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Friday, 29 March 2024
David Quinn Column: PDF Print E-mail

In our brave new world boys and girls are abolished by decree

davidquinn
At their annual conference recently in the UK, the Liberal Democrats voted in favour of a motion calling for the removal of the terms 'male' and female' from official forms. This was done out of concern for transgendered or intersex people who might otherwise feel 'discriminated' against when confronted with gender categories they believe they don't fit in to.

At some intervarsity debates here in Ireland, it is becoming commonplace for speakers to be asked first to state the pronoun by which they wish to be identified. Just because you look like a man does not mean you wish to be identified as such. Perhaps you are really a woman.


"Welcome to the world of gender ideology. In this world, gender is not something we are born with. We either choose our gender or it is 'imposed' on us. . ."


The 'New York Times' reports that a growing number of American schools have LGBTQQA clubs and when they meet, the members are asked what their 'PGP' is today. 'PGP' stands for 'preferred gender pronoun'. It might be 'Miss', 'Mr', 'Ms' or 'Mx'. 'Mx' is for those who identity neither as male nor female.

LGBTQQA incidentally, stands for 'Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Queer, Questioning and Allies'.

The 'Boston Globe' reports that Harvard University now allows its students to choose from a whole range of gender pronouns including 'ze' and 'hir'. 'Ze' is half-way between 'he' and 'she', while 'hir' is half-way between 'him' and 'her'.

In Sweden, some crèches now encourage children to use gender-neutral pronouns. Some clothes shops in Sweden now mix boys' and girls' clothes together because there is no longer any such thing as "boys' clothes" and "girls' clothes".

Last year, Facebook allowed its users to choose from no fewer than 56 different genders ranging from Agender and Bigender to Cis Male and Cis Female, from Gender Fluid and Gender Variant to Intersex and Pansgender, from Trans Man and Trans Woman to Trans Male and Trans Female.

No, I don't know what all of these mean either.

Here's an insight though. Earlier this year, a Scottish group calling itself 'Free Pride' decided to ban drag queens from performing at its events. The reason? Drag queens hold up men who dress as women to ridicule and therefore offend transsexuals. They are therefore guilty of 'transphobia' and 'trans-misogyny'.

But then some transsexual drag queens objected. How could they be transphobic, they asked, when they are transsexuals themselves?

Free Pride promptly adjusted its policy to ban only 'cis-male' drag queens, namely drag queens who were 'assigned' the male gender at birth and still identify as male today.

In Sweden and Canada, we have had examples of parents who are raising their children in a 'gender-neutral' way. They have given them gender-neutral names and dress them in gender-neutral clothes so the people they meet cannot identify them as either male or female. A parent of one of these children said that it is not up to parents or society to "impose" a gender on children. Children must be allowed to choose their gender for themselves.

Welcome to the world of gender ideology. In this world, gender is not something we are born with. We either choose our gender or it is 'imposed' on us.

This is why these gender theorists insist that we are not born 'male' or 'female', except in the physical sense, but that we are 'assigned' one or other gender by the doctors and our parents at birth. From then on, the world insists on treating us as either 'male' or 'female' and this is what we become. We start to behave in 'stereotypically' 'male' or 'female' ways because we are dressed in "boys' clothes" or "girls' clothes". We are given "boys' toys" or "girls' toys" and adults play with us in gentle ways if we are girls and rougher ways if we are boys.

Gender ideologues believe gender is a social construct, pure and simple. They believe male and female behaviours are not innate, not natural, but are taught to us by society: we become conditioned.

With different conditioning, they believe, women would be just as inclined to go to football matches (say) as men.

Needless to say, this theory is fantastically controversial. It runs smack into evidence that there are innate, natural differences between men and women that go beyond our physical bodies, even allowing for the fact that some men are more feminine than the average and some women are more masculine.

Controversial it may be, but it is now coming to a school near you, quite likely your child's school.

A couple of weeks ago, we heard about an Into-backed programme for primary schools called 'Different Families, Same Love' which, among other things, will teach children in Junior Infants about transgenderism.

On Wednesday, the Irish Independent reported that schools are to be asked to draw up new uniform rules for pupils who identity as transsexual.

This is already happening in a lot of American schools and it is causing ructions because it doesn't stop there. For example, boys who identity as girls must be allowed to use female toilets and female changing rooms. Many of the girls, backed by their parents, have objected to this.

Some schools have offered special changing rooms and toilets for transgendered pupils. Transgendered groups reject this. A boy who identifies as a girl must be allowed to use the facilities earmarked for girls.

In response, some schools are now beginning to make changing rooms and toilets 'gender-neutral' and are abandoning the terms 'male' and 'female' altogether.

Also, what happens to sports teams? Should boys who identity as girls be allowed to play on girls' teams? In some cases the answer has been 'yes'.

The Department of Education seems to believe that the needs of transgender pupils can be catered for without any kind of disruption being caused. That is completely unrealistic, as the American examples show.

Gender ideology at the end of the day wants us to think that the categories of 'male' and 'female' exist mostly in our heads and are not an absolutely intrinsic, basic and fundamental element of what it means to be human.

What beckons is a gender-neutral world of gender-neutral bathrooms and changing rooms, gender-neutral official forms and gender-neutral pronouns like 'ze' and 'hir'.

In a sense, the very categories of male and female are to be deemed bigoted and discriminatory.

This is the Brave New World we are now entering and children must be inculcated in it from the earliest possible age, without their parents being consulted about it in any meaningful way.

Irish Independent     (see next two articles on our scrolling news)