Alison O’Connor: Trans community collateral damage in social media policing

There is a vocal, often sustained and sometimes abusive coterie on social media who take it upon themselves to police anything and everything said about the trans issue.

Keira Bell outside the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, where a landmark case to stop the NHS prescribing "experimental" puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children who wish to undergo gender reassignment has reached the High Court. Picture: PA

The blurbs for a book I’ve read recently mention the author’s bravery on a couple of occasions. In book terms, it’s a word often reserved for war reporters, perhaps someone who infiltrated a dangerous crime gang or who overcame a horrendous life experience.

But the way in which this woman, a columnist with the Wall Street Journal, is said to have taken her courage in her hands is to write about the transgender debate in the US in her book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.