What are Trans Rights?

Approx. 2000 words = approx. 8 minutes reading time

Written by Diarmaid Ó Conaráin

The conversation surrounding Transgenderism has moved into full swing this year in Ireland, with the hashtag ‘Trans Rights Are Human Rights’ perpetually repeated by its advocates. But what are Trans rights? They don’t seem to know that themselves, and I’ve tried asking. Is there a minority group deserving of additional rights, or should equality imply equal rights for all citizens, and nothing more? Ireland is, or at least was, an egalitarian society not rooted, even in the slightest, in any form of identity politics. The question must be asked then, what rights have trans people been denied? The answer is quite simply, none. And this is evident when you ask them in earnest what it is that they seek. They have no clear answer that will even somewhat stand as a valid claim for the deprivation of rights. For example womens rights groups in the past could clearly state they wanted the right to work, vote and pursue education. Instead trans activists responses are filled with subjective desires, such as pronoun choices, that certainly do not qualify as a right. No person, trans or not, has the right to insist that everyone around them submits to their wishes, in any form, much less the form of controlled speech. They are of course free to choose their pronouns, but not to demand their choices are facilitated by others. My freedom of speech is a negative right, meaning others must not attempt to deprive me of it, anymore than murder or theft are permissible. In lieu of activists providing a genuine description of what trans rights might be, we are forced to interpret their desires based on assertions made in conversation.

Firstly, pronouns are inherently destructive towards the objectivity and consistency of language from conversation to conversation. Forcing those who comply to regulate their thoughts and speech with regards to past and future tense. No longer permitted to use their own powers of deduction, one must perpetually self correct all references to any trans person, while remaining free to use objective terms with regards to everyone else. Pronouns such as ze/zir make the matter, quite frankly, all the more ridiculous. Pronouns, we are told, are connected to gender, and not sex. Sex and Gender are not seperate though. No person is biologically a male yet somehow, in some warped framing of reality, also a woman. This is nonsense, and an attempt to reduce objective, scientific reality to a mere personal choice. You are free to state that you do not believe in gravity, it will however continue to keep you rooted to the earth. You are free to believe that 2 plus 2 equals 5. You do not have the right to insist a shopkeeper serves you your change according to your subjective belief system. Furthermore, in relation to pronouns, trans activists have no interest in politely asking the population to go along. Their intent is to have misgendering counted among the qualifying hate speech categories, and will see no problem wielding this subjective weapon like a dictator on any who will not fall before them. Highlighting that those who preach tolerance aren’t likely to reciprocate it at all once they gain power, which is exactly what hate speech laws will facilitate, make no mistake about it.

The second demand of the trans lobby that in no way qualifies as a right is their insistence on the inclusion of trans ideology in classrooms. Transgenderism is an anti scientific ideology, and the state is charged with fostering intellectual knowledge in children. Maths, geography, history and language etc. It is not charged with imposing indoctrination on innocent children concerning issues of a sexual, emotional or identification nature. This dimension of a childs life is the sovereign territory of the parent and child alone. The state has no mandate to prematurely and aggressively impose such concepts on children. It is undeniably an appeasement of a fraction sized minority of the population, which will be imposed on every child in the country. I find it appalling that a childs day at school could go from oxbow lakes and Irish lessons to then being told that maybe the doctor ‘labelled’ them incorrectly at birth. This is undeniably incoherent, and the mark of a society losing its way. If our current regime facilitate the ideological whims of a minority to subject every child in the country to a defilement of reality, it will become increasingly clear they do not serve us, but globalist ideological agendas. Impressionable young minds cannot be subjected to such ideas, it has no basis in morality, objectivity or reason. The advocates for such programs, unwilling to let a child be a child and learn such things later in life, are self serving in their aims, and care little for the majority of children who will be forced to comply and facilitate an entire ideology based on a single student in the class suffering from gender dysphoria. Children are impressionable, and it’s an accepted reality that children of smokers are more likely to take up smoking at a young age. This being true, why on earth would we allow the state to present a child with entirely confusing ideas? And they certainly are confusing, given adults cannot reach a consensus on the matter, why drag children into the issue. Children are not the testing ground for the ideology of those who refuse to accept reality, that is child abuse on a systemic level. Lastly I would highlight that the predatory ambiguity displayed by those who refuse to specify an age group, or indeed what will be taught to children, are deliberately leaving the door open to continue moving the goalposts. I find it strange people would advocate so enthusiastically for a thing it appears none of them can articulate. It demonstrates a frightening level of blind conformity among the ranks of those so eager to label any opposition with ad hominem.

The next demand, although they prefer to shroud it beneath the feel good slogan of “trans rights are human rights”, will again fail to qualify as a right. This demand involves medication and surgery related to sex changes. The operative term here being missed by many, a sex change. If gender is simply about how you feel or identify, and perceived societal roles, why do so many also desire or pursue sex changes? A curious feature given sex and gender have nothing to do with each other, allegedly. The trans movement would assert that they are not connected, yet it would appear the majority of trans people disagree, by virtue of the fact they subtly demand access to sex change procedures and hormones. They would also rather not admit that they feel the state should fund such operations, yet it is certainly what they want. To be clear, no person has a right to demand cosmetic surgery at the expense of the taxpayer. Trans people have nothing physically wrong with them, they are not in pursuit of healthcare, but cosmetic work to facilitate them changing their appearance. No man or woman has the right to have a nose job or breast implants funded by the taxpayer, why should a trans person be considered special or above this norm? Furthermore, it is an adults right to pursue anything they wish within the boundaries of the law, at their own expense. However, it is morally reprehensible to afford a child that same level of decision making responsibility. A persons brain has not fully developed until around 25 years of age, scientists have found. To imagine children have the awareness and self knowledge to make such consequential decisions while they potentially still want to be a mutant ninja turtle is the assertion of a person who no longer has any remnant of honesty remaining. I use this example because 32 children under 10 years of age were sent from Ireland to the Tavistock Gender Clinic in London. Trans activists also refuse to specify at what age they would see this ideology introduced to children. Implying that they would introduce anti scientific ideas to children before they have exited the total fantasy stage of tooth fairies and Easter Bunnys. This is incredibly irresponsible, negligent and intellectually disingenuous. We would tell a child that they cannot vote, smoke, consume alcohol or drive a car, but they can of course have ‘top surgery’ and remove their undeveloped breasts permanently.

Potentially the final demand, again cloaked by emotive statements pertaining to simply being recognised as women, has far reaching implications that once again do not come close to qualifying as a right. As a man, I do not have the right to choose to be imprisoned with women rather than men upon any conviction. Trans activists would have us believe that simply identifying as a woman, or having surgery is a qualifying act that now gives a man that right. The same can be said for sports, changing areas and other womens spaces. These spaces are off limits to me as a man, and no decision I make changes my rights in regards to these issues or spaces. Womanhood is being reduced to a choice. Half of the population of earth denied their objective existence, and told they must accept their sports, spaces and identity being appropriated. Any woman who resists is immediately labelled and attacked. It’s quite surreal, that a woman telling a man he cannot compete against her has been labelled the villain, and not the man seeking personal gain in womens sports. Recently the IRFU ruled that only women should play womens rugby, and rightly so. This triggered pandemonium among trans activists, who strangely enough are by and large, not trans. Trans people are after all a fractional minority, currently being massively over represented. Yet there are those in Ireland whose endless pursuit of virtue signalling activism has a desperate need to find new cause after new cause, instilling in them a sense of value and virtue they could not find without political footballs. Or it could be that many of Irelands activists are involved in NGOs who of late appear to hold more influential power over the government than the people who elected them. The people who told us to trust the science for two years apparently have no regard whatsoever for the scientifically verifiable physical differences in sporting performances between men and women. A trans woman has already broken female weight lifting records, but maybe she’s just really strong. A trans woman is breaking multiple womens cycling records, but maybe she’s just really fast. Will society need to reach a point where all womens sporting records are held by men who transitioned before we raise an eyebrow? Do we care nothing for preserving what women fought for, making clear it was something they wanted? And for what I ask, a borderline fanatical movement that chants and chants, labels and slanders, but never engages in reasonable debate regarding risks posed to women. We cannot allow such self centered and apathetic movements to push the everyday man and woman back any further, a line must be drawn.

In any case, it becomes clear that trans people have not been deprived of any rights. People in Ireland have equal rights, and trans rights are human rights is nothing more than a campaign of identity politics attempting to manipulate the people and the establishment into providing special treatment. There is no such thing as a trans right, anymore than there are Munster rights, brown hair rights or any other number of nonsensical assertions. Simply existing in a discernible group does not warrant extra rights that are not afforded to everyone else, that is not equality. Even womens rights in truth translated into equal rights with regards to the rights to vote, work and pursue education. It was merely shaped as womens rights because at the time they were indeed a group being deprived of equality. As we can surmise from the demands of the trans lobby, no equality has been denied, and no rights are lacking in truth. They’re simply lobbying for personal gain with regards to operations or hormone treatments, and the normalisation of gender dysphoria through an imposition of indoctrination at a young age on the next generation of children. This is not a civil or human rights matter, this is entirely motivated by a demand that all of us make a concerted effort to make trans people feel more comfortable in their choices. This is not a right or luxury afforded to anyone though, and the state has no genuine mandate to safeguard feelings or clamp down on free speech to prevent offence being taken. Least of all to appease a tiny minority at the expense of the overwhelming majority. Human rights are human rights, trans rights are a financial swindle and an ideological agenda. Reality must be protected from those who would happily reshape it over and over in their favour.