updated, it’s not unreasonable to infer and predict from her comments that tolerance of gender fluidity will be part of the package.

The state is gathering power, building upon its success in legalising gay marriage in 2013 – one of those reforms that we were told was an end in and of itself, yet increasingly looks like a transitional demand. We were assured that churches would be separated, even protected, from this civil change. But both Justine Greening and Theresa May have said that while it’s up to the Anglicans to decide, they would like to see samesex weddings carried out by vicars – and no doubt there are plenty of clergy itching to do it. The Church of England’s synod voted this month to hold special services to welcome transgender people to the faith. The Tories and Anglicans – once defenders of orthodoxy – have become some of our most fanatical iconoclasts.

If they think this will make them any more popular, they are deluded. Gay marriage did damage to the Tory machine: many quit the party in protest, stoking the Ukip rebellion. And, yes, most Tories probably have since come around to gay marriage, either because they see it affirming monogamy or they don’t think it’s affected their own lives – yet. But the trans thing is bigger, stranger.

The Tories are meddling in affairs that are well beyond their intellectual grasp or the country’s willingness or capacity to accept change. Greening is asking the British public not only to accept a radical notion that most will find exotic but to rewrite the daily narrative of their own lives – and behave as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening. It is, I suspect, too big an ask.