BuM: On the Trans Frontlines
Michael Barnett OAM
On the Trans Frontlines
More shock and awe stories from the trans wars:
Thirty years ago no one was talking about trans this or trans that. Now there is not an hour that goes by where trans insanity is not in the news and making frontpage headlines. Trying to keep up on it all is a full-time job. Thankfully there are now some champions who are joining the resistance and are battling against this destructive cult that is damaging the lives of so many, especially our children.
To name just a few, groups like Binary and Women’s Forum Australia are fighting hard on this down under, and people like J. K. Rowling in the UK are doing a terrific job of standing up for sanity and the rights of women and children. I have tried to do my bit as well: this is my 303rd article on the topic.
Let me then just offer a few brief vignettes of what is happening with the trans wars. The stories involve both some good news and some bad news. I begin overseas and then return to Australia.
Fewer trans-identifying young people
A report from the Centre for Heterodox Social Science in the US has found that there are far fewer young people now identifying as trans or homosexual over the past few years. As one media discussion states:
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which conducts a large annual survey of US undergraduates, polled over 60,000 students in 2025. My analysis of the raw data shows that in that year, just 3.6% of respondents identified as a gender other than male or female. By comparison, the figure was 5.2% in 2024 and 6.8% in both 2022 and 2023. In other words, the share of trans-identified students has effectively halved in just two years. https://manhattan.institute/article/why-are-fewer-young-people-identifying-as-trans
J. K. Rowling
The Harry Potter author has been an absolute superstar when it comes to seeking to protect the rights of women and children, and take on the utter madness of the trans zealots. Every time she says something about the issue, it is pure gold. She is intelligent, articulate and straight to the point, especially when she takes on her many detractors and enemies.
She is terrific at silencing her opponents and letting truth shine through all the moral and mental fog of the ideologues. Consider a short quote: “You can call me a man from now until Doomsday, and I still won’t sprout a penis.”
And a longer one:
Words are not violence. When you pretend that views that oppose your own are violence, you are justifying the use of actual violence towards the speaker. Gender ideology’s reliance on tropes and slogans like ‘words are violence’, its constant rationalisation and justification of using force against opponents and its preference for enforcing compliance through fear rather than permitting debate, are straight out of fascism’s playbook.
‘The function of propaganda is . . . not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly.’
The words are Hitler’s, but I must have seen trans activists say the same thing, barely rephrased, a thousand times. Your movement seeks to remove rights from others. It is anti-truth and critical thinking, pro-violence, pro-dehumanisation of those who disagree with you, and you are so lacking in self-awareness you cannot see that you are precisely what you pretend to hate.
As I have said before, I really do hope she is writing a book on all this. I would snatch it up in an instant, and it really should be a best seller.
Helen Joyce
This story bridges the gap between overseas and Australia. Joyce is a British-based author who has written the very important 2021 volume, When Ideology Meets Reality. See my review of it here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2021/10/15/the-trans-war-on-children/
Well, she is now in Australia, but the ‘Trans Taliban’ as Julie Bindel called them in yesterday’s Australian are doing all they can to silence her and cancel her. This is so typical of the trans militants: they refuse to let anyone with a contrary point of view speak on this issue.
So Joyce was scheduled to speak in Melbourne, but at the last minute she was deplatformed. Says Bindel:
Her booking at the Docklands Library was cancelled on the grounds security for Joyce and attendees would be too expensive. The cancellation came less than a week before the event, leaving the organisers – Women’s Voices Australia – without a venue. They had done all they could to ensure security by choosing not to advertise publicly and making it ticket-only.
Nevertheless, the library caved in to the bullies. Venues often resort to this: landing organisers with a humongous security cost they can’t meet rather than keeping the violent mob under control and refusing to capitulate to them. I’ve experience this myself in Australia….
Bindel’s piece, “Don’t kowtow to the trans lobby’s bully playbook” is behind a paywall.
Dr Jillian Spencer
Two more cases of trans bullying involve Australian champions. I have written previously of Spencer, a Queensland child psychiatrist who is being persecuted for challenging radical gender ideology. As I wrote two years ago:
For doing so she could be permanently barred from doing the work she loves, and from helping children who really need her help. Her story has been written up in various places. It is good to see it is getting the attention that it deserves. Dr. Julie Sladden for example has said this about the case: “Dr Jillian Spencer … now faces serious threats to her position, professional career, and livelihood, including potential regulatory action. Her crime, it seems, is to question out loud the affirmation model of transgender care.” https://billmuehlenberg.com/2023/11/08/silencing-trans-dissent/
Just recently Lyle Shelton put out a media release on her ongoing persecution. It says in part:
Family First is deeply disappointed that after one year in government, the Queensland LNP is continuing Labor’s policy of punishing Dr Jillian Spencer — a courageous child psychiatrist who simply spoke up for the safety of children.
Dr Spencer, a respected clinician with two decades of experience, raised legitimate concerns about children — some as young as 12 — being rushed into puberty blockers without proper, holistic assessment. Instead of being heard, she was silenced, stood down, and ultimately sacked by Queensland Children’s Hospital.
It is unconscionable that under Premier David Crisafulli and Health Minister Tim Nicholls, this injustice continues. Dr Spencer should not have to endure her upcoming trial in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission to prove her innocence. She has suffered enough.
This is not just about one doctor — it’s about whether truth and conscience still have a place in Queensland’s health system. When clinicians are punished for raising red flags, every child is put at risk. Every parent loses confidence that their child will receive evidence-based care, not ideology-driven medicine. Dr Spencer’s courage should be celebrated, not crushed.
And please sign the Human Rights Law Alliance petition here: https://www.hrla.org.au/jillian-spencer
Kirralie Smith
The head of Binary, Kirralie Smith, knows all about the gestapo tactics of the trans activists. She has been in and out of courts and spent huge sums of money to defend herself as she seeks to defend women and children. This war against her is ongoing.
I have written often about her over the years. See this piece for example: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2025/01/04/the-utter-devastation-caused-by-the-trans-agenda/
Thankfully many are coming to her defence. Most recently Pauline Hanson of One Nation issued a statement on her behalf:
I’ve had an absolute gutful of watching good Australians dragged through the mud for speaking the truth. And what’s happening to Kirralie Smith is another shocking example. Kirralie is being hauled through the courts, hit with trumped-up “violence” orders and frivolous “vilification” charges, all because she believes in biological reality:
A man is a man. A woman is a woman.
That’s not hate. That’s common sense.
But somehow, common sense has become dangerous in Australia….
She’s applying to take her case all the way to the High Court of Australia to defend every Australian’s right to speak reality without being silenced or punished. If she loses, it’ll mean the law in this country says the truth is “violence”. It will mean a woman can’t defend women’s rights. It will mean we are no longer free to say a male is a male, or to say we don’t want them competing against our daughters and granddaughters in sport.
You can help her with her huge legal costs by donating here: https://www.binary.org.au/justice-for-kirralie
Bernard Lane
One quick final story. Lane, who writes for the Australian, has done so much great work on the trans issue. He regularly posts on Substack. Here is his latest short post:
“In gender medicine, we intervene in healthy, functioning bodies because people believe that their mental wellbeing will improve by making the body—to be quite honest—more sick. Gender medicine means interventions that make you a lifelong patient—you need to be on hormonal treatment, and it has lots of harmful side effects that are usually not so much discussed as are the desired effects on mental wellbeing.” -Finland’s Professor Riittakerttu Kaltiala, who is a leading researcher on youth gender distress.
Plenty is happening with the trans revolution – good, bad and ugly. Please support those who insist that children and women must be protected from these radical revolutionaries.
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