If we want male people to be treated as female people for any or all purposes, then we can’t acknowledge there are any possibly relevant differences between male and female people—even if we sound totally bonkers.
If we want to remove gatekeeping around medical transition, then detransitioners are a problem. Therefore, the finding must be that nobody or almost nobody detransitions and that nothing could have or should have prevented people from going on these enlightening ‘gender journeys.’
When trans activists wrapped their cause in the language of civil rights, they sought to exempt themselves from scrutiny and debate. It’s hard to imagine a more effective way to shut down inquiry among self-identified progressives and progressive organizations.
Even the most apologetically stated concerns or reservations—about males in women’s prisons, women’s sports, and women’s refuges, about the effects of overwriting sex in the law—were instantly dismissed as the bigoted ravings of a privileged mob. The real conflict between sex-based rights and demands couched in an inner sense of gender identity got buried. Trans activists taunted progressives: who wants to end up on the wrong side of history?
Challenging the trans narrative requires direct confrontation — and that’s hard. At every turn, you’re urged to ‘just’ be kind. You’re told inclusion doesn’t cost you anything. You’re told you just don’t get it. And besides, you don’t want to end up getting the Maya Forstater treatment, do you?