Shropshire Star

Let’s celebrate differences

I am writing in response to a letter that recently came to my attention, submitted some weeks ago by a Mr Richard Camp of Wellington.

Published

In it, he concocts a variety of typically attenuated arguments to excuse his bigotry towards transgender people. His attitude is similar to that of too many in our communities at present, one that condemns trans people as deluded, and a danger to society.

Attitudes such as these are the reason why 40 per cent of trans adults, and 48 per cent of trans students, attempt suicide. I implore those who hold such beliefs to consider the damage they may be inflicting.

I think it rather telling that many of the arguments levelled against trans people today are identical to those used against the gay community in the not-so-distant past. LGBT+ people have long been labelled ‘freaks’ and ‘perverts’.

Good prevailed on gay rights, and we now have same-sex marriage recognised in law. Please do not be on the wrong side of history in the fight for trans rights.

Mr Camp cites scripture as evidence as to why we should place no value on the lives of trans people. Odd, that. The God I know made all of us equal. Jesus said ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’, not ‘blessed be he who is privileged enough to not struggle with his gender identity’.

Mr Camp also expresses his fears about children, who are largely blind to the differences we grown-ups constantly debate, being allowed to ‘wear clothes for either sex’.

If your own masculinity is so fragile that you consider a little a boy in a dress to be a threat, I worry for you. Clothes know no gender other than those we lazily apply to them. Perhaps Mr Camp should consider wearing a dress? He may find it suits him!

Call me a silly liberal, but I am grateful to be living in an age where everyone is entitled to express themselves freely. Humanity’s obsession with binary divides belongs in the past. Let’s celebrate difference, not denounce them.

Megan McGowan, Telford