No child is born in the wrong body: why ideology shouldn't trump reality
Why the idea that a child can be born in the wrong body is flawed and dangerous.
The UK Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of “woman” was hailed, rightly, as a landmark moment. In affirming that sex in law means biological sex — not gender identity, not a sense of self, but the physical reality of male and female — the court reasserted something many had quietly begun to doubt: that material facts matter, that words mean something, and that reality is not infinitely malleable.
The judgment focused on access to single-sex spaces — prisons, refuges, hospital wards — but its implications run deeper. It marks a broader cultural shift, a move away from the fashionable relativism that has infiltrated our institutions. And it invites us to reexamine some of the dogmas we have been asked, or told, to accept.
One of these is the idea — widespread, well-meaning, and rarely challenged — that a child can be born in the wrong body.
I heard it again the other night from Bill Maher, a commentator I admire, on a show I usually enjoy. “Some people are just born in the wrong body,” he said offhandedly. The audience nodded along. It is the kind of thing liberal-minded people have learned to say: a soundbite that seems caring, progressive, and on the right side of history.
But the more you examine it, the less sense it makes.
To say that a child is born in the wrong body is to imply a fixed, inner identity that somehow becomes trapped in the wrong biological form. But what is this inner self? How does it acquire its gender? And what is “wrong” about the body, other than its failure to conform to certain expectations?
The answers tend, invariably, to rely on stereotypes. A boy who plays with dolls or dislikes rough games is seen as possibly trans. A girl who rejects dresses and likes football is told she might be a boy. We have traded one set of gender norms for another, and in doing so, lost sight of something basic: that a child’s preferences do not constitute pathology, and that identity need not be medicalised.
This is where the stakes become serious. Because the ideology of the “wrong body” does not stop at language. It underpins a cascade of interventions: social transition, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and in some cases, surgery. These are not minor steps. They carry lifelong implications — sterilisation, sexual dysfunction, loss of bone density — and they are being initiated, in many cases, while a child is still developing, neurologically and emotionally.
The justification for this radical pathway is often that it is “life-saving.” We are told that without affirmation, these children will self-harm, or worse. But this claim is far more contested than most people realise. Studies show that the majority of children experiencing gender distress will desist if left alone. Many turn out to be gay or simply gender non-conforming. The risk is not that we do too little, but that we intervene too quickly before other explanations (autism, anxiety, trauma) are explored.
Detransitioners — young people who once identified as trans and later changed course — are starting to tell their stories. They speak of therapists who never asked probing questions, of schools that affirmed without hesitation, and of doctors who rushed to prescribe. They talk of irreversible losses before asking a question that ought to haunt every adult in the room: why didn’t anyone stop me?
This is not to deny that some people experience deep, persistent gender dysphoria. Nor is it to suggest that compassion has no place. But compassion must be tethered to reality. And the reality is that children are not born in the wrong body; they are born into bodies. Their discomfort deserves attention, but not automatic affirmation. Not a one-way ticket to the clinic. Not a story crafted by adults and imposed on them in the name of progress.
One of the strangest aspects of this whole debate is how quickly the burden of proof has shifted. The claim that a child is in the wrong body is not just accepted, it is defended with near-religious fervour. To question it is to invite accusations of cruelty or bigotry. But this is the very opposite of reasoned debate. And it is, ironically, how dogma behaves when it senses it might not survive scrutiny.
The Supreme Court ruling offers a moment of pause. It reminds us that legal and social structures built on unreality will, eventually, collapse under their own contradictions. And it provides a cue to institutions — to schools and medical bodies — that the time for euphemism is over. The child’s welfare must come first, not the ideological comfort of the adults around them.
If we want to support children, we should start by listening to them. Not just when they say “I feel different,” but when they say, years later, “Why did no one tell me the truth?” We should be brave enough to say: you’re not in the wrong body. You’re in a body that will change, that may challenge you, but that is yours. You don’t need a diagnosis. You need time.
Adults must be willing to tell children the truth, even when it’s unfashionable — especially when it’s unfashionable. Because that, in the end, is what makes an adult: the ability to distinguish between what feels good to say, and what is right to do.
Further reading
Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier
A deeply researched and controversial account of how gender ideology impacts adolescent girls, exploring the medical, psychological, and social consequences of rapid affirmation.
Time to Think by Hannah Barnes
A powerful inside look at the rise and fall of the Tavistock gender clinic — based on extensive interviews and leaked documents — revealing how ideology came to override clinical caution.
Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality by Helen Joyce
A compelling analysis of the gender movement’s collision with biology, language, and law, arguing for reason and reality over ideology and coercion.
Lost in Trans Nation by Stella O'Malley
Written by a psychotherapist, this book offers guidance to parents navigating gender distress in children, pushing back against the rush to affirm.
The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray
A sharp and provocative critique of identity politics, including the redefinition of gender, and how intellectual cowardice in elite institutions fuels cultural confusion.
Having always been tall, I was horrified to start puberty before my friends. This would have been the early '90s. I hated my changing body, hairy and it felt over-sexualised to have breasts. I know this seems ridiculous, I also sewed what would these days be called a "binder" to squash my breasts, and, with childish logic, I thought that might stop them growing bigger. When I got my first period I felt so disgusting I planned to stay indoors till it had gone. I thank my lucky stars that I was a child of that era and not of this one. I was a tomboy and if I had been told I was trans I would have believed them.
I've spoken to two other women now in their 40s like me who say the same, they were tomboys, not sure if they hated their bodies during puberty too, and they said they would have claimed they were trans if the idea had been put into their heads.
It's an oldie but a goodie but "everybody's got a body", you might not like it but it's the only one you've got. Looking back my body was healthy and strong, but I hated it.