‘T+’ - The Dust Cart We Thought Was A Wedding

Why some of us are no longer ‘proud’ to be part of Pride

“You know what thought did, don’t you? Followed a dust cart and thought it was a wedding”

It’s one of those phrases my mum used to say when I was a kid. About getting the wrong idea about something.

Recently, the phrase has come into my mind with regard to the ‘T’ of ‘trans’ added to the LGB movement.

The way well intentioned heterosexuals like myself got behind it, naively following the crowd thinking it was something to be celebrated - a ‘wedding’.

I grew up in the 80’s. Although we had openly gay pop stars like Boy George, it was still a time when many LGB people felt shame and dread about their sexuality and ‘coming out’. Despite the undeniable hard earned progress made in earlier decades, it was not uncommon for parents to cut off contact with their homosexual offspring. Being open about one’s sexuality could affect employment and where you lived. Abuse was common place and discrimination rife. Whenever gay couples were on TV, it was never incidental to the story, their ‘controversial’ relationship WAS the plot-line.

Like thousands of other Gen X straights, when I came of age in the 90s, I attended Pride events……with pride.

I supported the marches, attended a Pride carnival. I even have a vague memory of being on one of the floats with a gay friend.

I was (and remain)…..

Proud to stand in solidarity with gay, lesbian and bisexual friends, colleagues and family members.

Proud of what the movement had achieved and would go on to achieve.

Proud to call myself an ally.

But like all good gatherings, there’s always some late-to-the-party randomer who turns up and makes it all about them, isn’t there? THEIR feelings.

Enter the Alphabet Soup crowd, aka T+

Average Joes and Josephines like me, were a little slow on the uptake. We didn’t take much notice of ‘T’ or the letters that came next. We thought it must be similar to what we’d always supported - about persecuted minorities asserting themselves. Equality. Being on ‘the right side of history’.

We made assumptions.

We didn’t read the small print.

Who doesn’t wanna support the underdog?

The Davids to society’s Goliath?

Our workplaces began to embrace it too. Becoming ‘inclusive’.

So…..that meant it must be good, right?

Suddenly, there were flags we hadn’t seen before, demands for certain pronouns to be used. More labels than a jam factory. The movement became less about rights and more about glossy banners and pandering to preference.

And over time, that small print we’d failed to notice, got bigger and bigger.

Those who’d added it, got louder and louder.

Screamed, tantrummed and diva’d.

Then, and only then, did people like myself begin to look a little closer, ask questions, scrutinise. What did ‘inclusion’ actually include?

What were the new demands about?

Who were the ‘T+’ crowd?

If those we had previously supported had absorbed their cause, it must be legit, right?

But not all had. Many in the LGB community were angry at what the ‘T+’ was turning it into.

At what organisations like Stonewall were doing in order to keep themselves relevant and save their own bacon. A split had occurred. A split that most were unaware of.

By that point the damage was already being done.

By clinics like Tavistock that worked with vulnerable young people with mental health problems.

By bodies like ‘Common Purpose’ infiltrating our public services with ideology.

By charities like Mermaids indoctrinating school children and their well meaning parents.

And now - better late than never - many of us are starting to understand what trans ideology actually means and see its long term effects. Unlike the LGB movement, which is about accepting and celebrating same sex/dual sex attraction, the trans movement looks to erase biological realities and validate imaginary identities. What’s more, it insists YOU do too!

And we realise we’ve been taken for a ride.

Compassion capitalised upon.

Lines blurred between sex and gender, sexuality and identity.

We were sold a ‘wedding’ - joyous, unifying.

We wanted it to be a wedding.

About love. An extension of what we knew.

From where we stood, our eyes glazed from previous victories, it looked like one. The smiles, the fancy clothes, the bright colours.

We got instead, a dust cart. A vehicle taking us somewhere much darker and grubbier.

A cause that degrades the sacredness of human bodies by stunting, numbing and butchering them.

A cause that denies biological sex.

A cause that threatens the well earned rights of women and safety of children.

A cause that destabilises the LBG movement - the very coat tails it rode in on.

The cause célèbre unmasked, a cause macabre.

I can no longer be proud of Pride.

Let me be clear, I wish no hate on anyone but cannot align myself with those values.

Many will continue to wish the T+ movement well.

They’ll throw their congratulatory alphabetti confetti all the way to the rubbish dump.

Convincing themselves self loathing is a beautiful church.

Convincing themselves the putrid stench of mutilation is that of aromatic bouquets.

Others, have lifted the veil.

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