It takes b*alls to be trans woman.
David Vance SubstackRead More
A headline popped up again recently that perfectly captures how detached the trans narrative has become in the UK: “Heartbreak as transgender woman, 29, dies.” The story described someone who was “supposed to marry her partner next year” and wanted “another baby,” framing her as a tragic young woman who “never got the chance to become the woman she was meant to be.” Except for the fact that she died of testicular cancer. That’s not a typo. Testicular cancer. A disease that, by definition, only affects biological males.
The entire article tiptoed around this basic fact while insisting on female pronouns and womanhood. I don’t see this as “kindness” or respect — it’s an institutional denial of reality that actually puts lives at risk. It has to be rebuffed.
Biological males who “transition” keep their testes unless they’re removed. Those testes can, and sometimes do, develop cancer. The same goes for the prostate gland, which also doesn’t magically disappear after surgery.
NHS guidance quietly admits that trans women (i.e. men) still need prostate cancer checks. How deranged is that then?
Doctors sometimes do digital rectal exams or even check through the “neovagina.” PSA blood tests have to be interpreted differently because oestrogen suppresses the levels, which can hide problems. These are the really awkward, messy realities hidden behind rainbows.
It gets even more bizarre. “Trans men” — aka biological females — are put on testosterone and then somehow still need cervical smear tests and mammograms. Some even still get pregnant. Fertility clinics will scramble to freeze eggs or sperm before the hormones wreck reproductive function. Yet in many activist circles and some NHS settings, mentioning these plain biological facts is treated as hateful. That is what is truly perverse.
The Cass Review laid this out clearly in 2024. Weak evidence, rushed medicalisation of distressed kids, ignored mental health issues, and poor long-term data. NHS England has now sharply restricted puberty blockers for minors.
But the broader culture — language policing, training materials, record-keeping — still acts as if sex is a feeling rather than an actual reality. GPs feel pressured and Parents get stonewalled. Male-bodied individuals still end up in women’s prisons, changing rooms, and sports, while anyone raising concerns is labelled a bigot. And that has to stop!
We must all accept that sex isn’t assigned at birth. It’s observed at birth because it’s real: males produce small gametes (sperm), females produce large ones (eggs). That binary holds for 99.98% of people.
Rare disorders of sexual development don’t erase the rule —in fact they actually prove that it exists. Pretending otherwise doesn’t help a 29-year-old man facing testicular cancer. It just leaves him — and his doctors — navigating euphemisms instead of clear medical advice.
Look, the grief of losing a young partner is very real and awful. I don’t mean to minimise that loss. 29 is way too young to die. Cancer is brutal no matter who it strikes. But dressing up a male body in female terms and pretending biology bends to identity doesn’t honour the dead. It insults the living.
The UK is very slowly waking up after the Cass Report. We really do need to finish the job. Use accurate language in healthcare, have proper safeguarding for kids, and an end to the ritual denial of basic biology. Cosplaying is no substitute for reality.
