‘Gender Critical’ Activists Are Waging a Deadly War on Transgender Kids

There’s a direct line between ‘gender critical’ activism and increased rates of attempted suicide among trans youth

Photo by Delia Giandeini on Unsplash

If you haven’t heard of Helen Joyce, then you’re fortunate. She’s a British anti-trans figurehead, self-proclaimed ‘gender critical’ activist, and the Director of Advocacy for the UK-based anti-trans group Sex Matters.

She’s also pretty intent on eradicating trans people; I can say that with confidence because Joyce has a nasty habit of saying the quiet part out loud.

Joyce’s beliefs are representative of a broad coalition of ‘gender critical’ activists and others pushing anti-trans policies on both sides of the Atlantic.

Policies which are driving trans kids to suicide — a fact which the UK government has chosen to ignore.

“An end to the idea of the trans child”

Joyce has stated that transgender people are “a huge problem to a sane world” and favours “reducing or keeping down the number of people who transition”. 

Helen Joyce is about as transphobic as they come, and her views amount to wanting to eradicate trans people. 

She also has no idea what she’s talking about. Joyce has no background in gender studies, sex or gender, medicine, or even social policy or law. She’s an economist by trade.

An Australian federal judge stated that Joyce “has a PhD in mathematics, but does not have any formal education or qualifications even in biology, let alone in gender, sex or law, […] she is not an expert at all”.

She is a determined transphobe, though, and she has a plan, which she recently explained during a recent conference held by the US-based anti-trans group Genspect. 

In her speech at Genspect’s Lisob conference, Joyce talks about her roadmap to erasing trans people, including trans children, from public life.

She views attacks on transgender children and restrictions on their life-saving care — which she calls “tooth fairy medicine” (again, she has no medical qualifications) —  as a wedge used to justify attacks on the rights of transgender adults:

“No child gender medicine” means an end to the idea of the “trans child”. It means no longer teaching children that transitioning is a thing. It means that you can’t pretend that any boys are girls, or any girls are boys. And once you stop that pretence, it’s obvious what the words “boy” and “girl” mean in school rules and safeguarding.

And if you can’t let boys into girls’ spaces in school without endangering kids, and you can’t keep them out without being clear about who is actually a girl and who is a boy, then you can make the same argument for adults.

And just in case you thought that ‘gender critical’ groups like Genspect are concerned about trans youth and evidence-based care, Joyce makes clear that isn’t the issue:

I don’t want any more enabling of gender medicine. I don’t want a puberty-blocker trial or any more evidence reviews, because this is just Evil Tooth Fairy Medicine.

The goal is ending gender-affirming medicine and preventing transgender people from transitioning, even though the evidence points to its benefits and the harms of withholding such care. 

She goes on to explain that puberty blocker bans are just a means to an end, a rhetorical weapon in the wider anti-trans culture war being waged by ‘gender critical’ activists:

This is the real importance of the UK’s ban on puberty blockers. They’re not really a serious treatment option in the UK — I don’t think more than hundreds of kids have taken them, certainly not more than a few thousand. What they are is a rhetorical and argumentative device.

For anti-trans activists like Helen Joyce, banning puberty blockers is just a stepping stone in their wider agenda. But for the transgender young people affected, the bans are devastating — even deadly. 

Bans linked to suicide attempts

In recent weeks two separate studies in the US and the UK have shown the incredibly harmful impact that anti-trans laws have on the lives of transgender youth.

Research conducted by Wilson Y. Lee and colleagues of the Trevor Project in the US and published in the journal Nature analysed the causal impact of states enacting anti-trans laws on suicide risk among transgender young people aged 13–24.

What they found was shocking:

As a result of states enacting anti-transgender laws, TGNB young people aged 13–17 reported a 7–72% increase in the number of past-year suicide attempts, and TGNB young people aged 13–24 reported a 38–44% increase in the number of past-year suicide attempts. Similarly, states enacting anti-transgender laws led to TGNB young people aged 13–17 reporting 33–49% higher rates of at least 1 past-year suicide attempt and TGNB young people aged 13–24 reporting 25–27% higher rates.

In states that enacted anti-trans laws, including puberty blocker bans, there was a 7–72% rise in the number of suicide attempts and a 25–49% increase in the number of young people reporting at least one past year suicide attempt.

The impacts of anti-trans laws were most pronounced among those aged 13–17 — the group most likely to be prescribed puberty blockers before they were banned.

Separate research conducted by Natacha Kennedy at Goldsmiths, University of London interviewed parents of transgender young people who have been affected by the UK ban on puberty blockers introduced following the Cass Review.

Kennedy’s research provides an alarming account of the immediate and profound impact that the ban has had on young transgender people and their families:

 — My child was suicidal and has self-harmed many times as a way to express her emotional distress at the change in her access to gender affirming care. She felt life wasn’t worth living because she couldn’t begin her medical transition as planned.

 — My child feels despair, notions of suicide as puberty now accelerating and body changes seem so out of control and irreversible.

 — I have a child who has been suicidal, self-harming and has been unable to leave the house.

Contrast these responses with those from parents of transgender young people who have been able to continue accessing puberty blockers:

 — …we were able to access blockers which was amazing, she found light and where previously she felt so scared for her life. Her mental health grew with her confidence, knowing she wasn’t being pushed into a gender she didn’t identify as.

 — He no longer attempts suicide and has started going to school again.

 — A massive relief for my child after seeing them so distressed about changes to their body. They could go on living.

 — She was terrified of going through Male puberty and wanted to die. She is now a young girl with hopes.

The bans on gender-affirming care being pushed by both ‘gender critical’ activists and clinicians on either side of the Atlantic are causing immense harm to transgender youth. 

It has to stop

Despite evidence of the harm caused by bans, NHS England and the UK government have dismissed the concerns of families, transgender rights groups and NHS whistleblowers, and pushed ahead with extending the UK’s ban on puberty blockers.

Those calling for bans often claim they are doing so to reduce harm and protect children, referring to the existence of transgender people as nothing more than a “bizarre and harmful belief” (according to Helen Joyce). 

But trans youth aren’t an ideology or a belief, they’re just kids trying to get on with their lives. 

Instead, these young people are being harmed “due to the decisions made by people who this has zero impact on”, as one of the parents in Kennedy’s study put it.

As Kennedy highlights, even for those who don’t commit suicide, this level of trauma and psychological distress at such a young age will have a lasting impact on these young people’s lives well beyond this moral panic.

All of this is avoidable: all the government has to do is stop listening to ‘gender critical’ ideologues who are driven by transphobia. 

Many of these people, like Helen Joyce, are clear that their goal is the eradication of transgender people and that trans youth are merely collateral to them.

Others, like Hilary Cass, seem to think they’re doing the right thing — belying the fact that they value the lives of the tiny minority of cisgender youth who transition in error over the lives of the far greater number of trans youth who benefit from gender-affirming care.

Would they rather a child be traumatised for life simply because that child’s existence goes against their ideology, because of their bigotry?

Would they rather a child be dead than trans?

It appears that those responsible for banning gender-affirming medicine either don’t care or are simply unwilling to accept the reality of the harm they’re causing. 

These shouldn’t be the people making decisions about young trans people’s lives.

It has to stop.