Preface:
The crime is not the existence of transgender people, nor their desire to live with dignity. In the vast majority of cases, there are deep and compelling reasons why individuals choose to undergo such a traumatic and invasive process, reasons rooted in identity, survival, and the pursuit of peace. Yet the circus surrounding them adds undue and unfair distress, compounding the pain of an already difficult journey.
The crime lies in the perpetuation of a frenzied argument, primarily based upon speculative, circumstantial possibilities rather than actual events. Rare anomalies are magnified into storms, while the lived truth of most is ignored. The mob and the media thrive on these speculative fears, rewarding outrage with attention while refusing to promote the practical infrastructure changes that would create fairness for all.
Narrative:
The mob has always been with us. In literature, in history, in politics, the crowd gathers, torches in hand, convinced that the monster must be hunted down. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein gave us the archetype: a creature misunderstood, feared, and scapegoated, not for its actions but for what it represented. Today, transgender people are cast in that role.
The Mob Hunt: The majority hide behind collective outrage, protected by anonymity, perpetuating fear while refusing to stand alone and defend their reasoning. Institutions and commentators amplify minor incidents into cultural paranoia, sustaining the frenzy.
The Media’s Role: Traditional media keeps the subject in headlines, but it is social media that emboldens the mob. People pluck the courage to speak publicly, not from conviction, but from the quest for “likes” and validation from like‑minded peers. Outrage becomes performance, rewarded by algorithms, and the mob grows louder.
The Insulated Few: A handful of prominent voices stand apart. Their stature and resources insulate them. They can speak loudly, unafraid of prominence, knowing that even if they fall in this argument, they can retreat into privacy or wealth without existential risk. Their insulation makes them bolder, while the vulnerable bear the brunt.
The Hypocrisy: While the mob shouts, solutions sit quietly in plain sight. Privacy cubicles in locker rooms. Shared restrooms that dissolve division. Removal of redundant “men only” and “women only” establishments, saving costs and reducing bias. These are not radical ideas, they are practical designs that build dignity into infrastructure.
The Micro‑Circumstances: The mob thrives on exceptions. A transgender athlete wins a competition, and suddenly, the “apparent prowess” is magnified into proof of unfairness. Or a rare abuse, a convict using transition as a ruse to escape detection, is paraded as if it defines the whole. Yet these cases are vanishingly rare. To sacrifice the needs of the 90% for the anomalies of the 10% is hypocrisy.
The Double Edge
In recognising this truth, fairness demands more than inclusion; it demands transformation. The natural succession is to remove artificial divisions altogether. In competition, the measure is excellence, not category. Preserving “men versus women” is a cultural preference, not merit. To cling to it is to cling to bias.
Postscript:
The plight of Frankenstein’s monster is the plight of transgender people today: hunted not for their actions, but for their existence. The mob’s hypocrisy lies in perpetuating outrage while ignoring solutions that would dissolve the conflict. The doctrine demands that fairness be built into infrastructure, so that dignity is not debated but designed. And it insists that in the competitive world, the highest achievement is not divided by gender but measured by skill. To remove “men versus women” is not unfair, it is life.
Annotation: The Circus of Speculation
The mob does not hunt monsters; it hunts shadows.
A transgender athlete wins a medal, and suddenly the apocalypse is upon us.
A rare abuse is paraded as proof that civilisation itself is collapsing.
A whisper of “what if” becomes a headline, and a headline becomes a storm.
Meanwhile, the infrastructure sits unchanged, cubicles unbuilt, divisions preserved, dignity ignored. The mob prefers the theatre: torches raised, hashtags trending, likes accumulating like confetti in a carnival of outrage.
It is not courage that emboldens them, but the dopamine drip of social media. They roar not because they are brave, but because they are rewarded. The monster suffers in silence, while the mob dances for applause.
And here lies the satire: the crowd congratulates itself for defending fairness, yet the simplest fixes, privacy cubicles, shared spaces, open competition, are dismissed as too practical, too boring, too real. Better to keep the circus alive, better to chase shadows than to build solutions.