Gan Eleanor

On the 20th of this month, the veteran journalist and associate editor of Nation.Cymru, Martin
Shipton, published a hit piece on that website against the Welsh Gender Service. This article is an
example of the awful reporting and bias in bourgeois and revisionist media against trans men and
women. It uses appalling transphobic fear mongering language, such as, “potentially life-changing
hormones”, and “irreversible gender surgery”, and reports on only one side, showing the author’s,
and platform’s, chauvinistic views.

The article talks about an NHS probe into the Gender Service after the tories complained about it.
Their problem they have is that… the WGS is too good at delivering surgeries compared to English
services. The crux of the article is that our health care is too good (compared to England), and the
transphobes want to make it worse. This isn’t to say that the WGS is particularly amazing compared
to how it should be, because it still acts as a gate-keeping mechanism and does not offer some
essential surgeries.

Much of the article is taken up by a section on the “Freelance journalist” Nick Wallis’s freedom of
information request, who outlines how the WGS delivers gender-affirming surgeries, like top and
bottom surgery, 3 to 4 times more often than the UK average. In this section trans women are called
men, and trans men are called women.

Who is this Nick Wallis? He’s an English grifter who lives in Sussex. He runs a website called
“GenderBlog”, where he attacks trans people for donation money, and hasn’t done any real
journalism in years. His blog on the WGS is an appalling read and one that can only be written by
someone with disgusting intentions. Included in the blog is an interview with a woman who’s
daughter is getting bottom surgery. This woman, and the blog article, uses her daughter’s autism as
an excuse as to why she is unfit to have the surgery – even though her daughter is an adult.
So why does a Welsh article feature so heavily this disgusting washed-up English grifter’s story,
and not a single word from actual trans women and men who have experienced the WGS? Surely
the point of healthcare is to deliver it to the people who need it, not deny it based on what
transphobic ‘parents’ want (who are only such in a biological sense – if you deny your child, you
are no longer in any real social sense a parent). The Nation.Cymru article is a blatant fearmongering
attack on working healthcare, propping itself up based on what some Englishman has to say. The
other person brought up in this story is the Tory MS Natasha Asghar, who used this blogpost to
attack the WGS and the sitting Cabinet Secretary for Health. This Tory has been calling for a
review for some months now.

In May, Martin Shipton wrote a previous transphobic article on Nation.Cymru. Similar to the recent
story, it takes the side of TERFs and Tories, without giving the perspective of trans people.
Disgustingly, this article supports the segregation of trans children in schools, attacking the
government for not implementing “EHRC” guidance in schools. This is a sinister attack against
trans children who are one of the most horribly vulnerable demographics. Grown men should never
be writing in favour of harassing children like this. Shipton is not a particularly conservative; he is a
normal liberal, and a very well-regarded journalist. His pogromist articles reveal the hypocrisy at
the heart of liberalism.

The deadliest blow of the attack on trans rights is the attack on our right to transition. Access to
HRT and surgeries is the most important thing for most trans people. They are scared to let us have
them, because then they won’t be able to tell apart binary trans people from cis people. This isn’t
even to mention the horrible treatment of non-binary trans people (though since the article is mostly
concerned with sex-changing surgeries which not all non-binary people want, I’m focusing mainly
on binary trans people).

The word “TERF” is a misnomer. Martin Shipton and Nick Wallis are not radical feminists. They
are supporters of an ideology which is in actuality just misogyny. This is why there is such a panic
about irreversibility and surgeries, especially for trans men. Transphobic ideology concerns itself
more than anything about the reproductive organs of trans people, because more than anything they
view women as baby-makers and men as soldiers. When those men and women change sexes, they
are going against the natural order of things, and defying patriarchy.
Nation.Cymru is funded by the Welsh Government. We are paying them to write this transphobic
drivel. Liberals entertain the idea of an unbiased ‘free press’. But there is absolutely no such thing
as an unbiased press, or a free press, because every journalist has their own beliefs, and a need to
get paid, and every newspaper has its own clear ideological stance. Bourgeois ideas end up dominant

through economic incentives or societal indoctrination. The Nation.Cymru article is a part
of a broad assault on trans rights going on throughout Britain, and a specific right-wing attack on
the WGS. A Welsh news service shouldn’t be engaging with this mainly English ideology.
Just as the main body of this article was finished, more horrific news regarding this has come out.
Every gender-affirming surgery on the Welsh NHS, including ones where the operating theatre was
already being prepared, have been cancelled. This is due to the review demanded by the tories and
these transphobe “journalists”, though the exact body who decided this is as of yet unknown. Trans
people affected by this are saying that every single planned surgery will be medically reviewed.

This is the real impact of this wicked transphobic attack from bourgeois and reactionary petit-
bourgeois elements from England.

People who have been waiting years for surgeries, and took medical leave to receive them, have had
their plans and lives put into chaos without any word on when the surgeries will happen. These
surgeries are necessary and impossible to get for working class people outside of the NHS.
Cancelling them at such late stages is a colossal waste of money and resources. Shipton’s article,
along with English transphobe thuggery and Tory whining, is the reason these terrible cancellations
happened.

Trans people have experienced real material setbacks due to these petit-bourgeois terf hobbyists and
grifter journalists. Right now socialists must take a firmer stance than ever in support of the rights
of trans and nonbinary people. Taking a principled position against chauvinism sets genuine
communist parties apart from revisionists. Notice how the “socialists” who support transphobic
ideology are also all unionists. The correct socialist path in Wales includes supporting all necessary
surgeries for trans people, which will solve long standing medical transphobia in society.