the brilliantly leaping gazelle

One of the main problems about writing about transgenderism is having to take seriously something which is so fundamentally absurd. Because it is. Its foundational principle, from which all manner of lunacies, ridiculousnesses and insanities then follow, is so utterly bizarre that one wonders how it ever came to be taken so seriously by so many.

Because if it were only the usual assortment of deliberately contrarian poseurs who took this absurdity seriously, then no-one would be any the worse off for it.   Yet incredibly the idea that  gender – which is imagined – is somehow more important than sex – which is fact – has created a ripple effect of nonsense in the Britain of 2025. 

That isn’t to suggest that some people don’t feel as if they born in the wrong body. They may well feel that. But society shouldn’t collude with them, to legitimise and affirm their beliefs, or afford them a prism of oppression through which to view their every interaction. And few news items of the recent past have summed up more perfectly the various nonsenses and abominations inherent in all of this, than the case of Ryan Haley.

He is the transgender woman who was accused of the sexual assault of a 13 year old girl at Newcastle Crown Court. His defence to the charge was unique. The judge summed it up thusly.  Haley had imagined himself to be  ‘the victim of a conspiracy involving the courts, prison service, the barristers in the case, your solicitor, the police, your family and a number of other people,” 

That wasn’t the end of Haley’s persecution complex.  Not only had the victim hypnotised the police, but the jury had also been hypnotised into finding him guilty. It wasn’t anything to do with evidence, the victim being a more credible witness or the fact that he represented himself in court. No. In his own demented reality he was the one who had been wronged, not least by the victim who continually referred to him as he/him when she gave evidence.

Because that ludicrous assertion – that hypnosis was at the reason for the guilty verdict, – may not be quite ludicrous after as it first seems. I mean, what other explanation could there be to make sense of how it is that otherwise sensible people could believe that a woman could have a penis, unless they’d been hypnotised? 

Or to imagine that having such a belief didn’t mark you out as an extremely extreme extremist but instead a ‘progressive’. That you were part of the vanguard fighting for equality for an oppressed minority. And hand-in-hand with that way of thinking is the belief that anyone who is opposed to that oppression is somehow bigoted, fascistic and an enabler of that oppression.  How other than by being hypnotised could so many people, politicians and institutions be unaware of the logical incoherence of this thinking. That by fighting for equality for a minority they are seeking to entrench inequality for the majority.

Its an outrageous notion of equality that negatively impacts the majority of the UK population at the expense of a minority of a minority. According to the 2021 census, women – the ones who menstruate, that is – made up 51% of the UK population, whereas all transgender people – both trans-men and trans-women – and people who identify as non-binary made up 0.5% of it.

Only hypnotism provides a satisfactory explanation as to why it is that some people imagine that the rights of women are little more than social conventions that exist only to be negotiated away. This past week has reminded me of just how pervasive this thinking is and of just how mainstream institutional infection of it has become. Both Girlguiding and the Women’s Institute (WI) reluctantly acknowledged that the ruling of the Supreme Court – that women means biological women – and that by allowing men or boys to continue participating in their activities they were breaking the law. Therefore, no more woggles, jam or Jerusalem for them. 

One might think that having clearly identified who they’d been set up specifically to cater to – the clues being in their names  – that adhering to the law would be something they’d only be too happy to do. But no. Announcing belated compliance with a law that had been clarified back in April, Girlguiding wanted to assure everyone that it still ‘believed strongly in inclusion’ and remained committed to ‘treating everyone with dignity and respect, particularly those from marginalised groups that have felt the biggest impact of this decision’. 

WI was almost pleading with angry trans activists not to blame, call for a boycott or somehow disrupt or discredit them because of this.  ’Incredibly sadly, we will have to restrict our membership on the basis of biological sex from April next year. But the message we really want to get across is that it remains our firm belief that transgender women are women, and that doesn’t change.’

And thats the problem right there. It’s not so much to do with how some people feel as it is with how it makes other people feel when they validate those feelings. No matter how the WI and Girlguiding wish it were otherwise, their actions are profoundly misogynistic. They prioritise the needs of men and boys, who despite no longer wanting to be treated like men or boys by society, nonetheless pick and choose exactly when, where and how that applies. 

The bosses of both the WI and Girlguiding are the latest in a long line of frustrated wannabees. How they wish they spearheading a crucially important movement, one that agitates for social change and which history will judge worthy. Alas, they find themselves leading venerable institutions yes, but not cutting edge, or even close to edge. Bono they are not! They have to jump on the bandwagon of nonsense and make sure everyone knows they’re aboard.

Hypnotism. Got to be.