There is a mental health crisis taking place in the uk among children and young people, especially girls. According to most established accounts of the development of mh problems, this implies that we should be looking very carefully at the material conditions of their lives and the stressors that they are being exposed to. Instead of this we are seeing a proselytisation of genderist ideology which attributes distress entirely to internal processes, and while already inadequate mh services have been dismantled yet further during the last 8 years of austerity, in their place we are developing a booming industry in hugely invasive puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries.
We know that genderist ideology is regressive in its attitude to stereotyped sex roles and homosexuality. But on top of that I suggest that it's playing an extremely regressive role in obscuring the true causes of burgeoning distress and preventing us from naming and solving them.
There are a lot of very good reasons for children in our society to be extremely distressed. Domestic violence, abuse, bullying, being socialised as a subordinate female, believing yourself to be a failure as an insufficiently masculine male, objectification and sexualisation, relentless academic pressure, poverty and its consequences of chronic stress, constant crisis and lack of opportunity. These traumas arise from patriarchy, inequality and austerity, which contribute to toxic relations within the family, the workplace and the community, and make people, including children, ill.
I suggest that when the distress of our children is attributed to the novel and quasi-religious construct of 'being born in the wrong body' this is a massive red herring that is distracting us from developing a meaningful (but politically disruptive) understanding of the material conditions that are directly causing this distress. Having to constantly debate the reality of 'gender identity' is preventing us from developing a disruptive alternative analysis.
I would like to begin a different conversation about these issues.