1./ Yesterday @jk_rowling expressed concern -again- over the rush to medicalise gay teens. Her concern is consistently misrepresented as "transphobic". If you're confused here's my beginner's guide to the 'gender identity' war and why JK is right. https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1279755418621878272?s=20

2./ It says something that much of the gay establishment looks on in professed bewilderment as a straight woman faces down online abuse in order to defend gay teens. Some just don't 'get' the threat she sees. Many more tell me or @ALLIANCELGB they fear speaking out.

3./ At the heart of the debate is the question of whether our society has truly put homophobia behind us or whether it's returned in a new woke form. We may have gay marriage, rights, politicians and celebs but deep under the surface does the old hate & loathing linger?

4./ A recent Newsnight suggests it does. It revealed some parents of kids at the Tavistock clinic would rather have a trans kid than a gay one even if it meant giving their child experimental drugs to stop their puberty (often a step to more serious and irreversible treatment)

5./ The parental logic was that at least a trans kid is a "straight" trans kid. This is the same logic that led Ayatollah Khomeini to embrace the idea of 'gender identity'. In Iran, gays are forced to have surgery to become "straight". Or executed. https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2019/04/04/why-iran-is-a-hub-for-sex-reassignment-surgery

6./ So what IS 'gender identity' and why is it promoted here in the UK as a progressive idea? In the 1950s the now discredited scientist John Money argued people might have a 'gender identity' different from their biological sex; a sex different from that of their body.

7./ This appealed to some who felt trapped by rigid sex stereotypes which policed how males and females were allowed to behave. Here's an ad from the time in which a woman dreams of a future in which baking a cake is push button easy. Such giddy ambition.

8./ It so happens that lots of gays have always been unwilling or unable to conform to stereotypes like these. Here's gay icon, Quentin Crisp describing the abuse he faced as an effeminate gay man. He was often asked "are you a man or woman, and had an inimitable answer

9./ And here's the wonderful April Ashley, the first person in the UK to have a sex change op, telling the same brilliant interviewer Mavis Nicholson about her upbringing in working class Liverpool where intense homophobia and loathing of effeminacy among boys was rife.

10./ I made a film with April 20 years ago and I suggested to her the desire to undergo a painful 7 hour operation might have been influenced by this extreme homophobia. She dismissed this and has always said she'd rather have died than not have the op.

11./ It was the charm and intelligence of transsexual pioneers like April that helped convince the public trans people needed strong legal protections which they did and do. No one should ever have to put up with the fear and appalling lack of respect that April experienced.

12./ The question is how we support a young April's desire to transition without making a young Quentin feel they should escape homophobia or internalised shame by transitioning. As a kid Quentin often thought he was female but realised the world should accept him as he was.

13./ Sometimes even he admitted (though he was never consistent on the subject) that he'd have had the operation himself to escape being a social pariah. But if everyone who is non conforming 'transitions' then wouldn't the sex stereotypes just end up reinforced?

14./ Quentin was radical in redefining what it was to be a man. But he openly admitted that he adored the most unrealistic stereotypes of 'womanhood' used to limit girls such as that of the ultra-feminine vamp ideal (a bit like that dancing lady in the 1950s ad).

15./ One of the problems with the idea of 'gender identity' is it does tend to end up reinforcing the stereotypes from which it was supposed to liberate us. So @Caitlyn_Jenner can opine "The hardest part about being a woman is figuring out what to wear." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/caitlyn-jenner-criticised-after-claiming-the-hardest-part-of-being-a-woman-is-figuring-out-what-to-a6730326.html

16./ The other problem was baked into the idea from the outset. John Money was clear the reason he took the word 'gender' from grammar and misused it in psychology was it sounded much more respectable than 'sex'. 'Sex identity' or "sex in your head" sounded too troubling.

17./ Though the trans movement disowned Money this distaste for 'mere' biology still runs through its argument. You see it in how abuse of feminists such as @jk_rowling exudes contempt for female biology as this compilation by @boodleoops reveals https://medium.com/@rebeccarc/j-k-rowling-and-the-trans-activists-a-story-in-screenshots-78e01dca68d

18./ It also expreses itself when some trans activists echo the accusations of 1950s homophobes by claiming gays are "genitally obsessed" by fancying our own sex. Here's one deploring the fact some gay men are "unable to see a vulva as masculine". Guilty as charged.

19./ Here's another arguing during Trans Pride that in the new world of gender spectrums "gay" can no longer exist. Note the dog collar. Old-fashioned religious distaste for sex has been re-invented as 'we're now told sexuality itself is "redundant".

20./ Given this contempt for gay people is it any wonder we're concerned what's being taught in schools? Here's teaching materials for 3-6 year olds from trans charity @GIRESUK about a "trans boy penguin" called Sally who wants to be Tom. Talk about catching them early.

21./ Here's a psychologist in a GIRES educational video openly lamenting that puberty blockers couldn't be given to a young feminine boy. It would have been "perfect" she claims if in effect the boy's normal physical maturation had been arrested. I know who I'd like arrested.

22./ Some activists argue the risk to "trans kids" of not getting puberty blockers is so great we have to make them freely available. But the study that's most often cited turns out to be both dodgy and proves the exact opposite. https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1222662489911058432

23./ Far from preventing suicide, blockers may increase serious attempts by trans people later in life. So even from the point of view of trans peeps it makes no sense to fast track prescription of these drugs. Never mind other teens. Yes @jk_rowling Is right to take a stance.

24./ So as a gay man am I glad @jk_rowling is defending the right of teens (whatever their eventual sexuality) to grow up without being told the only way to break gender stereotypes is to become the other gender? You bet I am. And so should you be too.

25./ Over 80% of teens who think they're trans change their mind after going through puberty. We need to support fully those teens who decide they ARE trans but not at the expense of the vast majority who are just exploring. It's not transphobic to protect them.