If not supported by evidenced research, I would give very little value to opinion and would go further to say that freedom of speech doesn’t, or at least should not, cover ill-informed opinions that often are little more than hate speech in a respectable package. Let me, for an example, take the recent piece by Christopher Attard (June 15) where he equates social justice with feminism, feminism with sexuality and all the above with gender identify.

Social justice, far from being a new phenomenon or being linked with feminism, is rooted in our Judeo-Christian culture. The original concept of the Year of Jubilee is social justice.

The mission of Christ in Luke’s gospel is all about social justice, not about establishing a religion with rite and ritual.

Many passages in the Pauline epistles are cries for social justice and over the years have been echoed by the Franciscans, Quakers, anti-slavery campaigners, the Salvation Army, Martin Luther King Jr and so many more. So is social justice a feminist thing or a God and human thing? On this evidence I suggest the latter.

Then of course we had the inference that somehow sexual orientation and gender identity are linked and that neither is natural or innate.

I admit that I am no scientist (though one of my degrees is a social science degree with a considerable element of psychology) so I tend to think that, if the overwhelming consensus of scientists tell me one thing then it is likely to betrue, especially on health issues. So what is the consensus?

Firstly it’s that sexuality and gender identity are different, both innate, both have different causes and no more than a natural variant rather like being left handed. Boston University, for example, said: “According to a review article in Endocrine Practice, there is increasing evidence of a biological basis for gender identity that may change physicians’ perspective on transgender medicine and improve health care for these patients.”

Is social justice a feminist thing or a God and human thing? On the evidence I suggest the latter

Science also goes on to show that according to DSM 5 being gender variant is not itself a psychological order.

However a disorder is caused by not being permitted to freely express and live in your true gender and facing social opposition.

The early treatment of children who express variance is therefore critical in minimising and avoiding this socially caused disorder and is fully reversible (American Psychological Association and others).

Sexuality likewise is innate. “In a 2012 paper, Rice and his colleagues suggested that such unerased epi-marks might lead to homosexuality when they are passed on from father to daughter or from mother to son.

“Specifically, they argued that inherited marks that influence a fetus’s (sic) sensitivity to testosterone in the womb might “masculinise” (sic) the brains of girls and “feminise” those of boys, leading to same-sex attraction.”

(http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/10/homosexuality-may-be-caused-chemical-modifications-dna).

These are of course just two of many pieces, articles and scientific reports which I would not dare say are 100 per cent conclusive but then, we either listen to the majority who know or the minority who don’t.

Either way if you cannot objectively evidence you verge towards prejudice and, if you act or speak on that prejudice - hate crime.

Finally let me dismiss the myth of gender identity issues being the offspring of feminism. Of course some trans issues overlap with mainstream feminism, after all trans women are women and as such share much with all other women.

If however, you research the feminists, Germaine Greer, Cathy Brennan or Julie Bindell, you will clearly see the opposition some very well known and vociferous feminists hold against trans issues.

Look up Womyn born Womyn and the hate speech of these Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFS) and you will see how much in common these minority extremist feminists have with Attard on gender identity.

Bear in mind too that trans men are also out there, men born female and they too often have a radically different take on feminism.

So on this issue and perhaps on many others may I suggest that an un-researched opinion is without value or validity and therefore can fall into the realm of hate speech, which is best kept to yourself.

Lauren Salerno worked as a diversity and gender identity trainer in the UK.