UK

‘Gender critical’ author Helen Joyce says she wants to ‘reduce’ number of trans people: ‘Chilling’

Helen Joyce speaking at MoneyConf in 2018 at the RDS Arena in Dublin.

Helen Joyce speaking at MoneyConf in 2018 at the RDS Arena in Dublin. (Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile via Getty)

A prominent “gender critical” activist is facing backlash after she called for a reduction in the number of trans people.

Helen Joyce, author of Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, is facing widespread criticism over an online discussion with Helen Staniland in which she said people who transition are “damaged”.

Joyce, who has become one of the most vocal “gender critical” campaigners in the UK in recent years, said their “movement” is no longer in the “consciousness-raising” stage.

She said the “gender critical” movement cannot be focused on convincing every person in the UK of its views and that it instead must “get through to the decision-makers”.

“And in the meantime, while we’re trying to get through to the decision-makers, we have to try to limit the harm and that means reducing or keeping down the number of people who transition,” Joyce said.

“That’s for two reasons – one of them is that every one of those people is a person who’s been damaged. But the second one is every one of those people is basically, you know, a huge problem to a sane world.”

Helen Joyce on GB News.

Helen Joyce on GB News. (YouTube/GB News)

Joyce continued: “If you’ve got people – whether they’re transitioned, whether they’re happily transitioned, whether they’re unhappily transitioned, whether they’re detransitioned – if you’ve got people who’ve dissociated from their sex in some way, every one of those people is someone who needs special accommodation in a sane world where we re-acknowledge the truth of sex.

“And I mean the people who’ve been damaged by it – the children who’ve been put through this – those people deserve every accommodation we can possibly make, but every one of them is a difficulty.”

Helen Joyce’s comments described as ‘chilling’

The clip was widely shared on social media and led to instant backlash from trans people, with many drawing attention to Joyce’s suggestion that the number of people who transition should be reduced.

“This kind of commentary has been getting progressively worse over the last five years,” Christine Burns, author of Trans Britain, told PinkNews.

“First it was folk like this saying ‘we just have concerns’… ‘we only want a debate’. Then there’ve been the parade of slogans: ‘Adult human female’… ‘Sex matters’… All the evidence points to them being a small minority but, over this time, their demands have become more chilling.”

Burns added: “The trend is all in one direction and that, along with the willingness of some ministers to repeat these talking points, is what makes unambiguous statements like that from Helen Joyce so chilling.”

Joyce has faced condemnation from LGBTQ+ rights activist and allies on social media ever since the clip surfaced.

PinkNews has contacted Helen Joyce for comment.

This isn’t the first time “gender critical” activists have spoken about reducing the number of people who transition.

In 2021, the Women’s Human Rights Campaign (WHRC), which says its mission is to preserve “sex-based rights”, responded to an inquiry into the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) by the Women and Equalities Select Committee, chaired by Tory MP Caroline Nokes.

In its response, the WHRC referred to the UN convention on elimination of discrimination against women and girls, and said: “The convention calls for the ‘elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women’ (Article 5).”

The group continued: “We consider that the practice of transgenderism clearly falls under this article because it is based on stereotyped roles for men and women.”

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