The left must realise that Donald Trump's gender views strike a chord with voters

A sexual abuser who treats women as commodities. But on Monday evening, only hours after he was sworn in as the 47th President of the United States and arguably became the world’s most powerful man, he signed an executive order that is one of the most sensible pieces of public policy to come out of the United States in a generation.

His proclamation on sex and gender may have an unwieldy title – “Defending Women from Gender Ideology and Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” – but its core message is simple: a woman is an adult human female. A statement of fact that in recent years has been dismissed as bigotry by a succession of leading progressive politicians, both in the USA and here in Scotland.

Biological reality of sex

Who can forget former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon dismissing the views of women’s rights campaigners as “not valid”? Or Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisting that some women have penises. And worst of all, Scottish Green MSP Maggie Chapman suggesting, in parliament, that children as young as eight should be able to change their legal sex.

Trump’s executive order highlights what women’s rights campaigners have tried for a decade to explain to left-leaning MSPs and MPs – that the erasure of the biological reality of sex “fundamentally attack[s] women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being”. And as it points out, truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, even trust in government in itself.

But for a decade, the truth in Scotland was obscured by progress flags, ignored by politicians and public bodies more interested in winning plaudits from trans activists than listening to the concerns of ordinary people.

‘Trying not to offend’

Trump’s stout defence of material reality and women’s rights may have its roots in electoral opportunism. According to online newspaper The Free Press, his campaign’s TV ad with the tagline “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you” may go down in history as one of the most effective campaign slogans ever devised. And in the aftermath of the Democrats’ defeat, some of their elected representatives were quick to blame the party’s enthusiastic support for trans rights as one of the reasons for their loss.

Democrat member of Congress, Representative Seth Moulton, told the New York Times that his party had spent too much time “trying not to offend anyone”. He said: “I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

But even if Trump’s support for women’s rights is nothing more than cynical, transactional politics, it chimes with millions of blue-collar Americans, fed up being told they are bigots because of their mainstream views on human biology. Research by the US-based think tank the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) shows that, contrary to what some progressives might argue, most working-class Americans do not want to discriminate against LGBT people.

But as PPI’s founder Will Marshall points out, they do oppose children being able to make decisions around transitioning themselves and they also want to have conversations about whether trans people can play on single-sex sports teams.

50-fold increase in gender dysphoria

As the polls here show, an increasing number of voters are turning to the Reform party led by Nigel Farage, another populist with a sizeable ego and, unsurprisingly, close to Trump. Surely it is time for UK politicians, from Holyrood to Westminster, to stop blaming people for shifting to the right, and instead examine why voters are fed up of being told they are on the wrong side of a culture war, one that was started by progressives in lieu of tackling tough challenges like the housing emergency and a stagnant economy.

And so-called progressive politicians need to examine their conscience about the terrible impact their enthusiastic support for gender identity theory has had on the nation’s children.

Only yesterday, an analysis of GP records in England published by the BMJ suggests there has been a 50-fold increase in the number of children diagnosed with gender dysphoria over the past decade. In 2011, there were about 200 young people under 18 treated for distress about their gender identity. In 2021, that had jumped to more than 10,000, with twice as many girls suffering as boys.

Sex matters

A study in Scotland would likely reveal a similar story – an epidemic of gender distress fuelled by Scottish Government guidance that, as campaign group For Women Scotland pointed out in a recent report, urges teachers to affirm a gender-distressed child in their self-determined “gender identity” and facilitate a “social transition” by agreeing to them changing their pronouns and using opposite-sex toilets and changing rooms.

Trump’s administration recognises the link between school guidance and gender distress. His executive order demands that the US Department of Education’s guidance documents on gender identity, such as “Supporting Transgender Youth in School”, be rescinded immediately, as they are inconsistent with America’s new policy that there are two sexes, male and female, which are “not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality”.

It may be too late for the left here to stop the drift of voters to populist politicians such as Farage, despite being warned that their betrayal of women’s rights was, in part, responsible for driving people away. But it is not too late to save the real victims of this ridiculous culture war – our children. And you don’t have to like Donald Trump to agree with him that sex matters.