Batty Ideology

I thanked goodness when Pride month ended, although we now have the parade season to endure. During both it seems like running the gauntlet of finding out that a nature conservation organisation that I respect - and which does enormous, solid good work for wildlife - is captured by the gender identity nonsense. The latest of these to make my heart sink was The Bat Conservation Trust. It joins The Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB.

Bats already have a bad enough rap in many quarters without their man in charge of communications, Joe Nunez-Mino, telling us as part of a lengthy Substack post that we must ‘respect people’s pronouns’. To be fair, the piece was entitled ‘Embracing human diversity in bat conservation’, but I still wonder if he thinks bats have a gender identity.

Bats of course, in common with most humans, have no need to ask about pronouns. When bats breed it takes a male and a female - and when the females have given birth to, and are suckling, their young they gather together in what’s known as a maternity roost. Of course the offspring will be of both sexes, but essentially this is a single-sex facility for mother bats.

I’m absolutely for free speech and certainly for gay, lesbian and bisexual women and men to be out in the open in nature conservation - and everywhere else - without fear or risk. I take no issue with talking about this, nor in explaining that homosexuality exists in non-human mammals and birds. It demonstrates it is natural and that’s a good thing.

If you buddy up with a movement that pretends humans can change sex, and vilifies those who won’t go along with that, you risk undermining the credibility of the experts and research

Where I start to worry is when the embracing of the Progress Flag version of Pride comes along. For those not in the know, where once the Pride flag was a simple rainbow of horizontal stripes, a more recent version added a five-stripe chevron on the left, next to the hoist. The blue, pink and white part of this represents transgenderism (the black and brown stripes represent people of colour). However much it is argued by some that the debate is bitter on both sides and ‘very polarised’ and such, the reality is that to be pro-transgender is to be anti-women and if not in total denial when it comes to biological facts, then happy to gloss over them and pretend the sex differences away. If an individual wants to believe in that, I believe they are free to do so and to speak of it. In the same way that people who disbelieve it should be free. But when a nature conservation organisation not only embraces it, but promotes it I start to worry about it resulting in an anti-nature backlash.

I have both worked and volunteered in nature conservation. One of the main ways organisations and charities in this field argue they should be listened to is that they back their research with sound science. It is used as a basis for campaigning and speaking up for nature and wildlife. Why? So fingers can’t be pointed that it’s no more than fluffy-wuffy, tree-hugging ninnies fussing unnecessarily about ickle birds and bunnies getting hurt. If you want to advocate for wildlife and nature, flora and fauna, our landscape and all the plants and creatures that make it what it is, you need to be serious about it and seen by those in power as serious about it.

back away from gender identity ideology before it’s too late

If however, you buddy up with a movement that pretends humans can change sex, and vilifies those who won’t go along with that, you risk undermining the credibility of the experts and research you base your arguments on. You also risk losing the support of the people who fund your work. The public at large, from which membership of conservation organisations is made up, are sick and tired of the damage that the transgender and gender identity brigade has done. For many seeing it on a charity’s website, social media feed and maybe even at a nature reserve they go to visit, the Progress Pride flag doesn’t demonstrate standing up for gay, lesbian and bisexual people. It shows a disregard for biological reality and women’s rights and a rejection of free speech. It does this even more so since the Supreme Court clarified the meaning of women and men in law. You might as well stick up a sign that says: Only those holding the right opinions may enjoy nature.

A plea then to nature conservationists, of course keep supporting LGB people - and looking after your staff in line with the Equality Act - but back away from gender identity ideology before it’s too late. And a plea to gender critical members of wildlife and conservation charities, if you can, find out whether the organisation you support has bought into the gender woo. If it has please consider contacting the CEO and Trustees to register your objection.

We nature-lovers are already condemned for standing up for biodiversity in wanting to protect bats, newts, nightingales and ancient trees from being bulldozed so building can take place. Let’s not give the people who already disagree with us anything more they can use as a reason to ignore that nature is in crisis.

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