Identity-politics activism thrives when lived, marginalised experience is imbued with academic abstraction.

However, when findings in the courts, and inquiries led by professionals with unquestioned integrity eventually catch-up to the activism, then it will, as we are witnessing with trans-ideology, find itself pincered between an acerbic online backlash, and subdued, scrupulous institutionalism.

It’s difficult to fend off reactionary dude-bro trolls, and empiricist peers with OBE FRCN and FRCGP after their surname, at the same time.

Such activists have been beset by a further, harrowing shift of late: their neologisms of non-binary; gender-non-conforming; gender-fluid and cis-gender are starting to sound a little passé.

In the space of just two years, the public has begun to look beyond abstract, generalised solidarity and parse trans rights into various categories – athletics, private spaces, ethics around ages of transition, and the social media, peer and socio-cultural influences, mental health, and relativist changes to concepts of gender and sexuality that are all elements in a complex picture.

The majority are still broadly sympathetic toward trans inclusivity in the abstract; but are more aware of a host of issues in practice, and feel it might be time to push pause.

While the drive for visibility and acceptance of a marginalised community is decent in spirit, that drive came to be characterised, disproportionately, by an absolutist stridency, eschewing any distinctions.

After the US Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision, making gay marriage legal at the federal level, it seemed like the trans community’s empowered integration would be a kind of minor addendum, that trans people would benefit from many of the national recognitions and protections, we would be largely done with the culture wars over sexual identity and rights, and that would more or less be that.

But then activists became enthralled with and driven by ideology.

Already dubious ideas like social constructivism - the idea that there aren't really discernible differences between men and women, that such differences are socially constructed, and that these artificial differences need to be deconstructed and broken down to achieve equality of outcome; and further gender ideology ideas of non-binarism and fluidity; of devising and imposing upon the vast generality contrived and lame terms like cisgender, or male-presenting, and the abstraction of gender from sex, all led to a cultural mess of relativism and inevitable antagonisms in society and governance.

Soon, people who simply identified as a gender, largely irrespective of physiognomy, found themselves the beneficiaries of protections and civil liberties when it came to communal spaces for women such as bathrooms and changing rooms, because the denial of such access would be an affront to their identity and rights.

Health services had to alter their language, invoking tautologies and torturous constructions such as “chest-feeding”, or “people who menstruate”.

The affirmation of these ideas seemed for a long time unassailable, as part of a wider, oftentimes more sympathetic support for the rights of trans individuals facing prejudice and innumerable hurdles, who, as adults with agency, simply wanted to transition and not attract attention or be conscripted to the frontlines of the culture war.

Such abstractions of sex and gender, empathy for children wanting to transition, and stringent rights and protections seemed poised to become the prevailing attitude and new cultural norm.

Most people were wondering why the Harry Potter lady was being so dogged and undermining her mainstream appeal and reputation.

The griping and reactionary efforts to stall this progress seemed meanspirited, on the wrong side of history, and lacked any support or recognition anywhere in the media.

But in less than two years, the tide has turned, not against trans people, but against trans ideology.

In 2022, Maya Forstater, a researcher who lost her job at a thinktank after tweeting that transgender women could not change their biological sex, successfully brought a test case to establish that gender-critical views are a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act.

She won a landmark decision on appeal.

Forstater also successfully won a claim that she was unfairly discriminated against because of her gender-critical beliefs.

In January of 2023, The Atlantic ran a comprehensive piece entitled ‘Take detransitioners seriously’.

Then came the BBC Tavistock inquiry.

Established in 1989, the Tavistock Clinic’s gender identity development service for children (GIDS) shut its doors in 2023 after prescribing puberty blockers to more than one thousand children, many under 16, who were questioning their gender identity.

In 2009 GIDS saw fewer than 50 children a year.

Since then, demand increased a hundredfold, with more than 5,000 seeking help in 2021-22.

The clinic became the subject of increasing scrutiny, brought to the fore by a court case in 2020, where complainant Keira Bell accused it of having treated her “like an experiment” and hastening her into making irreversible changes to her body, and then by the efforts of Hannah Barnes, a BBC journalist, which prompted an investigation into the Tavistock by the NHS regulator.

Then there was the attempted boycott of the ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ video game, set in the world of Harry Potter.

Activist allies of the trans community would not abide an outspoken critic of trans ideology like JK Rowling to benefit financially and obtain a proxy recognition, and coordinated to criticise Twitch streamers and reviewers who popularised or affirmed the game.

But ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ was a smash commercial success, and the activists turned out to lack much clout.

Then, in mid-2022, world swimming’s governing body, FINA, effectively banned transgender women from competing in women’s events.

FINA members widely adopted a new gender inclusion policy and proposed an “open competition category.”

Then came the Cass Report, a large-scale professional investigation by an esteemed veteran of youth care, that found considerable uncertainty around much of the gender ideology in vogue, especially in regard to puberty blockers, and the ability of young people to comprehend the scale and implications of their decisions.

In response to the inquiry, the NHS uploaded an official update entitled: 'Implementing advice from the Cass Review', in which it made a series of commitments.

“…following full public consultation and engagement, a new evidence based clinical policy on puberty supressing hormones (also called puberty blockers) that makes clear access is no longer routinely available as part of the NHS children and young people’s gender service.” “…establishing a new, national Children and Young People’s Gender Dysphoria Research Oversight Board…to support the wider research into children’s gender services highlighted by your review.”

Then there was the Scottish Hate Crime Bill, which was deeply unpopular, and brought into focus the clash between individual freedom and recognitions, and issues around freedom of speech.

All of a sudden, JK Rowling was looking, to plenty of ordinary folk, like she might be right about the gist of the issue.

It was permissible to contest much of the trans rhetoric and ideology without coming across as bigoted, or socially unacceptable.

People are generally accepting of trans-individuals who, past the age of eighteen, transitioned and are living a fully-realised life - they might even count one or two such people as friends, or co-workers.

However, the broad generality will also, despite the prevalence of echo chambers and disillusionment with institutions, still take their cues from institutional bodies headed by professionals with a wealth of experience in their field.

The activist wing of transgender ideology has been undermined, and shown to be in need of reining in.

And this turnaround – empirical, institutional, emphatic – has taken place in just two short years.