Trans rights minorities have captured Britain’s institutions debunked

Trans rights minorities have captured Britain’s institutions – debunked

On Sunday, the 30th of March 2025, The Telegraph published an article headlined “Trans rights minorities have captured Britain’s institutions” – this is my response.

Firstly, the article frames the story around “biological sex” v (so-called) “gender ideology”.

The Amery and Mondon Review, ‘The Reactionary Strategies Of Organised Transphobia,‘ highlights how such a dichotomy is often used in reactionary strategies against the trans community.

By presenting Alice Sullivan as a defender of “biological truth” against a nebulous and negatively connoted “gender ideology”, the article participates in the ‘othering’ of those who hold different views on gender, potentially casting us as irrational or ideologically driven.

The Sullivan Review is positioned as a “crucial intervention” to liberate public bodies from “institutional capture” by “trans activists”, which resonates with Amery and Mondon’s analysis of how movements like the gender-critical portray trans advocates as wielding undue and harmful influence. The gender-critical movement is highly active in the UK and described by the human rights organisation The Lemkin Institute as : 

“simultaneously denies that transgender identity is real and seeks to eradicate it completely from society. Many gender critical ideologues identify themselves as feminists and believe themselves to be protecting women from men.

They accuse transgender women of being stealth men and of transgender men of being self-hating women. The movement, a centerpiece of right wing ascendancy in the Western world, calls for discrimination against and harrassment of transgender individuals and the transgender community through laws and policies that criminalize trans identity and trans life”. 

Secondly, The Telegraph article evokes a sense of “moral panic” by highlighting alleged dangers stemming from the recognition of self-identified gender. The truth is we all self-identify “to who we are” cisgender people, trans people, gay people, religious people…everyone. In this time of culture war politics (more accurately described as “persecution politics”), being trans is far from easy. Indeed, the journey itself is one of the most challenging journeys in humanity.

Claims about “criminals – including sex offenders – being permitted to choose a self-identified ‘gender’ rather than be identified by their biological sex” and schools changing children’s gender on IT systems “often without consulting the parents“, contribute to anxieties about safety.

Amery and Mondon discuss how narratives that depict trans people and their rights as a threat to societal values are central to mobilising transphobic sentiment.

Thirdly, the term’ trans militants’ is used in the article to describe those of us who are perceived to be aggressive or uncompromising in our advocacy for trans rights. This aligns with how reactionary discourses often demonise trans advocacy groups, contributing to their ‘othering’ and delegitimisation.

The description of some trans individuals’ responses as a “binary response” that has landed Britain in a “nonsensical quagmire” further paints trans advocates as unreasonable and obstructive.

The article brands the human rights organisation TransActual as being one of the “trans militants” – the reality is that the Chair is Helen Belcher OBE, a respected British politician, and the organisation does excellent work, specifically concerning the healthcare of trans people. They are in no way “militant” at all. 

The article emphasizes the need for ‘accurate data on sex’ for purposes such as understanding crime statistics and patient safety. However, this seemingly neutral argument is part of a broader strategy that seeks to erase or marginalize the significance of gender identity in various social contexts.

The fact is that trans men and trans women represent just 0.16% of the England and Wales population, a number so small, given there are circa 60 million people in E&W, that it will barely register as a statistic, given the margin of error is often calculated at one percent. 

Amery and Mondon discuss how specific political strategies aim to remove trans people from the category of “the people” by prioritising biological sex over lived gender identity in ways that deny trans individuals full recognition and rights.

Finally, the sympathetic portrayal of Sullivan and the framing of her work as a fight against “ideological capture” can be seen as aligning with reactionary popularism.

By presenting Sullivan as a voice of “common sense” against a perceived elite or “activist” influence, the article potentially appeals to a broad audience who may feel that mainstream institutions have been swayed by “gender ideology”, a phrase which was initially used against feminists in our fight for gender equality with men.

These days, the meaning has changed and is used to dehumanise trans people and is explicitly used by far-right evangelical organisations such as The Heritage Foundation and The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a named SPLC hate group.

SPLC are the organisation that bankrupted the racist organisation the Ku Klux Klan and is one of the most respected human rights organisations in the world.

While the British public hears nothing from our mainstream media about the ADF, they are highly active behind the scenes in British politics. They last reported an income of over 1.3 million pounds to Companies House.

The Heritage Foundation, with its close ties to the Conservative Party and the right-wing, is a key player in this. People like Badenoch, Dowden, and Truss have all spoken at their events. Heritage is the principal author of Project 2025, a policy being enacted by the Trump regime to remove diversity, equity and inclusion and the human rights of LGBT people and women’s rights to bodily autonomy.

Judith Woods, the journalist who wrote The Telegraph article, didn’t tell you that, did she? 

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