People's Reactions to Opposing Trans Ideology

How do people react when presented with cold, hard facts about trans ideology? One brave man is taking to the streets to find out.

Comment // Children & Education

By Sarah Newlyn - 27th May 2025

For some time now, gender ideology has hovered like a spectre over society, making demands and viciously bullying those who refuse to buy into its absurd narrative. For every inch that has been given, the trans activist zealots have claimed a mile. The matter has become so toxic that many ordinary people have been too frightened to speak up and say what they truly feel, for fear that they may be cancelled, which could mean losing jobs and even friends. There have been many cases of so-called gender critical people being subjected to such treatment: Maya Forstater, Sandie Peggie, and Kathleen Stock, to name just a few. However, April 2025’s Supreme Court ruling, which clarified that the word ‘sex’ in the context of the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex, not gender identity, has prompted many who may previously have remained quiet on the matter to speak up. While we can perhaps allow ourselves some hope that this is a turning point, a move towards the return of sanity, the reaction to the Supreme Court ruling from trans activists has shown that there is still a way to go in fighting back against the stranglehold of trans ideology.

Enter Steve James. A former Royal Navy Commando with 148 Battery, and ex-firefighter, Steve is clearly a man of immense courage, who has decided that real boots on the ground action is needed to combat the ignorance and lies that surround the issue of gender ideology, and in particular the danger it poses to women and children. Steve has mounted a campaign, taking to the streets of various UK cities wearing a sandwich board bearing hard truths, such as “There is no such thing as a transgender child”, and uploading videos of his encounters to his YouTube channel, Edge of the Matrix. His strategy borrows elements from that of Canadian dad Billboard Chris, who Steve has been in touch with, and who is someone he admires. Steve, with his wonderful Mancunian sense of humour, has jokingly referred to himself as "Pound Shop Billboard Chris", and even a "tribute act". Chris, who has been pounding pavements across the Western world since 2020, offered a few sage pieces of advice to Steve: keep calm, know your stuff, and record everything. And, perhaps most importantly of all, let your challengers speak. After all, the ideology they are hell-bent on defending is so fundamentally flawed, that it stands to reason: give them enough rope, and they’ll hang themselves. Metaphorically, obviously, before the purple-haired mob come for you.

I have caught up with Steve several times since he started his campaign, and what comes across loud and clear is that his motivations are honourable. He perceives the trans movement to be a war on truth and sees a dangerous future for a world without foundations in reality. Steve is a somewhat old-fashioned guy — I wish there were more like him — and believes it to be incumbent on men to stand up for women and children, who are clear victims of this war. He is quick to point out that he has no issue with adults making any life choices they wish, provided that their choice does not adversely affect others. At the time of this writing, Steve has uploaded over 20 videos to YouTube, documenting the best and worst moments of his campaign so far.

There has been support for Steve’s campaign, alongside the pushback.

Prior to embarking on his campaign, last month at the UK Column conference in Cheltenham, Steve interviewed UK Column’s very own Dr Diane Rasmussen McAdie, a woman who knows all too well the penalties exacted upon those who speak out. Diane was cancelled by her professional body and at the university at which she worked for daring to challenge the gender ideology that was being pushed via books in children's library collections. She refused to be silenced, however, and instead spoke up, placing the need to protect children and young people from this dangerous ideology above her own career. If only all those in education would show the same courage.

In its first few weeks, Steve’s campaign has proved to be remarkably successful in providing a wonderful illustration of the problem trans ideologues have with hearing and accepting truth. He began on the streets of Manchester, historically an extremely LGB-friendly city, but as quickly became clear, now also home to many who are eagerly embracing the TQ+. Steve was approached by a range of people, some supporting his message, others vehemently opposing it, and accusing Steve of, amongst other things, committing a hate crime. He clearly is not. The opposition Steve has faced has come from a variety of demographics. It has come from men and women, old and young, and unsurprisingly from those who identify as trans. Despite this variation, however, there is a commonality to the objections, almost as if all who object have attended the same lecture, and shared their notes. One of the most enduring questions Steve has faced is: “Why does it bother you?” Or, as one Mancunian chap on Day One so eloquently put it: “Why are you arsed?” This same man went on to assert that Steve should not be standing up for just women and children, but also for “trans people, who have one of the highest rates of suicide”. One of the many tropes that those on the allyship side of the debate regularly cite, but for which there is zero evidence.

It is noteworthy, too, that despite their eagerness to exhibit their immense kindness to the trans community, many of those who approach Steve to disagree with his messaging resort to rudeness and personal insults in place of real debate. When Steve attempted to discuss the alleged elevated rate of suicide, and to pin down a definition of trans, one gentleman retorted, “I just came over to tell you — you’re a prick”. The gentleman’s female companion joined in to let Steve know that she felt he was “spreading hate”, and that he was “disgusting”. Steve’s camera has been knocked over on several occasions by people angered by his campaign, including another young man in Manchester who spoke at length with Steve, and whose anger was palpable. This conversation turned a bit Monty Python-esque when the young man countered Steve’s description of Fallon Fox having had all “his parts cut off” with “her parts cut off”. He further corrected Steve’s “he broke the orbital bone in her skull” with “she broke her orbital bone”. The lunacy of such language evaded the man, as did the irony that he cared more about the pronouns of the so-called trans woman than the safety of women in sport.

An angry young trans ally engaging with Steve in Manchester.

In Islington, London, Steve unsurprisingly encountered a good deal of pushback. A female trans ally proved just how flippantly she regarded the problems faced by detransitioners as she shifted the blame onto the victims by comparing transition regret to regret she herself may feel about the purchases she had just made in TK Maxx. She was woefully ill-informed about the subject of children and transition, and was even unaware that children had, in fact, been prescribed puberty blockers right here in the UK. Yet she waxed lyrical about tiny rates of detransition and about children knowing who they are. Stunningly, a well-spoken young man who supported the comments of this woman also compared being trans to being black or Muslim, stating that these, too, were identities. The poor comparisons and misinformation just kept coming.

But perhaps one of the most impactful encounters so far on Steve’s campaign was with a 15-year-old who believes herself to be transgender, and who approached Steve along with her parents. To their credit, the family were perfectly respectful during the entire exchange, a contrast to the behaviour of many. We learned from Steve’s careful questioning that the child is a girl who is presenting herself to the world as a boy. As the conversation went on, it became evident that the young girl was reciting trans messaging by rote, messaging likely garnered from the myriad of online trans rhetoric available to young people via their mobile phones. She spoke almost entirely in the same tropes Steve encountered from other trans people and their allies, tropes about suicide rates, about puberty blockers, and about hormone replacement therapies (HRT). And then she dropped the bombshell. She announced that HRT “affirms” people and “stops people from hating themselves”. It was, for me, a mic drop moment. She unwittingly confirmed something that has long been known amongst those opposed to the insidious gender ideology that lures children like this in, and takes advantage of their youth and vulnerability. Girls who hate their bodies are turning to boyhood as an alternative. Steve gently asked this child what she meant when she said that she feels like a boy, and her answer was heartbreaking. She replied, “I hate the way I look female, the way I was born”. She proceeded to tie herself in knots with some confused statements about sexuality and gender before Steve brought the conversation to a close.

This young girl’s confusion, which is being affirmed by well-meaning but delusional parents, is a heartbreakingly sad illustration of the 4000% rise in the number of girls seeking an escape from their developing female bodies by transitioning. Is it any wonder? The modern world pushes unrealistic and pornographic imagery at children 24 hours a day, through apps on their phones, through television and film, and via bizarre psyops like the Bonnie Blue and Lily Philips atrocities. Girls are bereft, feeling they could never live up to such unrealistic bodily images, nor wanting the perceived graphic sexual attention that comes with femaleness.

Steve handled the conversation with his young adversary with great care and compassion. After all, children like her are one of the main reasons for mounting his campaign. We can only hope that perhaps, as a family, they went away with some food for thought.

An emboldened trans ally knocks the hat from Steve’s head.

There have been some priceless moments when the trans supporters challenging Steve are left temporarily speechless. For example, when asked, “Do you think children are perfect the way they are born?”, there is a pause as they realise that there can be no satisfactory answer to this question that does not annihilate trans rhetoric. Likewise, “Is there a right and wrong way to be a boy and a girl?” elicits a similar response. However, these are often the moments followed by somewhat violent reactions, and Steve has encountered many instances of assault so far. The flat cap he dons has been knocked off more than once. Things took a sinister turn in Liverpool when a woman was so enraged by his message she sprayed him with chilli sauce before physically assaulting him by hitting him in the face. Steve, who has wisely equipped himself with a sound knowledge of the law and his rights, made a citizen’s arrest, the police were called, and she was arrested. Steve is pressing charges and so has been advised not to release the video he has which clearly shows the assault, or reveal any more than the information I have herewith included, until such a time as any legal proceedings have concluded. But this assault is illustrative of the intense belief held by such people, and the lengths they are willing to go to when confronted with the exposure of the lie.

Steve, after being assaulted in Liverpool.

It is hard to know exactly where so-called trans allies pick up the notions they are so confident to proclaim and defend. None of those who have so far approached Steve on his campaign have explicitly said. However, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the capture in the last few years of universities, schools, and even organisations like the NHS have played a significant role in the propagation of these beliefs. Indeed, leaked internal memos from councils and NHS trusts up and down the country have revealed that many intend to ignore the Supreme Court ruling, and continue to allow female-identifying men into women’s toilets and changing facilities. Universities have become hotbeds of trans ideology, perhaps explaining why so many young people invest themselves so heavily in believing the lies inherent in the messaging around transgenderism, and who therefore champion the concept so fiercely. Oxford University, one of the most prestigious education institutions in the world, boasts a many-paged Transgender Policy, which outlines in painstaking detail the lengths the institution will go to in the name of equity and inclusivity. There appear to be as many activists on the faculty of universities as there are in the student body. So extensive is this policy, that point 19 goes so far as to assert that their provision for creating an inclusive environment for transgender staff and students “also includes people who are perceived [emphasis added] to be trans, irrespective [emphasis added] of their actual gender identity”. The mind boggles. So, it is perhaps no surprise that students, immersed for three or four years in an environment saturated with people obsessed with transgenderism in all its forms, march into post-university life heavily indoctrinated, and bringing these ideas into their careers.

One of the biggest obstacles to waking people up to the reality of gender ideology and the very real harms it is responsible for is that those who support it put themselves in somewhat of an echo chamber. They are unwilling to listen to views and facts that do not concur with their own ideas. No matter how much evidence is presented to them contrary to their beliefs, they continue to argue the unarguable. Like any ideology, the immediate reaction is almost always anger towards a person who presents a challenge to such tightly-held beliefs. We saw similar reactions towards those opposing masks, lockdowns, and mandatory vaccines during Covid.

Voltaire once sagely said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities”. Trans ideology, whether one believes it to have grown organically, or to have been pushed from a higher agender, is teeming with absurdities, and the belief in these absurdities has led to horrific atrocities. Girls as young as 13 have undergone top surgery, more accurately described as double mastectomy. Boys whose puberty has been blocked with medication at Tanner Stage 2 are left with a lifelong inability to achieve orgasm. And boys and girls infected by this insidious movement are becoming medical patients for life, reliant on pharmaceutical concoctions with many, varied and extremely dangerous side effects, for the rest of their lives.

Steve’s campaign feels timely and necessary, and his enthusiastic, honest approach has the capability to relay the pertinent and urgent information to society about the dangers of gender ideology. It is a tragedy that so many in power and authority capitulated to the demands of autogynephilic men and parents using their children as the latest fashion accessory. Even the supposed public service broadcaster, the good old BBC, seems incapable of going more than 20 minutes without championing a man identifying as a woman, or a drag queen. Apparently, theirs are the most valuable views on everything from the price of fish to the growing financial crisis. Personally, I find Steve’s approach more favourable. Keep up the good work, Steve.

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Originally published on UKColumn.org by Sarah Newlyn - 27th May 2025

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