One of Britain’s best-known historians has claimed that people in the modern age can self-identify as trans in order to boost their social status and gain respect.
A famous British historian has claimed that people in the modern-day are able to identify as transgender in order to gain a certain degree of social status, especially when compared to what he described as a “bog-standard straight”.
The claim comes after a report earlier in the month that over five per cent of Americans aged from 18 to 30 identify themselves as being “transgender” or “non-binary”.
According to a report by The Telegraph, podcaster, classical historian and author Tom Holland voiced his hunch on the matter at the Chalke Valley History Festival, with the ace history expert putting great emphasis on how many white and straight individuals are seemingly changing how they self-identify.
“I wonder, is there a sense in which, in London or universities, or places where the public culture is very, very progressive that actually to have a kind of a white heterosexual identity is a bit déclassé, you’re boring, you’re dull, you’re kind of down the pecking order,” Holland reportedly pondered out loud to his audience.
“And I wonder whether that explains an intriguing trend, particularly in America, in universities, where you have people who are all white passing themselves as black or Native American,” he continued. “Or the growing trend of people who are clearly absolutely bog-standard straight to claim to be queer.”
The historian also raised the case of Jamie Wallis — a Conservative Party MP who came out as trans while alleging that he had both been raped and blackmailed — and how he otherwise “couldn’t look less trans” by being “a bloke in a suit”.
“I don’t want to question his identity. I know it’s a problematic thing,” he said. “But I kind of suspect that in a sense it’s more interesting to be queer. Or at least it’s more interesting to not be heterosexual.”
The Telegraph goes on to report Holland as making the claim that — in the post-Christian west — one could gain prestige by self-identifying as a perceived victim.
Historian Holland is by no means a stranger to controversy and has been the target of several death threats against himself and his family over his book on the history of Islam, and for a documentary he made about the atrocities of the Islamic State.
The suggestion comes after research found that many young Americans are now identifying themselves as being transgender, especially when compared to the overall population of the United States.
According to polling conducted by Pew Research, three per cent of young people aged 18 to 30 identify as “non-binary”, while a further two per cent described themselves as being “transgender”.
Meanwhile, a college enrollment scandal that emerged in 2019 involving a man helping rich children get into college through cheating on tests and forging athletic backgrounds also reportedly involved him advising would-be college students to identify as being from minority backgrounds.
William ‘Rick’ Singer, the man behind the cheating scheme, is reported as frequently giving the parents of children the option of identifying their children as being from minority backgrounds, by extension allowing them to more easily access college places.