Reaction
13:15
It should not be controversial for parents to be involved in their child’s decisions
by Victoria Smith
Why is it now controversial to state the obvious about child development? Credit: Getty
Today the Government published its draft guidance for teachers on how best to support gender-questioning pupils. The proposals look both eminently sensible and guaranteed to cause total panic. Reading through them, I found myself feeling a mixture of both. It’s a measure of how far things have been permitted to drift that recommendations which ought to be uncontroversial sound shocking.
It should not be controversial to point out that social transition is not a neutral act, or to recognise that parents should generally be involved in decisions affecting a child’s long-term physical or psychological wellbeing. It should not be controversial to preserve female-only sports for female pupils, or to state that other pupils should not be forced to use language which contradicts their own perceptions of sex and gender. It should not be controversial to state that residential accommodation for teenagers should be sex-segregated, or that schools should accurately register the biological sex of pupils.
None of this should be contentious, but all of it is. What’s more, the sheer oddness of having to state such obvious things makes it all look strangely suspicious. If I were someone who knew nothing about this debate, I might well adopt the “bigots trying to stoke a culture war” response.
This is, of course, the line that many are already taking. The guidance has already been deemed “extremist” and accused of putting “the ‘anti-woke’ ideology of ministers before the welfare of young people”. I am not entirely unsympathetic to this position. From where we are right now — a world in which adults in positions of authority have encouraged children to believe that any deviation from trans activist beliefs is equivalent to hate — it is very hard to step back without causing more harm to others, particularly vulnerable young people. Nonetheless, it is worth asking just whose fault this is.
Reporting on the guidance, the Guardian claims that “the decision to keep some protections in place so that children are not automatically outed is likely to frustrate some on the Tory Right who have been pushing for parents to be told in all circumstances.” There’s a tell in references to “outing” and “the Right”. Those who have led us to the current position, in which children are genuinely fearful of their “right to exist” being obliterated by the use of the wrong pronoun, wish to keep pretending that we are witnessing a replay of 1980s gay panic.
It’s not true, though. I am old enough to remember when Left-wing women first started warning of the consequences of allowing gender to overwrite sex, only to be dismissed by Tory Equalities Minister Maria Miller as women “purporting to be feminists”.
Since then, as Hannah Barnes documented in her book Time to Think, more and more taboos have been placed on exploring the multiple reasons why adolescents — especially those who are same-sex attracted, autistic and/or have experienced abuse — may be rejecting their sexed bodies. We have been asked to pretend that increasing numbers of young people, at an incredibly volatile moment in their lives, have understandings of gender that are utterly untainted by misogyny, homophobia, gender stereotypes, trauma or the ordinary anxieties of growing up. We have been asked to treat them as oracles, while any mother who fears a child embarking on a path to transition is dismissed as a pearl-clutching bigot.
Those now railing against the new guidance make no distinction between parents who may be genuinely abusive, and parents who may wish to protect their children from harm. For them, there is no difference between bullies who pick on the gender non-conforming, and children who wish to preserve their own boundaries. Nor is there any distinction between challenging gender norms and pandering to the most regressive beliefs about men and women.
It is very hard to undo all of the harm that has been done. Children will suffer because of this, not least because activists will now be telling them they are more hated than ever before. This could have been avoided. All this time, we could have been supporting children to challenge gender norms in ways that are actually joyful and healthy.
Instead, we are at a point where recognising basic biology is viewed as extremist. Perhaps, one day, those who brought us here will acknowledge what they’ve done.
