Boris Johnson Seeking to Ban Sex-Change Surgeries for Children
UK government concerned kids under 18 are too young to 'transition' gender
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Boris Johnson's government is seeking to ban life-altering sex-change surgeries for children in the UK, according to reports.
The British govt is reportedly concerned about the rising number of minors being referred for gender "transition" surgery after being diagnosed as "transgender."
Liz Truss, the UK Minister for Women and Equalities, has announced that Prime Minister Johnson's government will be taking steps to ban children from undergoing such surgeries before age 18, according to The Telegraph.
The United Kingdom has seen a breathtaking spike of children with gender dysphoria identifying as transgender in recent years.
Back in 2018, the British government vowed to investigate why there was a 4,000 percent increase in children seeking to “transition” in less than a decade.
The UK press has also drawn attention to the fact that many who have chosen to transition to the opposite gender have gone on to regret their decision.
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At the moment, children under age 18 are permitted to begin “transitioning” as long as they have parental permission, according to LifeSite News.
Truss has now stated, however, that the Conservative Party government plans to ban “genital reconstructive surgery” in order to “protect them from making those irreversible decisions” — at least until they are older.
Trans groups, unsurprisingly, have pushed back, claiming that preventing children from making a decision that will dictate the course of the rest of their lives - before they are legally allowed to drink, smoke, or vote - is introducing “a new form of inequality into British medical practice.”
A representative of the trans group Mermaids, an organization that claims to support transgender children, stated that this inequality was transparent due to the fact that such a ban would be “effectively treating transgender teenagers as less capable than their cisgender peers.”
This criticism rather misses the point, as presumably, this ban would prevent anyone under 18, regardless of how they choose to identify, from undergoing sex-change surgery.
The government appears to reject that view, however.
Truss says that the move was aimed at “making sure that the under 18s are protected from decisions they could make, that are irreversible in the future …
"I believe strongly that adults should have the freedom to lead their lives as they see fit, but I think it’s very important that while people are still developing their decision-making capabilities that we protect them from making irreversible decisions.”
The details of the government’s plans have not yet been revealed (and won’t be until summer), and Truss only indicated that this is the path currently being planned while giving evidence to the Women and Equalities Select Committee earlier this month regarding reforms to the Gender Recognition Act.
In addition to the proposed ban, Truss also stated that the government will be moving to protect “single-sex spaces,” which seems to indicate a willingness to ensure that simply identifying as female will not be enough to access female-only facilities.
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According to The Telegraph, Truss stated that the government would be working to protect transgender rights “whilst maintaining the proper checks and balances in the system.”
This, of course, will not be good enough for trans activists, who state vehemently that denying biological males identifying as female access to female-only spaces, expressing concern that the transgender phenomenon among children is unprecedented and dangerous, and that saying “transition” — especially when pursued at a young age — can destroy lives renders you an ugly transphobe.
The government will be facing a firestorm from the LGBTQ movement in the months ahead, as this proposal marks one of the first significant government pushbacks to their agenda in years.
While Johnson’s Conservative government appears to be willing to actually implement a common-sense agenda on this issue, the trans movement is sure to utilize every weapon in their arsenal — and there are many — to stop this from actually becoming a reality.
The good news is that the majority of people feel that the trans movement has gone too far on many fronts, and if the government presents its case as calmly and as reasonably as Truss has thus far, this is a fight they can win.
And if it can be done in the United Kingdom, it can be done elsewhere.
We should all be watching these developments very closely.
