Threatened Futures: Trans Youth Advocacy as Gender Conspiracy in The British Press

Abstract This article presents a grounded critical discourse analysis of six feature-style articles published in right-leaning newspapers at the peak of negative media attention to Mermaids, a UK charity that advocates for trans young people. The results show how British “gender-critical” writers have manufactured a conspiracy-style narrative around the threatened futures of women and children, positioning trans young people as victims of an extreme ideology that is spreading through Britain. This threatened futures conspiracy narrative represents a distinctively British manifestation of global “anti-gender” discourse, with columnists reshaping and recycling long-standing specters of threat to the British nation such as violence against women and children, the foreign Other, extremism, and radicalization. Such fears are reignited and mobilized against British trans youth in these feature articles, contributing to an increasingly hostile environment for these young people and their supporters.