The case of a young boy in the US who sought successfully to get into the Girl Scouts because he “feels” like a girl highlights yet again the corruption of language that comes in the wake of the transgender movement.

The boy, Bobby Montoya (7), was initially told by one of the troop leaders for the Girl Scouts in the US state of Colorado that he could not be part of the group because he had “boy parts”.

This would seem like a fairly sound basis for excluding somebody from a group that is, after all, called the Girl Scouts.

The troop leader is reported to have told Bobby’s mother: “It doesn’t matter how he looks, he has boy parts, he can’t be in Girl Scouts. Girl Scouts don’t allow that I don’t want to be in trouble by parents or my supervisor.”

Again, this hardly seems unfair.

But for pointing out what is the simple truth, the troop leader was described by a news report in the New York Daily News as “[t]he vitriolic, sharp-tongued troop leader”.

Basic statements of fact now amount to vitriol, it seems.

Here, the Government is proposing new legislation which will not require applicants to have had a ‘sex change’ operation.

In other words, a person with male sex organs could be officially recognised as a woman, and vice versa.

Despite this, a leading transgender campaigner described the proposals as offensive and dehumanising.

Writing in the Irish Times a few weeks ago, campaigner Leslie Sherlock said that government proposals to recognise transgender persons “offends by referring to transgender people as ‘lonely, distressed, passive’, making recommendations which dehumanise transgender experiences”.

What we are being asked to accept is that what makes us biologically male and female should not determine whether we are, in fact, recognised as male or female. If someone who is biologically male decides that “he” is a “she”, or vice versa, we must accept it.

In other words, our body doesn’t determine which sex we are. What determines the sex we are is whatever we wish. More accurately, to put it in politically correct language, we decide which ‘gender’ we are. Therefore, if someone deeply believes that are a man, when their body says they are a woman, or vice versa, then we must take them at their word regardless of what the objective facts may be.

This strikes at the very basis of rational debate itself. Ultimately, words mean certain things because we have a shared understanding of what they mean.

Unless we all agree on what we mean when we talk about very basic things like “boys”, “girls”, “men” and “women”, we cannot have useful conversations. And if we can’t do that, then free speech, reasoned discussion and ultimately democracy itself are in danger.