Transgenderism: the great delusion of our time

The recent remark by Dawn Butler, shadow secretary of state for women and equalities, that ‘a child is born without sex’ is certainly one of the most bizarre things said by a politician in my lifetime. It is surprising that it hasn’t attracted more derision than it deserves. Or perhaps it isn’t. The transgender myth – that one’s actual sex, not one’s gender, is entirely of one’s own choosing – is firmly embedded as the definitive popular delusion of the 21st century. It will take future historians of a more rational age to assess it more soberly and explain its origins.

My theory is that it is the consequence of what might be called the Discrimination Dialectic. Our society is constantly at war with itself between two conflicting imperatives: the need to have an Other (every culture needs one) who we can define ourselves against and be mean about, and our more contemporary, and culturally specific, progressive imperative to ceaselessly end discrimination against minorities and erstwhile Others. This dialectic involves identifying, or maybe even inventing, the next Other in order to emancipate them.

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