There has been plenty of good news from the frontlines of the fight against gender ideology recently, but despite the pizzazz of the Trump executive orders, the developments I am most interested in are coming from the United Kingdom.
The U.K., like Canada, has a political situation in which both major parties have been largely agreed on the correct approach to social issues for years: Avoid them at all costs. It was Tory prime minister David Cameron, recall, who championed same-sex “marriage,” not the Labour Party.
Thus, the growing consensus on gender ideology in the U.K. has been fascinating to watch. After the bombshell Cass Review revealed the dangers of so-called “gender-affirming care,” the Tory government passed an emergency ban on puberty blockers. In July 2024, the England High Court of Justice rejected an attempt by LGBT activist groups to block the law, and ruled the ban lawful. An attempt by the British Medical Association to have the ban lifted was rewarded with condemnation from over 1,000 doctors and hundreds of resignations. Many trans activists hoped that the new far-left Labour government, which came to power that same month, might turn things around.
Then, in December, the Labour government announced that the ban on puberty blockers for minors would be made permanent. It is difficult to overstate the significance of this. The Labour Party has been in lockstep with the LGBT movement for years. For Labour to decide that they would back legislation that trans activists insist will lead to an epidemic of youth suicides, they had to receive overwhelming evidence that backing the trans agenda was harmful and possibly politically suicidal in the long-term. In short, despite all attempts by trans activists to discredit the findings of the Cass Review, the U.K.’s most prominent progressive party rejected a key pillar of the trans agenda.
It appears they may be going even further. According to a Daily Mailreport on February 9:
Labour has scrapped plans to make it easier to legally change gender, it was reported last night. The party had controversially pledged to change the process by replacing the panel of doctors and lawyers who approve gender recognition certificates with a registrar system. But ministers now expect such reforms to “go away” quietly, according to The Times. The move is believed to be part of efforts to counter the polling surge of Reform UK.
In short, Labour is undergoing the same crisis that the American Democrats are experiencing. Until now, they have backed the LGBT movement. But now, the trans agenda is a political millstone, and they are being forced to make some thorny decisions. As the Mailnoted:
Insiders suggest that the election of Donald Trump – who has taken a tough line on gender issues – has also contributed to Labour softening its own position. During the election campaign, Labour said it would make it easier to obtain a gender recognition certificate – which allows trans people to have their affirmed gender legally recognised – by letting a single doctor sign off on it instead of two. They also intended to drop the requirement that a person must live as their preferred gender for two years before obtaining a certificate. But they were not included in the King’s Speech setting out the Government’s priorities, and are now believed to have been shelved.
This is very revealing. Indeed, one source inside the Labour government told the Times that if Labour wants to push back against Farage’s rising Reform UK, they need to focus on real problems “rather than reforms to the Gender Recognition Act which would be catnip for Farage.” That, of course, is true. But it also highlights another important fact: most progressives never truly believed in gender ideology to begin with. If they did, how could they abandon a group facing an alleged “trans genocide” for votes?
One of two things is true: either progressives don’t believe there is such a “trans genocide” (which, as Madison Smith pointed out in his essay in The Critic titled “Neither marginalized, abused, nor vulnerable”), or they do believe it and just decided they no longer care. Neither option makes them look very good. For the record, I believe it is the former.
Donald Trump targeting gender ideology is one thing. The U.K. Labour government pivoting away from the transgender movement is another thing entirely. Because when progressives start to abandon the trans Titanic, you know that the “vibe shift” is real.
