Postmodern biology and the confused child

I doubt that there could be many within our society who remain unfamiliar with the lexical playground of transgender terminology. It is a playground in which bullying is rife and a refusal to play the game can lead to social and professional exclusion at best or a criminal record at worst. Phrases such as ‘her penis’ and ‘his bonus hole’ may seem like playful and inventive ways of promoting inclusivity and tolerance but the truth is that coercion, backed up with a threat of societal oppression, lies at the heart of the matter. Those amongst us who are outraged by the violence done to the dictionary by transgender activists would do well to reflect upon the far greater damage we do to our own society when we take liberties with scientifically established realities and replace them with a postmodern subjectivity that ascribes primacy to self-identification. It is a damage that threatens to divide society but, moreover, it is a damage that manifests itself in the societal endorsement of physical, emotional and psychological abuse of our children in the name of medical intervention.

The postmodernist foundations for the transgender movement can be easily discerned when one consults the glossaries that have been produced to promote ‘correct’ speech. Take, for example, the glossary produced by Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust, in partnership with the LGBT Foundation. Billed as the ‘Language to use when supporting trans men and/or non-binary people’, we find the following key definitions. For ‘Gender Identity’ we read:

“There are lots of societal and cultural expectations about how people of different genders should behave, but gender is often an innate sense of self and personal identity. This is sometimes referred to as gender identity.”

And for ‘Sex’ we read:

“A label assigned at birth that is based on a person’s sex traits or characteristics.”

Note here that an ‘innate sense’ is being contrasted with a mere ‘label’. Scientific details such as sex traits or characteristics are downgraded in importance since they do nothing more than justify a labelling. Biological reality is portrayed as a superficial designation and there is no mention of anything here being innate. For that one has to refer instead to a ‘sense of self’ held by the individual. However, this is not a harmless shift of ontology but a profoundly dangerous change of priorities that leads to the abandonment of the precepts of evidence-based medicine. Anticipating the release of the recent Cass Review, retired professor of political philosophy and social theory, Heather Brunskell-Evans, wrote in ‘The Violence of Postmodern “Gender Identity” Medicine’:

The GIDS [Portman Hospital Trust Gender Identity Development Service] dogged commitment to “thinking postmodern” but claiming to practice evidence-based medicine is a contradiction in terms. Firstly, sex is not “assigned” but is a biological fact. Secondly, science cannot be applied to a phenomenon for which there is no objective test, and where the diagnosis is not provided by the clinician but by listening to the voice of the child.

But the real tragedy is that such postmodern logic is then used to justify the adjustment of sex traits and characteristics to fall in line with the supposed primacy of self-identification. And this is not a benign alignment process, involving as it does transformative and broadly irreversible medical interventions performed upon the most vulnerable of our society – our children and young adults. According to Brunskell-Evans:

The postmodern paradigm has brought about a concomitant shift in the classification of the patient from a child who suffers “gender dysphoria” to a child who is “transgender”. Yet the practice of putting children on a medical pathway brings severe, life-long consequences including bone/skeletal impairment, cardiovascular and surgical complications, reduced sexual functioning, and infertility.

We as adults are at liberty to indulge in whatever wordplay we desire, and engage in whatever culture wars we see fit. But when the mutilation of our children becomes a metric of our success there can be no justification. Postmodernism may be upheld by some as an intellectual ideal, but it is an idealism that cannot be allowed to harm the vulnerable. The alacrity with which transgenderism sacrifices our next generation on the altar of postmodernism is quite shocking. But transgenderism is by no means the most shocking example.

Postmodern climatology and the confused child

Irrespective of the extent to which climatology is based upon established scientific fact, there remains the important issue as to whether there is sufficient uncertainty to challenge the taking of high stake decisions with an assumed imperative for urgency. This uncertainty, combined with a backdrop of disputed values, places climatology firmly within the province of post-normal science. As such, climatology requires that the traditional scientific ideal of ‘truth’ be replaced with a relativism that reflects the subjectivity of epistemic uncertainty and the differing perspectives of stakeholders. A more democratic attitude towards the science is therefore appropriate in which the risk appetite of stakeholders bears upon their acceptance or otherwise of arguments for and against the various courses of action proposed. In this respect, practical climatology, as played out in a political arena, has more than an element of postmodernism about it.

It is interesting to note that when one searches online for a recognition of such postmodernism, it can be found but only because people are concerned that it gives rise to an unhelpful level of climate change ‘denial’. There is concern that the severity of crisis has not been universally accepted, and yet there is little concern that postmodern thinking can lead to an exaggeration of the threat. Furthermore, there is little concern that the exaggeration is all too often aimed at an impressionable audience that is ill-equipped to deal with the anxieties that accompany a crisis narrative. Indeed, when it comes to our children, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that such anxieties have been cynically promoted in order to sow the seeds of attitudinal change and to place greater pressure upon society as a whole. As such, one cannot accept childhood eco-anxiety as a natural and unavoidable consequence of the environmental threats we confront. It should instead be seen as the result of an abuse of trust placed in adults.

A troubling insight into how this plays out can be found in a recent news report issued by the charity, Save the Children. In that report, chief executive Gwen Hines states:

The level of anxiety children feel about the world they are growing up in is alarming but warranted. Children should be excited about the future but instead they are carrying the weight of huge global issues which they had no part in creating. We need to listen to children and start taking serious action on the climate crisis and growing inequality. 

Caroline Hickman, a lecturer at the University of Bath, psychotherapist and climate anxiety expert, is quoted as saying:

Why wouldn’t children worry when they look at the state the world is currently in? An increase in climate disasters, on track to become worse, and deepening inequality. They are aware this is the world they are growing up in, and it seems no one is taking their concern seriously.

The children themselves are quoted as saying:

We feel powerless and scared. The government must do more.

Throughout the report, the same message is maintained – we did nothing as adults to inculcate this anxiety, the children worked it all out for themselves. But now we must look to them for our leadership.

So not only are children scared for their future, they are also burdened with the expectation of encouraging behavioural change, and if they fail in that endeavour, who is to blame? By feeding them with the climate crisis narrative, and then feigning humility in the face of juvenile wisdom, we have not only robbed them of their sense of security and well-being, we have robbed them of their childhood. Climate sceptics are accused of being ridiculous when they refer to this as child abuse, but I struggle to find a better term for it.

The protected child

We as adults create the environment in which our children are nurtured. It should be an environment in which free access to societal wisdom is a given. However, when we substitute wisdom with ideology and encourage our children to value subjectivity over objectivity we do them no favours. There is nothing more calculated to imbue a child with a sense of fear and confusion than to prematurely place upon that child the responsibilities and freedoms associated with adulthood. Taking the view that the prerogatives of postmodernism apply just as much to the immature mind as they do to the worldly wise has led us to a world in which childhood mutilation and crippling anxiety are deemed understandable and acceptable. This should be a clear red flag that something has gone horribly wrong, and we must be prepared to question whether a postmodern world really is a world we should keep away from our children.