Interview: James Kirkup on trans. And how campaigners have exploited MPs’ fear of being accused of transphobia.
by Andrew Gimson, Conservative Home:
When James Kirkup became interested in transgender politics, people warned him that writing about it was too dangerous. He notes that the fear the subject inspires in many MPs of being attacked as “transphobic” has created a vacuum into which transgender campaigning groups have been able to move, and to push for the right of trans people to “self-identify” their gender, without the arguments for and against the reform being tested in rigorous debate.
In this interview, Kirkup says “nobody has really pointed out” that Professor Stephen Whittle – specialist adviser to the Women and Equalities Committee, chaired by Maria Miller, when it drew up its agenda-setting report on Transgender Equality – is “also the founder of a group called Press for Change, which was the first trans rights campaigning group in the UK.”
With the support of Fraser Nelson, editor of The Spectator, Kirkup has produced since February a large volume of studiously even-handed work on this topic, and has gained for that magazine a number of left-wing feminist subscribers.
The Government’s consultation on reform of the Gender Recognition Act [GRA], which ended this week, was launched by Penny Mordaunt, the Minister for Women and Equalities, with the declaration: “Trans women are women, that is the starting point for this consultation.” But the implications of that dictum for all-women shortlists, and for such facilities as women-only swimming pools and prisons, are only just starting to be appreciated.
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