Japanese Knotweed

Three Countries and the Battle to Reinstate Sex-Based Rights

In the United States, the sex/gender debate is so polarized along party lines that the tiniest voice of dissent among Democrats is punished with resignations, intimidation, and misrepresentation until the hapless temporary dissenter capitulates. Enter Seth Moulton, who said a few almost brave comments just after the election:

“I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete,” Moulton told New York Times reporter Reid Epstein (Nov. 7th). “But as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.” You betta believe he is supposed to be afraid to say it. It didn’t take long. After his campaign manager resigned, he put up a plucky if brief sort of resistance, saying (Nov. 11th) "Look, I was just speaking authentically as a parent about one of many issues where Democrats are just out of touch with the majority of Americans," he said. "And I stand by my position, even though I may not have used exactly the right words." He didn’t explain what words he may have gotten wrong. Cue protestors gathering outside his office, and “LGBTQ+” advocacy group MassEquality calling Moulton’s comments “both harmful and factually inaccurate.” Soon we find the Dem Rep backtracking about his daughters, saying his remarks were “not about his young children’s immediate experience but about higher-level competitive sports.”

Then came crunch time. On January 14th the House got to debate and vote on the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act – which would protect Moulton’s daughters from, er, “getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.” In a long-winded, transparently hypocritical Vote Explainer, Moulton said the bill was “not the sort of balanced, fairness-oriented policy I’ve advocated for.” Pull the other one, Seth. We all saw the Democrats concoct a grotesque name – worthy of QAnon -- for this entirely sensible bill (young staffers trotted out a big sign with the words “Child Predator Empowerment Act” every time one of their speakers took the floor). But Moulton voted with the crazies because the bill was “too extreme.” No it wasn’t, Seth

Poor old Seth. It’s difficult conjuring up courage when you haven’t had much practice. He is based in the 6th congressional district of Massachusetts. So let’s listen to what he said to GBH Radio (a local NPR channel for Boston) after Trump’s Executive Order on two sexes: “Among the many people [Trump] attacked were transgender Americans.” (NPR All Things Considered, Jan 21st). This is ridiculous. It is not an attack on anyone to reassert the very obvious fact that there are two sexes, and many reasons for separating them in many areas of life.

The farthest Moulton will go now is to say that he wants the party to have “tough conversations.” This is way too extreme for the gender fanatics in the Democratic Party. Today (Jan 25th) we read a call for people to gather outside his Peabody Town Hall to “protest his reprehensible comments regarding the LGBTQ+ community.” The GBH presenter deliberately inflamed this furious response. He read out the words on the impossibility of changing sex from the Executive Order and flagrantly misrepresented them (with the usual hyperbole) as saying “it denies that transgender people exist.” And so it continues.

Moulton thinks it’s possible to compromise with these people. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if that makes sense.

Let’s switch briefly to the Netherlands, where I live. Here, sex/gender issues are not so much split down party lines as monopolized by the “Be kind” mob. As we know, “Be kind” means we must all be kind to men who self-define as lesbians – Amnesty Netherlands actually profiled a cross-dressing man for International Women’s Day in 2020 – and condemn actual lesbians who use bigoted words like “biological sex.” Such meanies are clearly right-wing bigots, biological essentialists who refuse to get with the program.

Occasionally an article representing the opposite view is published in the right-wing Dutch press. For instance, an Op-Ed by the lesbian activist Marianne Driessen, published today (Jan 25th) in the Telegraaf, points out that most of the teenagers seeking medical intervention for gender “transition” are LGB, especially lesbians, and that a bill to ban “conversion practices” would actually promote the hype that sets these distressed young LGB people on a pathway to lifelong medicalization with multiple health risks. No left-of-center outlet will touch such a story, and the Dutch public is left almost entirely in the dark. In this respect, the Netherlands is like a miniature Canada in the middle of Europe.

Internationally, of course, we are all being encouraged to see men who identify as lesbians as victims to be coddled and actual lesbians who stand up for their rights as bitches. See this revolting ad from the organization comically named “UN Women” for — yes really — for Lesbian Visibility Day.

And because the public in most countries, like the Netherlands, is deliberately kept ignorant, people seriously believe this sexist crap is “progressive.” See the document known by the initiated as the Dentons Playbook. If you haven’t read it, you should take some time out to familiarize yourself with it. James Kirkup explains it for those with limited time: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-document-that-reveals-the-remarkable-tactics-of-trans-lobbyists/

And so we come to the United Kingdom. Terf Island. The only country where the Dentons Playbook failed. We have made spectacular gains in the UK. We have – thus far – prevented self-ID from becoming law, even in Scotland, where it looked at one time to be inevitable. We have had the Cass Review – commissioned by a government minister – which has made a huge impact worldwide. The Labour Government has enacted a virtual ban on puberty blockers, although the proposed “clinical trial” is deeply concerning. We are gradually making headway in informing the public that the proposed bill on “conversion practices” – like the similar plan in the Netherlands – puts LGB and other “gender non-conforming teens” in danger. And one by one, as we read today, government departments are withdrawing from Stonewall’s “Diversity Champions Programme.” This program, which was once a force for good, helping to secure and promote the rights of LGB people in the workplace, has since become the opposite. It supposedly promotes “inclusion.” What a hoot! Stonewall instructs staff on gender identity doctrine, its awards points in its “Equality Index” for applying the doctrine (“good practice”), and ensures that dissenters from its cult-like beliefs – especially assertive lesbians and other badass women – are ostracized and sometimes driven out.

But even in government departments that have cut their ties with Stonewall, the damage has been done. Each of these departments still has dozens of civil servants who are devout believers in gender identity doctrine and whose decisions continue to be informed by it. As Kate Harris – co-founder with me of LGB Alliance -- always says, we are dealing with Japanese knotweed, which is notoriously hard to eradicate.

How to get out of this situation? We need a strong statement from government reasserting the reality of biological sex and the sex-based rights of women and LGB people. Women are adult human females. Homosexuality means sexual orientation to people of the same sex – not nebulous “gender,” for heaven’s sake.

Personally, I very much hope that a sensible leader will seize the opportunity to make such a statement. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a social democrat were to come out and assert that there only two sexes! Do we have to wait for an opportunistic narcissist like Trump to take advantage of the cowardice of others and fill that void? I am terribly afraid that this is where we are heading.