January 6, 2023 - 6:00pm
According to census data just released by the Office of National Statistics, 262,113 people in England and Wales have a gender identity different from their sex registered at birth. That’s around 0.5% of the population.
What this data actually means, however, is harder to grasp. We know that 47,572 people identified as ‘trans women’ and another 48,435 identified as ‘trans men’, but they are in the minority. There were 30,257 non-binaries (sex breakdown unknown), 18,074 with some other gender identity, and a whopping 117,775 who gave no specific gender identity.
But the usual suspects soon show up on the geographic map. Non-binary people account for around 0.06% of the population overall, but hotspots include Oxford (0.25%), and Cambridge (0.26%). In fact, the data serves to illustrate where students live. Why are there so many non-binary people in Gwynedd (0.09%) and Ceredigion (0.23%), yet so few in Carmarthenshire (0.04%) and Anglesey (0.03%)? It’s perhaps no coincidence that the universities in North and West Wales are in Aberystwyth and Bangor.
Similar patterns show up for ‘trans woman’ and ‘trans man’. If this data shows anything, there is a fad going on among younger people that is passing their elders by. The concept that we all have an innate gender identity that is fixed and immutable is maybe just that — an idea without foundation.
What was most surprising for me was how many people answered the question, “Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?” It was voluntary, but only 6% left it blank. I found it difficult to answer. I might be transsexual – hormones and surgery have changed my body profoundly and irreversibly — but I don’t identify as a gender: I am simply me. In the end, I said “no” and indicated “transsexual” in the write-in box. I am therefore one of the 18,074. Most of my generation and above said “yes”. But is that an acknowledgement of a gender identity, or were they simply going along with what they thought was expected of them? We don’t know.
What this data does show, however, is that a significant number of people identify as transgender. We are not the vanishingly small group that was once suggested. For example, prior to the implementation of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 it was estimated that there were just 5000 transsexual people across the whole of the UK; now there are over 50 times as many transgender people in England and Wales alone.
But these groups are not the same. Transsexualism is a psychological condition that can be treated with drugs and surgery. Anyone can identify as transgender, and it appears that far more people are now doing so. The implications for society could be profound. The Scottish Parliament has just passed a bill that would allow Scots to self-identify their gender — and hence their legal sex. In effect, they have taken a process designed for transsexuals and opened it up to a group considerably larger. A group that may well do what previous generations did — grow up, find work, get married and move beyond the folly of youth.
The ONS plans to release more detail later in the year, focusing not just on sex and age but also on ethnicity and religion. And it is that latter one that really interests me. I’m willing to bet that the correlation between the Jedi Knights and the people who identify as transgender is off the scale.
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SubscribeHe doesn’t realise it, but this sounds very like a Trumpian defense of nation, law and institutions, and rally round the flag.
But then he seems blind to authoritarianism of the Progressive Left:
If he looked at the world more objectively, without such deep-blue-tinted glasses – mask mandates, compelled speech, fixing primary elections, cancel culture, history revisionism, name-calling, lawfare (abuse of the law), institutional capture, regulatory over-reach, covert gun running (to Syria), Pravda-esque media, selective prosecution, prosecution of journalists, curbs on free-speech and maybe election interference – all of which sit on the Progressive-side, he might notice these are a huge part of the illiberalism that has developed in the last decade.
Clearly, a liberal state is not authoritarian, otherwise it wouldn’t be called “liberal”. And I think that’s exactly the problem. We’re acting like everybody is free to do what they want, but then we get so scared of them spreading the sniffles that society breaks down completely. The media and politicians, of course, also play a big part in that dynamic. But the matter of fact is that we just don’t have the courage any more to live in a liberal country. The courage to say no to fear, or to accept death as part of life.
We’ve been coddled for too much, too long. Our emotional resiliency hasn’t developed from when we were 14 years old. Thanks to “social” media and consumerism that makes us into the center of the universe.
Liberal in philosophy is very different than liberal in name only, the label. Of course Liberals can be authoritarian. Just ask Justin Trudeau.
And clearly N. Korea is a republic, otherwise it wouldn’t be called the peoples Republic of North Korea.
Liberal in name only- LINO. Now there is an acronym I can get on board with.
He’s a Democrat shill. Pure and simple.
Deep Blue tinted glasses is an understatement!
It’s been said that the Right is more aware of it’s excesses than the Left is. And there are indications, as you’ve clearly stated, that the Left has gone beyond the limits of liberalism and into very some very dangerous – and perhaps uncharted – territory. Fukuyama seems almost myopic in this regard. Just because liberalism has reigned for 300 years is no guarantee of its perpetual success. If history teaches us anything, civilizations rise and fall, and from the looks of things, liberalism is trending toward the primrose path.
“It’s not a dictatorship; it doesn’t kill people; it doesn’t invade neighbours.”
No, it just props them up in, and invades, far-off countries in order to spread itself and maintain strategic dominance.
The Russians are just as guilty of propping up and supporting friendly regimes as the west is
It was a comment on what seems to me to be an entirely incorrect statement about the purely benign nature of liberal democracies in world politics, not a comparison to any other regime, almost all of which are as bad or worse.
“… Almost all of which are as bad or worse”
I am sure in some cases that is true, but if you travel widely you will hear many people who think the USA is absolutely evil and the UK and Europe are not far behind.
We tend to see ourselves as a good guy, which is no different to the school bully who is skilled at justifying to himself why the weak, spotty four-eyed dweeb needs a whack around the head.
It is a very fair point.
The one way Western media and the permitted commentary leave no doubt that there is only one way to see the current conflict.
Rightly or wrongly large parts of the rest of the world take a different view
Oh yes. We have freedom of speech in the West as long as you don’t have a view that goes against the given narrative. Should you dare to question ‘The Science’ (as given to us by Saint Fauci) you will ostracized from civilised society, banished from the airwaves, and have your online communication channels cancelled. And heaven forbid you should choose not to take the jab, that will mean travel restrictions and losing your job and more.
Anyone who thinks we live in a liberal democracy anymore really isn’t paying attention. It is nothing but an illusion.
Liberalism itself is an empty place. It thrives between wars and revolutions: between Paris February Commune (1848) and the Great War, between the later and WWII, etc. It is the emptiness of polite and privileged gentlemen sitting down and sipping lattes waiting for the next war to remind themselves how great is to be a gentleman.
There are major differences between Classical Liberalism and Neoliberalism. When men like Fukuyama start muddying the two, it is not an accident. It is intentional.
-)) And what exactly is the difference between “Classical” and “Neo” liberalism ? From its inception, liberalism was “Neo” and it must be Neo all the time since it cannot reach a Classical stage.
Oh, just major philosophical differences. Reposting comment from Progressives Have Sacrificed Liberalism by Paul Marshall.
For the last half a decade we have been inundated with media articles and pundits lamenting the decline of “liberalism.” This modern “liberalism” that the politicians and pundits insist is so important, what does it have in common with the Classical Liberalism that has formed the basis of modern Western Civilization? Belief in the rights of citizens? Well… I mean as long as you say, do, and think the way we want you to. Understanding the limits of the expert class? TRUST THE SCIENCE! The recognition of universal human fallibility? Eh, depends on your race and pronouns. Understanding the limits of what government can accomplish? We will try it again but harder this time and throw more money and government force at it. Recognition of the nation state? Citizen of the world, baby! Equality under the law? It’s equity now. Sorry, but I will take Classical Liberalism with its Enlightenment values over Neoliberalism and its Postmodernist “values” any day.
So you say Classical Liberalism ~ Enlightenment Values. Do you think that a magazine such as UnHerd which promotes shameless pro Ukrainian propaganda is inline with Enlightenment? Russians are losing because they got frostbites … (as we all know Russia is a subtropical country -) ) Kiev could not be taken in 48 hours … Putin committing genocide while at the same time losing soldiers at the rate they did not lose in WW2 … Is this the level of a cultural magazine aligned with Enlightenment values?
Closer than most and I will take what I can get at this point.
Anyone who thinks we don’t live in a liberal democracy anymore really hasn’t got about very much. I recommend spending time in Belarus, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq, Chad, Egypt, Angola, Bangladesh etc etc etc – or for that matter, how about really remembering, ‘warts and all’ Western cultures from 1999 backwards.
On a scale of one to ten the countries you mention maybe nearer a ten than Western countries, but that does not mean our democratic rights and freedoms have not been massively eroded.
Also some of those countries are slowly becoming more free, where as we are heading rather rapidly in the opposite direction.
As for Western countries prior to 1999 I am puzzled as to what you mean as our freedoms have been dramatically curtailed since then.
As for Western countries prior to 1999 I am puzzled as to what you mean as our freedoms have been dramatically curtailed since then.
Ok, I don’t see any dramatic curtailment – so I guess it behoves you to point out the things that I can’t see?
I took a look at some NGO indices (The Human Freedom Index; The Index of Freedom in the World; Worldwide Press Freedom Index) – none of these show declines in the West you speak of. One that does show some decline, Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press Report, finds that press freedom is generally decreasing globally, and even in many Western democracies due to populist leaders – Orban, Bolansaro, Erdogan, Kurz, and Trump (though Trump failed to actually clamp down on the press).
Are any of those countries seeing the indigenous or founding populace being displaced relentlessly by foreign nationals, much if through illegal entry that tramples the rule of law and the very purpose of government?
The total demographic displacement of indigenous Europeans by the liberal order is a bit more than a mere “wart.”
Britons have long been a mongrel nation.
It’s certainly significant that Francis Fukuyama has written on the need to not just recommit to liberalism but to revisit what it means to be a liberal society and rein in the more extreme elements.
But all the examples I heard in this interview of extreme behavior that threaten liberalism are from the right, such as the refusal to accept the 2021 US election results, or the propagation of right-wing conspiracy theories on the internet. I didn’t hear him address the extreme intolerance of the left especially as that appears in universities. Sadly, Freddie didn’t press him on this issue.
For me, at a certain point in this interview, Mr Fukuyama started to sound like just another left winger whose only interest is in “correcting” the excesses of the right.
Another great interview from Unherd. Thanks.
You criticise the interview and rightly so. Your criticism was very valid. But then you go on to say ‘Another great interview from Unherd’.
I am sure many paying UnHerd members are so liberally and politely disagreeing yet never forget to congratulate the boss for another wonderful interview.
Exactly
Fair point. I did, however, enjoy the interview. Agree with him or not, Fukuyama’s ‘End of History’ is a significant book and it was interesting to hear him discuss, thirty years after its publication, the state of the modern world. I was disappointed with what he had to say. I thought he would be more objective when considering the behavior of the Left and how an obsession with individual rights to the exclusion of all else could lead us to such a surreal place, but apparently I was wrong.
A good point, and to be fair to you JB, it is good that someone can acknowledge the positives in an interview even if one disagrees with much of the substance.
I think he is just another left winger whose only interest is in correcting the ‘excesses’ of the right, isn’t he? Was he ever anything else?
This guy describes things as on the right when they are things done on the left. He is not worth listening to. He’s completely blind. He just turns everything around to make it be the fault of the “right” or Trump. I’ve rarely heard such an obviously twisted way of thinking displayed on Unherd. It’s great example of how leftists are going to justify remaining left no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary.
I quite agree and thanks for saying it. When I think of “illiberalism”, I am reminded of today’s Democrat party, who claims to be fighting to save democracy, yet exhibits completely anti-democratic behavior. I can’t think of anything more anti-democratic than seeking to remove the U.S. constitution, implementing truly racist policies, and de-platforming those who you disagree with!
“It’s not a dictatorship; it doesn’t kill people; it doesn’t invade neighbours.”
Of course the liberal order has relentlessly invaded other countries over the last forty years, killing millions.
At the same time, it has trampled upon national sovereignty and the rule of law by aiding and abetting illegal immigration and legal immigration aimed at demographically displacing ethnic European populaces.
Those people of European ancestry who dare to resist being displaced are demonized as “populists.” Their right to freedom of speech, freedom of association, and other core liberties suspended
One of the sickest jokes regarding ardent, flag-waving support for Ukraine, is how the very same people generally loath Hungary and Poland defending their people.
‘There is no current alternative to the nation as a locus of power’
No mention of the World Economic Forum and supranational globalist organisations which are in line with Big Tech in pushing for a great reset and fourth industrial revolution. National leaders fell into groupthink and coordinated censorship of alternatives to lockdowns – this was pushed by WHO, Gates Foundation etc and resulted in loss of basic freedoms – but he ignored this completely.
Hey Fukuyama! How is that “end of history” going for you?
I think that was addressed in the article. I assume that like all of us other perfect people who have been forever correct you can cast the first stone.
…read his 1992 book Matt. The history he was talking about, is the history of political structure ideology, not the history of geopolitical events.
I read it and I could hardly find a more emptier and corrupt theory. That book could be written in 1850 predicting that liberalism is the optimal ideology . This liberalism is nothing else that the eternal re-incarnation of the petty bourgeois: the polite gentleman, the neocon, the neoliberal, etc. As a reaction to this emptiness we had socialism and fascism almost destroy humanity, yet we continue to prop up the illusion.
Maybe but to be fair with Fukuyama, his main point is not that liberalism is a utopia or even necessarily the preferred solution. His theory says that liberalism seems to be the inescapable ‘end of the road’ of political ideology, and that it tends to generate its own problems.
Without achieving progress in the symbolic we’ll not be able to sustain a global capitalistic society and we’ll continue to have catastrophic crisis. That’s why it is important to look for real alternatives to liberalism.
That viewpoint, in my opinion, is completely jumbled. It’s not that due to the fact these people haven’t experienced fascism, that they failed to defend democracy. It’s due to that fact that they are now actively creating fascism themselves. We humans are just too short-lived. History repeats, or rhymes, far too regularly.
I feel like both things can be true. They take liberal democracy for granted AND are creating a brand new form of fascism.
I thought Fukuyama was a windbag when I read “End of History”, and this interview has further consolidated that judgement. His ideologically informed selective perception is mind-blowing.
One misconception, though sadly irrelevant, is the notion that a large percentage of Trump supporters believe his lie that the election was stolen. Over 74 million Americans voted for him in 2020. If even a quarter of that number truly believed the election was stolen, we would have already had mass protest, violence, even civil war in the streets.
There are indeed strong authoritarian instincts coming out on the right, among rank and file conservatives, and intellectuals like Sohrab Ahmari to name just one. But they are at least self-aware.
My larger fear is that self-described liberals, the “good guys,” the ones who control the culture, are so ready to clamp down on anything they now describe as “hate speech,” “misinformation,” “disinformation,” or a “threat to public safety” – all in the name of saving democracy. As Fukuyama points out, it’s mostly the Big Tech social media platforms that are doing the censoring at the liberal establishment’s behest. The mass media slandering of the Canadian truckers and the overwhelming support among “liberals” in Canada and the US for Trudeau’s siezing of some of their accounts, is terrifying.
I am far less sanguine than Fukuyama that the war in Ukraine is going to reinstill a respect and understanding of liberalism in the West. Both “sides” have seem to lost both.
….first Matt Taibbi, then Glenn Greenwald, then Bill Maher, and now Francis F. All strength to their bows I say. This is is how the the nutty end of the Left gets frayed.
You must have read a different interview than I did. The one above is from a smug, hypocritical liberal elitist, who above all hates “populism” — i.e. ordinary people democratically exercising self-determination.
It’s simple regarding social media. Regulate them such that their systems are just like public utilities and force them to not use algorithms to ciphon viewpoints or propaganda. Instead force algorithms that just present the information. And allow some levers that are user generated (e.g. advertising) to allow them to promote, but not self promote via Facebook algorithms.
Information flow is an essential physical phenomenon just like the flow of goods, light, water, electricity. Information is perhaps even more important than those in it’s power to change the future of human civilisation.
Until we accept that any idea that is created and instantiated in reality – such as Facebook, Twitter – is not in the end the property of those who created it once it becomes ingrained into the populace (that is, if it depends on a society or community to keep it running and profitable) then it must be regulated as if it is a common carrier. The same way water is not biased towards some community because the owner of it has control over who they think will make them the most money if they ciphon it.
Creating an idea such as Facebook is great, but to be able to maintain a grip on such a tool or platform while it’s influencing decisions in every country on earth is wholly destructive.
What are the arguments against simply removing the anonymity of SM accounts? Requiring some sort of ID would make people accountable for what they post, and subject them to prosecution under existing laws against hate speech etc. There would have to be safeguards, as there are in good companies, to protect whistleblowers, but otherwise what’s not to like?
In his famous book, and the reference to the “last man”, Fukuyama recognised what the ancient Greeks called thumos, a spirited part of human nature that yearns to live for more than bare life. We don’t just have a will to pleasure or will to power; the most crucial is our will to meaning. And it will be satisfied one way or another.
Thumos might manifest perversely as a Putin, but can also fire a Socrates to die for truth, as Plato realised when he wrote about Socrates.
This implies the task is not adjusting liberalism but thinking about the soulless flatlands that have come to accompany it.
From the guy who predicted the end of history. Why is anybody still listening to him? At best, it was a pause.
Having first seen the title, I found the thoughts actually expressed in the article surprisingly realistic. The expectation of the future of ‘liberalism’ seems to based on hope rather than any certainty. And we do need a lot of hope having lived in a world which brought us ‘leaders’ like Trump, Johnson, Biden and others as well as power of global corporations , indulgent wokery, censorship authoritarian governmental edicts etc,etc,etc. And there is no certainty that there won’t be more hot wars.
I was nodding at his “demand for respect” idea until he lost me by speaking of “criminals” like Trump.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way was it Francis?
Found it strange (or maybe not so surprising since he is from CA, after all) that he mentioned wanting to see *less* checks and balances clogging up the system but moments later asserted the need for *more* when discussing actions coming from the right…