David Bailey’s son Sascha: Diversity targets mean men are transitioning to enjoy the perks of being a woman
Three years ago, Sascha Bailey almost changed gender. Now, he’s about to become a father – and sounding the alarm on trans ideology
By: Julia Llewellyn Smith
Published: Mar 15, 2025
Sascha Bailey emanates happy excitement. He and his girlfriend of three years, photographer Lucy Brown, are expecting their first baby in August. “I’m ready for the challenge,” says the 30-year-old son of legendary photographer David Bailey and his model fourth wife Catherine. “As you get older, you realise there’s more to life than shallow things like going out and partying or being pretty.”
His joy has extra poignancy, since just three years ago, Bailey was on the verge of changing gender, a decision that would have made it impossible for him to father children.
Suicidally unhappy in an unhappy marriage, he was convinced that undergoing irreversible surgery to become a woman would allow him a fresh start. “I’d been in 10 years of living hell in my relationship and I’d reached a limit where I felt I had to reinvent myself because I couldn’t survive as a man,” he says.
Only after leaving the marriage, intensive therapy and the support of Brown, 34, did he realise that his issues had nothing to do with biological sex but were linked largely to being abused as a child by an older man, something that left him unwilling to identify with male role models. He binned the oestrogen patches he’d been prescribed but not yet started. “Thank God because they would have destroyed my fertility, and having children is important to me,” he says.
[ Bailey recently annonced he’s having a baby with photographer Lucy Brown ]
Now, the handsome, hyper-articulate and charming Bailey is on a mission to highlight how easily young people are seduced into thinking changing sex will solve their problems, and to prevent authority figures such as doctors and teachers, let alone parents, enabling them to embark on a course with irreparable psychological and physical consequences.
“Society’s made something that’s harmful to children acceptable and that has to stop,” he says. “In the UK, sex education is starting younger and younger and getting stranger and stranger. Kids should just be kids and shouldn’t be shown the transgender option at all. I sometimes thought I wanted to be a girl when I was 11, but I also wanted to be a cheetah. If you go down this route, it gets to silly places very quickly.”
For expressing such views, Bailey has received vicious online trolling. Many of his friends have “cancelled” him, withdrawing invitations. “People are bonkers about the issue,” he says. “They won’t have a logical conversation, they just assume any questioning of trans issues makes you a bad person.”
Few appear to have actually listened to Bailey’s arguments, which – in fact – are deeply nuanced. He has no problem with adults transitioning, “though they probably should have more stringent mental health checks.”
“I’m saying people under 18 obviously shouldn’t have anything to do with this. Under 18, you can’t get a tattoo, you can’t drink but for some reason you can change your gender.”
The UK has seen a huge increase in the number of under-18s referred to NHS gender identity service, from 94 people in 2009-2010 to more than 5000 in 2021-2022. This rise has become a key factor in the culture wars. On one side, anti-trans activists or “Terfs” (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) claim parents and children have been brainwashed into thinking normal teenage angst can be cured by changing gender.
Trans activists fire back that the numbers simply reflect growing acceptance around transgender people, who make up less than one per cent of the world’s population (the 2021 census showed 0.5 per cent of the UK population identified as transgender).
Bailey sees no evidence to back such a conclusion and laughs at trans arguments that historic female figures such as Joan of Arc were transgender. While he’s glad trans people are rarely persecuted compared to the past, he’s convinced the rush to embrace the movement has had “dangerous” consequences.
Growing up in the 1990s, he was a slightly effeminate boy who sometimes dreamed of becoming a girl but never voiced such yearnings. “Acceptance sounds like a positive thing, but I think I was saved by the stigma around trans at that time. It meant I didn’t talk about those feelings too much. If I had, I would have been sent down the medical route,” he says.
The turning point in the conversation came around a decade ago when a spate of high-profile trans people started being feted by society. Olympic decathlon gold medallist Bruce Jenner (stepfather of Kim Kardashian and father of reality stars Kylie and Kim Jenner) transitioned, renamed Caitlyn Jenner to considerable “societal accolade”.
“You saw her career get a boost from it,” says Bailey. “People who might previously have had thought about transitioning but not done it, were more drawn towards the idea, because there was now an incentive.”
Dressed in a slick black Dolce & Gabbana suit, a souvenir from his brief modelling career, Bailey’s sitting in the kitchen of the artefact-stuffed, north London home of his parents, where he’s staying while he prepares to move in with Brown,“She gets on great with my family and I with hers, it’s really nice.”
He prefers not to talk about his father, now 87 and suffering from vascular dementia, “My dad always told us it’s important to be your own person, so I’m proud of my family history but it doesn’t define me,” but says his parents are “inspirational.” He grew up between their houses in London and Devon, with his older brother Fenton and sister Paloma, where regular guests included the likes of shoe designer Manolo Blahnik, his father’s model ex-wife Marie Helvin (Bailey Sr was also married to French actress Catherine Deneuve) and Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, “He told me to tie people’s shoe laces together at some event.”
[ Sascha Bailey (far left) with father David, mother Catherine and brother Fenton in 2013 ]
It was a happy, loving family but being the child of famous parents had its burdens. “In the UK, there’s a very negative attitude to famous people. People assume you live in fame land and so have magic money because of who my dad is. You can’t work in normal places because people ask why aren’t you working in a special place and if you work in a special place no one thinks you deserve to be there. The best times I had in the workplace were the ones where no one knew who I was and judged me for no reason other than my own merit.”
Diagnosed as dyslexic, Bailey was educated privately at a specialist school for children with learning difficulties, but he left at 16. Within a year he’d been signed by the model agency Storm. He doesn’t think his catwalk experiences fed into his gender dysphoria, “but I was never comfortable with the way I looked, I had a great deal of imposter syndrome.”
When he was 19, he met Japanese lawyer Mimi Nishikawa, 16 years his senior, through a mutual friend. They fell in love instantly and within three months were married. “I was very lonely at the time. I’d fallen out with my friend group, I didn’t have anyone around and I ended up being pushed into something that was wildly inappropriate. At the time, it seemed she really cared for me, but in hindsight, I think I was taken advantage of.” They settled in east London where he worked curating art exhibitions, at first happily but things quickly turned “toxic.”
In 2019, hoping for a fresh start, they moved to suburban Tokyo, where Bailey found himself isolated and miserable, to the point where he wrote a suicide note on his phone. At the last moment, he decided not to go through with the attempt, but afterwards found himself struggling to get out of bed.
The idea of changing gender began to crystallise. “I felt so lost as a person, I didn’t really know who I was anymore. I thought the only way out was to erase the old me. I was coming up to 28, and I felt if I didn’t act on this idea soon I’d only get a few years to enjoy my new life.”
This notion of transgenderism as a “solution” was reinforced in internet chatrooms he frequented. Yet the biggest incentive came when Bailey started to post AI-generated photos of himself transformed into a statuesque blonde, “a stereotypical, plastic LA person” on his Instagram account.
“Suddenly I was getting so much affirmation from people, an increased amount of ‘likes’. I thought, ‘OK, people are positive about the idea.’”
The idea that people might undergo life-altering surgery simply to attract more social media followers seems ludicrous, but Bailey assures me it’s true. “Girls get more attention on social media than men, and when men transition suddenly, they’re getting the attention a girl would get. That’s addictive.”
Men feel pressured to start transitioning as young as possible, “because young ones pass [as women] better and can be better acclimatised by society. Basically people are saying ‘I’ll be prettier,’ which is an absurd reason to transition.”
Conversely, he suspects many girls transitioning to male do so as a reaction to their maturing bodies. “They start to get male attention and don’t like it, so their solution is essentially to be Peter Pan.” The situation’s exacerbated by social media, with the likes of TikTok overflowing with videos encouraging transitioning. “One girl who’d been thinking about it told me, ‘Everywhere I turn, there are pictures of mastectomies. It’s almost like the culture is daring me to do it.’”
Bailey’s comments will infuriate trans activists who insist transitioning has deep-rooted psychological causes and suicide risk is much higher in children who are denied puberty blockers. Bailey again questions the data: “As far as I can tell the suicide rate doesn’t change. In studies I’ve looked at, the suicide statistics are usually taken from people who’ve never thought about being trans, versus people who have thought about it – so they don’t compare.”
Bailey was heartened when, in December, the Government banned puberty blockers, following a recommendation from the Cass Review, a four-year study by Dame Hilary Cass, who pointed out various potential side effects, such as osteoporosis. “We know, beyond the shadow of a doubt now, that puberty blockers are damaging. The idea that we can control nature in that way and not cause irreparable harm is absurd. The Government has taken pretty much all of the appropriate steps, so the main thing is making sure none of this rears its head again.”
He’s horrified by reports that a former psychologist at the Tavistock Clinic, the controversial NHS gender identity clinic that was shut down last year after a damning review accused its prescription of puberty blockers as “unsafe”, is now setting up a new private clinic in Leeds charging £1500 to assess under-18s for gender dysphoria. “The whole thing seems like a grift at the expense of children. These people seem extremely money-driven and don’t want to give it up. It needs to stop.”
Fortunately, Bailey was too old for puberty blockers when he decided to transition. Instead, he visited a Japanese private doctor, who, in less than 10 minutes via a translation tool, diagnosed him as “gender dysphoric”. He was prescribed a month’s supply of oestrogen – the first step towards “feminising” his body. Yet days afterwards, unable to endure his marriage anymore and “in a different mindset” having taken the first transitioning step, he fled Japan.
He returned to the UK determined to continue transitioning. His family, he says, were “supportive. They were just happy I was back. They were definitely doubtful about my changing gender, but they didn’t know much about what it would actually involve and societal pressures mean you just have to accept these things.”
Wanting another month’s prescription lined up before he started oestrogen, he put himself on the long NHS waiting list for gender reassignment. “That wait for an appointment certainly helped change everything.” As he reconnected with old friends, his loneliness and unhappiness diminished. Unlike his family, who didn’t question his decision, Brown – then an acquaintance – and others gave him a new perspective by quizzing him about the ramifications of his plan, making him see how “illogical” it was.
“I’m bisexual and Lucy asked me things like, ‘OK, who are you going to date? It’s only going to be weird guys and weird girls.’ I burst out laughing. From that point the idea petered out.”
Bailey began reevaluating his diagnosis. “The problem with all the psychological arguments around gender identity is they rely on self-reporting, so there’s no logic. Gender dysphoria is so vague that it can be applied to anyone who has a feeling of not wanting to be themselves – which is really common in confused young people. How could I know I wanted to be the other gender when I’d never been it? It’s subjective, so to give it this objective label is dangerous.”
[ Bailey: ‘The problem with psychological arguments around gender identity is they rely on self-reporting, so there’s no logic’ ]
He began speaking out about his narrow escape, to the horror of contemporaries – many of whom identify as “gender fluid”.
“I saw some who, rather than focusing the fact that I tried to kill myself, that I almost transitioned, immediately jumped on me saying you’re hurting the trans community, even though most of them don’t have a single trans friend, they’re just getting angry by proxy.”
His ostracism furthered his bonding with Brown, a Cambridge graduate, who’d herself attracted much controversy for having taken a job working for a production company called Rebel Media, filming Tommy Robinson, the then-leader of the English Defence League (EDL) as he travelled the country. Even though she quit the production company after falling out with Robinson, whom she’s said she has “no time for,” many were outraged by the association and she was kicked out of her flatshare. “We were both outcasts, both building our lives back up and both pretty much cancelled by everybody,” he says.
He has as many reservations about vocal trans activists as about the “gender critical” faction, unofficially headed by author JK Rowling. “Instead of explaining how the issue affects them, they can be so aggressive, posting pictures of trans people who look ‘bad’. It doesn’t contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way.”
As part of his research into the issues, he’s interviewed “transmaxxers”, men who decide to transition to benefit from the perceived perks of being a woman, which can be as petty as reduced car insurance. “I spoke to one who wanted to get into the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) programme at school but wasn’t allowed in because they wanted to boost female numbers. So six months later, they came back and went, I’m trans now, and they let them in. It’s not the only reason they want to transition, but all of these small incentives add up.”
He sees the same issue with trans athletes competing and – because of innate masculine strength – often winning in women’s sports. “I’m not even sure if these people are acting maliciously, but they think I can’t be the world champion male weightlifter, so maybe I’ll be the world champion female weightlifter, and society is telling me it’s OK.”
He’s not a huge fan of Donald Trump’s economics or his sidekick Elon Musk but applauds the US president banning transgender women from competing in female sporting categories “completely right,” and signing an executive order to reverse the policy to allow trans and non-binary people to either mark their gender as X or choose a gender on official documents such as passports. “I don’t see why people need the government to approve their gender. It doesn’t change anything, and it doesn’t protect them to have the wrong biological sex on there.”
While married, Bailey curated exhibitions and created one of the first platforms for artists to create NFTs (non-fungible tokens, which are digital collectables often tied to pieces of online art). His views have now alienated him from many in the art and fashion communities, but he hopes to re-enter the tech world, using his experience in fields such as crypto currencies. “These are areas you can’t be cancelled from. The industry has a reputation for being very libertarian, so you can be weird and do what you want – in fact many friends from tech have been messaging me to support me.”
Secretly, many others from the fashion and art worlds have contacted him with stories about their transitioning narrow escapes. “It happens everywhere, people just don’t speak about it.”
He’s also been inundated by messages from parents of would-be transitioners, as well as older trans people. “They’re happy they transitioned, but now they see it’s getting out of hand, it’s no longer happening naturally, it feels pushed. Before this 99 per cent of people in big cities didn’t bat an eyelid at trans people, but now trans issues are being forced down people’s throats. It’s breeding an attitude of discrimination against people who just want to quietly live their lives.”
All this has made him determined to remain vocal. “This issue matters to me a lot. So if I can keep speaking about it in a way where I think I’m helping people I will.” He blogs and is planning to write a book about his experience. He’d love to talk to schoolchildren about it. “But schools don’t want me,” he says sardonically. “I’m a bad person, who says bad things.”
Imminent fatherhood has only piqued his determination to make a difference. “I want this sorted for my kid.” If his child wanted to transition, how would he react? “The only thing you can say is wait until you’re 18. Even then, I’d obviously strongly oppose it. I’d talk about my experience, provide them with all the information, and explain the surgeries in graphic detail. But the main thing would be to encourage them to know they’re great as they are, to help them see what they can achieve just by being themselves.”
[ Via: https://archive.today/MU1bb ]
