How our society has betrayed trans people....

For years elites insisted biology was optional, pronouns were compulsory and any dissent was automatically “hate speech”.

Our society has done a massive disservice to the trans community.

By prioritising affirmation over help, we have normalised what previous generations would rightly have recognised as a mental health crisis.

Mentally unwell individuals need doctors and psychologists - not a political class promising to enshrine their delusions in law.

For years elites insisted biology was optional, pronouns were compulsory and any dissent was automatically “hate speech”.

The media splashed rainbows on everything from banks to breakfast cereal, while schools quietly swapped maths and literacy for identity workshops.

We nodded along as men in skirts lectured us about childbirth and insisted that men can have babies.

All of this was done in the name of “kindness” and “compassion”. In reality, it was the worst kind of cruelty. Because all delusions eventually collide with reality. And when they do, the unrest is enormous.

Now Western culture is slowly swinging back towards sanity. Ordinary people are once again willing to say what everyone actually knows to be 100 percent factually true:

• Women do not have penises.

• Children are not born in the “wrong body”.

• Unwell people need help, not a new set of pronouns.

The fantasy is imploding.

So where does this leave those who were swept up in the gender fluidity cult, the very people who until five minutes ago were praised as stunning, brave, courageous and special?

Troubled people, often battling multiple mental health issues while also feeling confused about their gender, were told they were not only sane but morally superior. They were celebrated, platformed and used as political mascots.

But now as the culture shifts and we once again start calling men “men” and women “women” their carefully constructed world is shattering.

We have been forced to acknowledge a troubling rise in unhinged rhetoric and behaviour from some trans individuals. Are we really surprised? When untreated illness collides with unyielding reality, anger and unrest are inevitable.

The elites who inflated the gender ideology balloon now feign shock that it has burst. But when you build a movement on fantasy, you should expect tantrums when reality finally walks back through the door.

Reality’s return is long overdue. But in the meantime, there are a lot of bitter, hurting people only now realising they were sold a lie.

No one has been more profoundly let down by the rise of gender ideology than those genuinely struggling with gender identity.

We owe them the truth. We owe them honesty. And we owe them real compassion as they face the painful reality that what they needed all along was not affirmation, but help.

Senator Ralph Babet, Senator for Victoria, United Australia Party.