alice wonderland tea party
Is the Mayor of London really the Mayor of London? I take it to be self-evident that he is, since he stood for election back in 2016, beating his nearest rival, Zac Goldsmith, by winning 56.8% of the vote. The election was real. The votes were real. The victory was real. It all really happened.

Yet according to his worldview, others may also be the Mayor of London (more on that at the bottom). Here is what he said in a Tweet this week:
"Trans women are women.
Trans men are men.
Non-binary people are non-binary.
All gender identities are valid."
Which can be paraphrased as:
"Up is down.
Left is right.
Nothing actually means anything.
Anything may mean something else."
I have a few questions for the Mayor. If a "trans" woman is a "woman", when did that person become a woman? Was it at the point that they simply declared it to be so? Or was it at some point after hormone treatment and surgery? At which point does such a person who was not a woman "become" one? Is there an objective, falsifiable, scientific test and definition?

This leads on to an even more crucial question for the Mayor: What actually is a woman? Can you define this anymore? What actually is a man? Any guesses?

To most people brought up before the world went mad, the answer to these questions is not hard. But to those who have imbibed the Mayor of London's worldview, not only is it very hard, but there is in fact no answer. How could there be? If a person who is not a woman can become one simply by choosing to be one and then declaring themselves to be one, then there can no longer be any objective definition of "woman" or "man". They are meaningless words. Many congratulations to those involved. You've managed to destroy meaning, reality, womanhood and manhood all in one foul swoop. You must be so proud.

So where does the Mayor's worldview lead? Dawn Butler, a member of the Labour Party — now the Party of the Woke-ing Class — and the Shadow Minister for Women and Equality, has stepped forward to show us where. Taking the ideology even closer to its logical (read: illogical) conclusion, when asked the following question by the presenter of Good Morning Britain, Richard Madeley:
"When a child is born, they are identified and observed in a particular sex aren't they?"
She replied:
"A child is born without sex, a child is formed without sex in the beginning."
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha," cackled the small child hysterically. "The Shadow Women and Equalities Minister has no clothes." And the crowd nervously held its collective breath deciding whether to howl along with the same horse laugh as the child, or to tut-tut at his naive stupidity in believing that the sex of a person can be identified objectively. What did the authorities and the fashions of the day demand of them? However, before they could make their decision, the boy was hauled off in front of their very eyes by the Tolerance Police to a Transphobia Correction Centre, where his erroneous views were dealt with in a safe and calming environment. Suffice to say, he now professes to love Big Sister (who used to be a Brother, but it's a long story and all that), and the crowd remained silent.

Back to the Labour frontbencher who believes that children are born without an identifiable sex. She lumped disagreement with this in with what she called "dog-whistle transphobia".

Hear that ye midwives from the very dawn of human history until this exciting time of great enlightenment! Hear that ye who have based your proclamations "It's a girl" or "It's a boy" on the existence or otherwise of dangly bits! Hear that ye millions of dog-whistle transphobes who have had the audacity to proclaim with certainty on the sex of a newborn as you have watched child after child coming into the world. Turns out you were wrong all along, and it took until 2020 and the Shadow Women and Equalities Minister to come and set you straight, ushering in the new reality which evaded you all and which can now finally set humanity on the right path at last.

Of course, according to the MP's worldview, no doubt all the sarcasm you may have spotted in the preceding paragraphs is surely a result of my dog-whistle this-and-that phobia. Oh well. Just to let them know, I've decided not to care two hoots what labels they decide to attach to those who point out their folly, and the words "duck", "water" and "back" spring to mind. Yet even so, it is clearly better to be falsely labelled a transphobe than it is to be a "realityphobe", which appears to be Ms Butler's particular issue.

By the way the likes of Ms Butler talk, you'd think they'd just made some amazing scientific discovery that has somehow been missed throughout the centuries. To the contrary. Their waffle is entirely subjective, utterly without any scientific, objective basis, and yet they not only demand that everyone else accept it, but also that they affirm it and even celebrate it. Sorry. No can do. As one who self-identifies as an Objective Biological Truth Affirmer (OBTA), it is deeply intolerant of my beliefs, not to mention OBTAphobic, to inisist that I should accept, affirm and celebrate biological falsehoods.

But to end with the Mayor, there is this: if a man can be a woman, simply because he declares himself to be one, as the Mayor appears to think, then by this logic (read: antilogic) when someone who isn't the Mayor of London declares him or herself to be Mayor of London, then they must indeed be the Mayor of London. Trans Mayors of London are Mayors of London, right? Actually, it may not be such a bad idea after all. You never know, perhaps some of the trans-Mayors out there might at least make an attempt to tackle the astonishing levels of knife crime in the capital, instead of spending their time putting out silly Tweets setting out their woke credentials.

UPDATE:

"A Transgender woman" put a comment on this piece, which I have responded to at length. However, rather than putting the comment in the thread, where it will get lost and is way too long, I thought I'd add it to the end of the piece for those who are interested:
Hi ATW,

Many thanks for your response. I do appreciate it. Let me begin by correcting a few "wrong ends of the stick" that I think you may have about what I have written.

Firstly, you say that what I have written is an anti-transgender post and you then go on to speak about "them" — that is, people identifying as transgender. The implication is that what I have written is an attack on such people. However, this is not so. What I have written is a response to those who are constantly promoting an agenda, who are forcing their unscientific comments on the population, and who then accuse those who do not accept these views of having a phobia. If you read this particular article once more, you will notice that my scorn and derision is aimed at Mr Khan and Ms Butler, not at those defining themselves as transgender.

Secondly, you say I continually post this stuff. Well, I wouldn't say I write continually on this subject, but yes, I have written on it a number of times. Why? Because the agenda promoted by the likes of Mr Khan and Ms Butler is unceasing. If they knock it off, I'll do the same. If they continue, it will be one of the things that, from time to time, I address.

Thirdly, why do I bother? Live and let live and all that. Because regardless of the experiences of individual people, it is quite clear to me that those who most vocally promote the agenda do so with a very specific aim in mind, which also has a very dangerous consequence. The aim is to so blur the lines between male and female that we end up with androgynous humanity. This is something that certain groups have long had as their aim. Yet bad as this would be, the consequences go far beyond this issue. What is at stake in this, and a number of other movements at the moment, is nothing less than the destruction of meaning itself. If the word "woman", which has been understood throughout human history, cannot now be defined, how can we expect anything else to be able to have an objective definition and meaning? If something can become anything else simply because we feel a certain way, human communication, interaction and society will become intolerable. In other words, I locate this issue not as an "island" — which is how many people look at issues in our world — but rather I see how it connects to a whole variety of other social issues, and is a part of a systematic undermining of reality itself in the post-modern era. To be frank: it is one among a number of issues that are spelling the death of meaning.

Having cleared away those general issues, let me now answer your questions, which are about those who identify as transgender. You say that, "these people honestly believe with all there (sic) heart that they are the opposite gender to what you are so sure they are and they live there (sic) lives as the gender you think is wrong." I don't doubt for one second that some do come to believe that they are an opposite gender than their biological sex, although I am equally certain that many are not nearly so certain and in their confusion seek the wrong answer to their problems.

You then ask what I want from them; what I want them to do; and what I want to happen to them? I suspect that my answer may well surprise you.

Firstly, let me say that your questions are couched in a way that implies that I want to force something from these people, or to force them to do something. Nothing could be further from the truth. You mention my strong Christian beliefs, but you must also understand that I am, by and large, a Christian libertarian. Forcing ain't my thing. I want nothing from them; I do not want them to do anything; and nor do I want anything to happen to them — if by all those things you mean coercion.

Having said that, what I would love for such people is that they be truly fulfilled image bearers of God. This involves being redeemed in Christ, and finding their identity in Christ as the men, women and children that he created. Jesus cares more for men, women and children than any other person in history — so much so that he gave his life by dying on a Roman cross to pay for the sins of those who seek forgiveness — and here is what he said in Matthew 19:4:
"Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female..."
What he is doing here is affirming that God made you and I in his image, and that he made us either male or female. What is more, given that he went to the cross to die for rebels against God (that is all of us), it is clear that his ultimate aim for people is that they become truly fulfilled, forgiven image bearers of God, in the sexes that he created them. And so having created a female, he wants her to be a truly fulfilled female image bearer of God.

And so what would I say to a biological man who wanted to be a woman? I would say that they are locating their identity problem in the wrong place. The problem isn't with their biology. Why would it be? The problem is their need to understand how to be the human they were created to be, and for this they need redemption so that they can find their true identity in Christ, and then find their true identity in the biological configuration God made them in.

However, a connected issue to this is that our society has an utterly warped and twisted view of what true masculinity and true femininity actually are. Masculinity, according to our culture, is brawn and toughness and rugger lads and the SAS and football supporters etc. But if you want to find out what true masculinity is, go and read the Gospels. For there you will read about the true Alpha male, Jesus, who loved people, served people, rebuked people, and who ultimately gave his life a ransom for people. That's true masculinity, not the dumb caricatures that our culture puts out. And here's the thing: many men who struggle with their identities do so because they imbibe a false picture of masculinity, given to them by the culture and peer pressure, into which they simply don't fit. But it is not their biological maleness which is in error; it is the false picture they've been given of what this should look like. But through the grace of God, even the feeblest and naturally most effeminate man can follow in Jesus's footsteps, walking in the ways of true masculinity: loving, serving, rebuking, giving themselves for others.

So in summary, I would say that the only things I want for such people are that they be truly fulfilled in the identity that God gave them. My sorrow for them, however, is that I believe they are being led to accept a false identity that does not answer the real issues and problems they have. I do not wish to force anything upon them, but rather hope that they would freely accept Christ's redeeming love, such that they would be set free to live truly fulfilled lives as forgiven men or women in the identity he gave them.

I hope that answers your questions.

Best wishes,

Rob
Rob Slane the author of The God Reality: A Critique of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, and A Christian & an Unbeliever Discuss: Life, The Universe & Everything. He written monthly worldview articles for the American health sharing company, Samaritan Ministries, and has regularly contributed to The Conservative Woman and the Canadian magazine, Reformed Perspective.