Like wokeism, the transgender movement has spread across the Western world at a startling pace. Observers who have followed the origins of the movement say that it began around 2014 – under a decade ago – although the groundwork was no doubt laid well before then. What is undeniable is that “trans” people and ideas are now everywhere. That adults wish to change sex is one thing, but the more worrisome aspect of this phenomenon is the number of minors and children involved. Today, it is clear that a veritable explosion of children are asking to transition. The exact numbers are difficult to come by but according to US data, some 50,000 children are diagnosed every year with gender dysphoria, which is defined as “a sense of mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity.”  These “dysphoric” children become easy targets of manipulation by schools and medical clinics which maintain that encouraging children to transition is healthy and prevents suicides. This “encouragement” is often done without the consent of the child’s parents or consultation with them. For their part, the children are not informed of the side effects of the treatments involved (sterility being one of them) or the fact that they are not reversible.

A gauge of the transgender explosion is the growing number of clinics providing gender affirming treatments. In the US, there are literally thousands  A pioneer in gender treatment for children is Boston’s Children’s Hospital. While its gender services site stresses that genital surgeries are only performed on patients aged 18 or older, its Gender Multispecialty Service states that it now offers services to “patients aged 3 to 25.”  Fox TV host, Tucker Carlson, has waged an ongoing campaign against such clinics and what he calls the “genital mutilation” of children.

Canadian psychologist, Jordan Peterson, has called the transgender phenomenon : “sociological contagion.”

In this article, I cite two main sources: feminist and activist, Kara Dansky, author of  The Abolition of Sex: How the “Transgender” Agenda Harms Women and Girls and investigative journalist and activist, Jennifer Bilek, who has documented the transgender industry and the money behind it.

In her book, Dansky describes how the term “transgender” was invented in the 60-70s by post modern academics in the US, and ultimately led to the emergence of gender ideology and the idea that  “biological sex does not exist as material reality.” Since postmodernism rejects traditional truths and science and asserts that everything, including human identity, is constructed, it was easy to make the next step and claim that “you are what you believe you are.”  Everything became possible. If you say you are a woman, you must be treated as a woman, legally and socially.

Dansky recounts how her views on transgenderism evolved: “In 2014, I assumed that the left narrative about transgender rights was legitimate, meaning that this was a legitimate movement fighting to protect the rights of a marginalized group of people. But, as I delved further into the issue, I realized that the movement was in fact anti-women and the fact that men can identify as women really harms feminists’ ability to fight for the rights of women and girls.” As a member of the Women’s Liberation Front, one of the things Dansky is campaigning against is the US government’s effort to replace the word “sex” with gender identity in all its operations.

The Biden administration, she notes, is spearheading the transgender movement. US Assistant Secretary of Health, Rachel Levine (a transwoman herself), recently declared that trans people have “support at the highest levels of the US government.” In an astounding interchange last year at the US Senate, President Biden’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was unable to define what is a woman during her confirmation hearings.  “Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?” she was asked by Senator Marsha Blackburn. Jackson responded: “I can’t, not in this context, I’m not a biologist.”

The present situation has led to situations such as these:

• Girls’ toilets in schools have been made accessible to transwomen (often young boys who have not completed their transition/surgery process). In Loudoun County, Virginia, a 15 year old boy, dressed as a girl, raped a young girl in a transgender-friendly bathroom.
• Female only dormitories, shelters, prisons etc. can now include transgender women.
• Women’s sports are being dominated by transwomen. A notable case is that of Lia Thomas, a transgender American swimmer who won a national women’s championship last year.

Follow the money – says investigative journalist Jennifer Bilek

A key to understanding how transgender ideology has become so widespread, says Bilek, is to follow the money. “This is not an individual rights’ movement about a small group of marginalized people,” she says. “It all comes from a top-down multi-billion dollar industry funded by a small group of very wealthy individuals.” To name a few, Bilek cites billionaire John Striker who has given billions to the Argus foundation which funds LGBT activism, with the funds going mainly to the last two categories – bisexual and transgender groups; transwoman, Martine Rothblatt, a billionaire US entrepreneur who has declared: “Genitals are as irrelevant to one’s role in society as skin tone. Hence, the legal division of people into males and females is as wrong as the legal division of people into black and white races;” and transwoman Jennifer Pritzker of the wealthy Chicago Pritzker family and cousin of Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. The Pritzkers have given millions to medical schools, gender care clinics and academic transgender studies departments in the US and Canada.

As with most issues, Bilek says it is important to ask: Who benefits from putting young people on a lifetime of hormones? And who benefits from medically unnecessary surgery? In the first case, it is big pharma and, in the second, it is the medical supplies industry. Not surprisingly, the billionaire philanthropists who are funding the transgender movement also have major investments in both fields – their tentacles run deep.

Bilek stresses how, what appears to be a human rights issue, is in fact a way of trapping an entire generation into a big profit scheme. The gender affirming treatments which are being pushed today for youth, end up making the youngsters sterile. As a result, if they wish to have children, they will need years of assisted fertility treatments and will become totally dependent on new age tech reproduction. One can hear the endless ka-ching of slot machine mega-winnings.

Censorship

As we saw, during the Covid epidemic, speaking out against the dominant narrative, whether it be the origin of the Covid virus or transgender ideology, is a risky business.  Those who do so are attacked, canceled and even fired from their jobs. A notable case is famed Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling. For speaking out against transgender excesses, Rowling, was branded a transphobe and was boycotted even by her own fan base. She first came under fire when she mocked an article promoting equality for “people who menstruate.” “I am sure,” Rowling tweeted, “that there used to be a word for those people,” referring to the out-of-date term “women.”  While sympathizing with the suffering of transwomen, Rowling has also been open in her criticism of transgender activists who, she says, are trying to erase ‘women’ as a biological and political class.

Are women the primary victims of the transgender movement?

In addition to the erasure of women in language and law, there have been numerous clashes between feminists and trans activists, notably on the issue of protecting women’s spaces. Protests by feminist groups against the erosion of women’s spaces are regularly met with aggressive counter demonstrations by trans activists.   “Trans women are women!” they shout.”

Dansky points out the irony of transgenderism and how it has eroded all the gains made by feminists in the last decades. “It’s an incredibly regressive agenda,” she says, “that reduces womanhood to outdated sex stereotypes. Today, if you wear a dress and make-up, you can say you are a woman. Transwomen glorify sex stereotypes and take women back in time. Everything feminists fought against is now being pushed as progressive!!”

The backlash has begun

Against the background of increasing evidence that gender affirming treatments have negative physical and psychological side-effects on youngsters and do not improve their mental health, as claimed by trans ideologues, a number of states in the US have begun banning gender affirming care for minors.

In Britain, the government recently closed the country’s only gender identity clinic at the Tavistock Center in London, following a damning report that criticized the clinic’s too hasty encouragement of transitioning for children (some were recommended treatment after just one or two appointments), over prescription of puberty blockers, and placing children on medication that should not have been given to them (one child was just 8 years’ old).  Many of the children suffered from mental health problems and over a third had autistic traits. The rapid growth underwent by the clinic in the last ten years reflects the extent of the transgender explosion: in 2009 the clinic had 80 patients, in 2019 that number rose to 2,700.

Sensibly, Finland recently decided that psychotherapy and counseling should be the first line of treatment for gender dysphoric youth, instead of drugs and hormones. The country’s top transgender expert, Dr. Riitakerttu Kaltiala, has stated that “four out of five teens, who question their gender, come to accept their bodies if they don’t receive medical intervention.”