By Jonathon Van Maren

As I’ve written time and time again, people are just beginning to discover that the transgender revolution will, in fact, have deeply personal implications for almost everyone—and that people who previously thought themselves to be open-minded and liberal people are abruptly finding out that by the new standards, they are hateful and transphobic people. The latest example comes from The Times in the UK:

A woman who requested a female NHS nurse to perform her cervical smear test was “embarrassed and distressed” after a person with stubble and a deep voice summoned her for the intimate procedure. When the patient pointed out the mistake, the nurse replied: “My gender is not male. I’m a transsexual.”

This weekend, the woman, who decided not to go ahead with the examination, said it was “weird where somebody says to you: ‘My gender is not male’ and you think: ‘Well, what does that even mean? You are clearly a man.’ ”The nurse “had an obviously male appearance . . . close-cropped hair, a male facial appearance and voice, large number of tattoos and facial stubble”, she said.

Which is all to say that your average woman is not going to be too pleased when they request a female practitioner for privacy purposes and some bearded guy shows up, wielding the latest and greatest in gender ideology as evidence that he is perfectly entitled to peer between her legs. The average person, however liberal and open-minded they might be, has not been thoroughly indoctrinated into the worldviews of queer theory, and thus are still in possession with the common sense our culture is currently going to war with. In this particular case, the woman received an apology rather than the public media shaming that usually accompanies such things:

The woman received an official NHS apology after she made a complaint about her treatment. The incident has been revealed as Justine Greening, the equalities minister and education secretary, is considering proposals that would allow people to change their gender legally without a doctor’s diagnosis. The Sunday Times reported last week that a consultation on the changes to the Gender Recognition Act had been delayed amid claims Greening was getting cold feet about self-certification. The patient said it was “bad enough for a fortysomething mother”, but the effect of such an incident on her 17-year-old daughter would have been much worse.

The hardline stance of the transgender activists in response to such concerns is that pre-adolescent and teen girls will simply have to get over their transphobia and realize that some women and girls have beards, penises, and a right to join them in the change room. Even though this mother received an apology, she explained why she wished to remain anonymous:

The patient has requested anonymity for herself and the clinic because of fears it or the nurse could be criticised. The appointment for the test — also known as a cervical screening test — was on September 16 last year in an NHS clinic run by the Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust. In a letter of complaint sent afterwards, the patient said that when she booked her appointment she had requested a female nurse or practitioner. She added: “People who are not comfortable about this are presented as bigots and this is . . . kind of how I was made to feel about it.”

This is precisely the main tactic of the trans activists: In spite of their constant condemnations of “shaming,” that is precisely the tool they use to silence parents who are simply concerned about their young daughters or women who, for a wide variety of reasons, are not comfortable being physically examined by biological men. To most people, this shaming has gone on way too long. As I wrote a few weeks back, I think trans activists might be finally overplaying their hand.

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For anyone interested, my book on The Culture War, which analyzes the journey our culture has taken from the way it was to the way it is and examines the Sexual Revolution, hook-up culture, the rise of the porn plague, abortion, commodity culture, euthanasia, and the gay rights movement, is available for sale here.