Truth on Trial

The danger of groupthink, the failure of leadership, and the price we pay for pretending not to know what everyone knows

I've long been suspicious of people who add pronouns to their bios. This suspicion stems from two simple, if unflattering, possibilities. Either they genuinely believe in gender ideology, which does not speak highly of their reasoning powers, or they do not believe in it and are simply pretending, which does not speak highly of their courage.

The recent Supreme Court ruling confirmed what any rational person already knew: sex means sex. The Court ruled that The Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex, not gender identity. In other words, a man cannot be a woman. It is astounding that we needed the highest court in the land to clarify such a basic biological and linguistic truth.

Can’t we just be nice about it? Can’t we be more inclusive? No. Women cannot be men, and men cannot be women. To function, language must have precision. If a word can mean anything, it means nothing. If both sexes can be 'women', then 'woman' ceases to be a useful or coherent term.

Sex is a biological reality. Gender, on the other hand, is an idea. Transgenderism is an ideology, a belief system that attempts to redefine or transcend biological sex. But we cannot sacrifice linguistic clarity for the sake of ideology. Identifying the sexes is not just about scientific accuracy; it is vital for truthfulness, for protecting sex-based rights, and for maintaining meaningful distinctions in society.

As Humpty Dumpty once scoffed, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” It was nonsense then, and it's nonsense now, alhough today’s linguistic contortionists make Humpty look like a conservative grammarian.

While I may be underwhelmed by pronouns in bios, the stakes are considerably higher when those indulging in this ideological posturing are political leaders, charity heads, sports officials or educators. The failure of leadership in these domains has been deeply damaging.

A recent thread on X catalogued some of the very silly things Labour politicians have had to say this issue. Among the lowlights:

Keir Starmer declared, "[The phrase ‘only women have a cervix’] is something that shouldn’t be said. It is not right”

Lisa Nandy, when asked whether male rapists identifying as women should be held in women’s prisons, replied: “I think trans women are women and they should be accommodated in a prison of their choosing.”

Dawn Butler stated, without irony, “A child is born without a sex.”

Oh dear, oh dear.

Of course, it’s not only Labour. Conservative politicians, and others across the political spectrum, have also fallen short. There are honourable exceptions, but frankly, one shouldn’t get a medal for being able to distinguish between girls and boys.

What happened here is not simply a matter of political misjudgement. It is a textbook case of group psychology, with many fearing the social costs of truth more than they fear being wrong.

Perhaps the gender madness even constituted a ‘psychic epidemic’, as Carl Jung described it. In such climates, irrational beliefs, delusions or behaviours spread through a population like a contagion, affecting individuals’ thoughts and actions without their conscious awareness.

And of course, epidemics can be very harmful. This epidemic of conformity has been more than a fashionable trend, it has had devastating consequences. It has harmed children and young people’s bodies and minds irreversibly. It has caused distress for women in sports, workplaces, changing rooms, and prisons. It has undermined the principle of single-sex spaces and protections. And it has eroded public trust in institutions that now appear unable or unwilling to tell the truth.

Great thinkers from Tacitus to Hannah Arendt have long considered groupthink and how to overcome it. My co-author and I also did our best to address it in Free Your Mind. Because once you understand this is the psychological stuff we are made from, you understand it is a perennial problem. We survive one psychic epidemic only to fall straight into the jaws of another. Make no mistake, free thinking, rather than just free speech, remains the key question for anyone who values liberty and truth.

What I do know is this: the current crop of Labour politicians have proved beyond doubt that great leaders do not arise from the centre of the herd. The minnows in the middle and the soft woolly creatures nestled safely in the middle of the wool pack will never lead us anywhere but further into confusion. They shout the loudest, but not the wisest.

Real leadership comes from the outliers. Sometimes this leadership is good and sometimes it is bad, but it is always distinct and at least it is capable of vision. Right now we are led not by a good shepherd or a wolf, but a bleating herd of sheep with pronoun badges.

History is full of examples. Myths and stories warn us over and again. Consider the tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes, where only a child dared to speak the truth, or Aesop’s tales of frogs who desired a king and got a stork, or the wolf who pretended to be a shepherd and slaughtered the sheep. Or, as it’s Easter, consider ‘the greatest story ever told’, the story of Jesus.

At this time of year, we recall the Passion of Christ. Stripping away the spiritual elements for the sake of this discussion, it is a timeless story of a crowd getting it wrong, of leaders abdicating responsibility, and of the solitary power of truth. Pontius Pilate, the man with the authority to act, asked the question, “What is truth?” Yet, rather than confront the truth, he washed his hands of the matter — either too cowardly or too indifferent to uphold it. The mob, driven by fear and manipulation, demanded the wrong decision, turning away from justice in favour of a momentary victory.

Whatever your beliefs, this narrative speaks volumes about truth, leadership, and the dangers posed by the collective. The mob may succeed for a time, but truth, though silenced, cannot be suppressed forever. Eventually, it will prevail — for truth, no matter how inconvenient, is the force that endures.