AT no other time in modern history have children been under such attack. Witness just one instance of a gay couple purchasing a pair of newborns in the same way you might bring home puppies from a breeder in the countryside.
As if on cue, a number of publications have sprung up promoting the LQBTQ++ agenda to children, most notably in Waterstones. Proudly on display at my local branch is a primer on gender reassignment in cartoon form called Welcome to St Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure by someone named Lewis Hancox. It was nominated for the bookseller’s 2023 Children’s Book Award. Suitable only for 14-pluses it says on the accompanying blurb, despite its cartoon style cover illustration designed to appeal to younger children.
Lois is the protagonist of the story and she doesn’t belong, hates her body and feels alone and ‘weird’, whilst her parents are divorcing and her father abandons the family home. Quite understandably (in the author’s view) she longs to become a boy. Lured by the ambrosia of power, social credibility and acceptance that masculinity affords, she despises her ‘stupid, squeaky’ voice and yearns to swagger about as one of the guys. Lois is as lost and clueless as any of us girls trying to navigate relationships and social acceptance in a post-modern world. After getting beaten up by a gang of thugs she desperately tries to find love to avoid the dreaded label of ‘fridge’ amongst her peer group.
Like many in the TikTok generation bombarded with Kendall Jenner images and articles on who a woman should be, Lois is a victim of self-hatred and confusion especially about her body. She labels her breasts as ‘fatty lumps that need be gone’.
Keep in mind this cartoon book currently resides in the children’s section of your local Waterstones. It celebrates the end of menstruation as the desirable outcome of an eating disorder and instructs the reader on how to ‘grow your own willy’. It has, Waterstones proudly announces, been shortlisted for the ‘National Diversity Awards Positive Role Model Award (LGBT) 2022’.
The author and illustrator did in real life succeed in fulfilling her ‘true’ identity by becoming male. Lewis Hancox is now a celebrity film maker and influencer, with a massive following on social media. Growing up was probably not easy for someone so determinedly unconventional. In 2019 he was viciously attacked at a Pride festival in Portsmouth by a group of hooligans and suffered a broken jaw.
Whatever the inherent literary value of the book (and that is a matter of opinion) the question is, should it be marketed to children? The answer has to be a clear No. Waterstones is guilty not just of wokery, but of gross irresponsibility. The sex content alone is entirely inappropriate and arguably of a ‘grooming’ nature.
The illustrations are semi-pornographic, replete with male genitalia alongside fetishised drawings of hormone shots. There are even a couple of bedroom scenes to up the titillation factor. If this were a movie it would be rated R18; but because it’s presented as a cartoon children can access it very openly
This ‘novel’ is essentially a ‘how to’ manual for prepubescent girls on gender reassignment, including everything from chest binders to hormone blockers, with instructions to seek the nearest NHS gender identity clinic (preferably in London away from prying parents). For girls who feel awkward, unloved or shameful about their burgeoning femininity, the perfect solution offered here seems to be transitioning.
There is no mention of regrets, of the tragedy of the children who just a few years after losing their organs wish to detransition. Nor of the deeper psychological problems underlying the apparent wish to ‘transition’ which can be mistakenly be interpreted as gender dysphoria.
There is a petition: Waterstones – stop pushing dangerous gender ideology at children!
