Scottish Government is fostering a cult of gender-identity ideology that is destroying lives – Susan Dalgety

Is it right that a mother can be referred to social work for the ‘unintended emotional abuse’ of her daughter for refusing to accept she is now a boy?

Hurrah! Scotland has another world first. On Thursday morning, as health secretary Michael Matheson was preparing for his parliamentary statement sacrificing his sons on the sacred altar of ambition, the Scottish Government published yet another action plan. I know, I know, it must be at least three days since the last government action plan rolled off the St Andrew’s House printing press.

A recent survey by think tank Our Scottish Future revealed that the Scottish Government published a strategy every three or four days. And there were 669 consultations last year. Aren’t our civil servants busy bees? Talking of which, one of the government’s publications last year was Scotland’s Honey Bee Health Strategy: Implementation Plan, which apparently follows in the steps of the first strategy published in 2010. But I digress.

On Thursday, to the delight of LGBT+ charity Stonewall UK, the Scottish Government published its Non-Binary Equality Action Plan. Stonewall could not contain its euphoria, taking to social media to applaud the government on “becoming the first government in the world to publish a time-bound range of deliverable actions specifically for non-binary people”.

Non-binary people? For those readers unsure what that means, the Scottish Government’s paper has a helpful definition. It reads: “Throughout this plan we use the term non-binary person to define someone who identifies as having a gender which is in-between or beyond the two categories ‘man’ and ‘woman’, as fluctuating between ‘man’ and ‘woman’, or as having no gender, either permanently or some of the time.”

As someone who fluctuates between being a grumpy old woman and an energetic professional in their prime, depending on the weather and my mood, I get it. A non-binary person can be someone who is sometimes a man and sometimes a woman, depending on the weather and their mood.

But then the authors confuse me (I identified as a grumpy old woman when I read the plan) by constantly referring to ‘trans and non-binary people’. Isn’t trans different from non-binary? Or I am just too old to understand? Worse, have I turned into my dad, who in 1972 declared that I was queer (he meant strange) for fancying David Bowie. “He wears make-up, for **** sake,” he growled from behind his newspaper.

Thankfully the kind people at the Scottish Government anticipated my bewilderment and offered an explanation: “Many non-binary people consider themselves to be part of the wider trans community and this definition aligns to that used by LGBTQI+ equality organisations. However, we know that not all non-binary people consider themselves to be trans. As many of the issues that are faced by non-binary people in this plan are also faced by trans people who are not non-binary, we have used ‘trans and non-binary people’, where relevant.”

Well, that’s clear. Did Michael Matheson help draft this plan? Some non-binary people are trans and some are not. But however they identify, non-binary people (and some trans folk) now have their own action plan, which promises government action in six areas: participation in decision-making; access to services and IT systems; data and research; healthcare; sport; and children and young people.

I am personally disappointed that one of the early ideas put forward by civil servants has been ditched. During 2021, as the pandemic ravaged our economy, destroyed our children’s education and killed thousands of people, a team of around 40 civil servants held 20 meetings over 12 months with non-binary campaigners and others to discuss what should go in the plan.

One bright wag, who is probably tipped as the next Permanent Secretary, suggested the Book of Non-Binary Identity where, and I am quoting directly from a government paper, “a non-binary person could pay a fee to enter their name in the Book. A formal acknowledgement would be provided, recognising the entry. However the Book would not (unlike the Birth Register) have any legal significance.”

Even the most strident activists baulked at this suggestion and ‘the Book’ was quietly filed under ‘Bats**t Crazy Ideas 2021 Volume 6’. But that still left plenty of scope for thinking out of the box. One of the action points in the plan is for the Scottish Government to encourage sports to “think in innovative and creative ways to ensure nobody is left out” which was music to my (deaf) ears. As a 67-year-old, overweight, clumsy woman, I may yet realise my ambition to play for Hibs. After all, why should I be left out?

Earlier this week I spent time with a mother whose teenage daughter has been caught up in the cult of gender ideology. Through tears, she told me of how her once close-knit family has been ripped apart, not by her daughter’s belief that she is trans and non-binary, but by the so-called professionals who affirmed her new – and constantly – changing identity.

At one point the mother was referred to social work by an NHS therapist because of her “unintended emotional abuse” of her daughter. Her ‘crime’? She refused to accept her teenage daughter was now a boy.

There are hundreds – perhaps thousands – of homes in Scotland where desperate parents are struggling to cope as their adolescent children go through an identity crisis. An identity crisis encouraged by activist politicians, underpinned by Scottish Government ‘action plans’ and lauded by a middle-class, liberal elite who think that young girls binding their breasts is progress.

I mock the Scottish Government’s Non-Binary Equality Action Plan, not because I am a grumpy old woman or even a self-identified trans-exclusionary radical feminist (Terf), but because in the real world, the one outside the gilded corridors of St Andrews House and Holyrood, the cult of gender-identity ideology is destroying lives. Children are being sacrificed in the name of ‘equality, inclusion and human rights’. I eagerly await the Scottish Government’s action plan on dealing with this actual crisis.