Physics Teacher and Trade Unionist
We should not put children in the quandary of having to decide their gender identity. It is neither progressive nor kind. Rather we should allow them true freedom – the freedom to express their personality in the sexed bodies that nature gave them.
As a child of the 1970s, I can still recall the trauma of watching Elvis Costello jab his finger at me as he sang “Called careers information; have you got yourself an occupation?” My dreams of becoming an astronaut had already evaporated by then and I feared I needed to make a hasty decision before I was conscripted into Oliver’s Army — or worse.
A generation later, the stakes are far higher for our kids. Today the refrain might be Called social media; have you got yourself a gender identity?
LGBT equality is a work in progress and our rights are still not secure, yet the recent elevation of feelings over facts and gender identity over sex has been disastrous.
They gathered at a secret location under the cover of darkness. Total confidentiality had been maintained, even between friends who embraced each other as they arrived to discuss gay rights. But this was not some socially conservative society under the thumb of a repressive regime. Nor was it a secret society in Victorian London. It was London in 2019. Continue reading “In defence of the LGB Alliance”
Trans women are biologically male — in fact being male is the sole qualifying criteria to be a trans woman — and women are biologically female. Male people are not female people and therefore trans women are not women. Those are the facts.
“WE had women arriving through the crush in tears. One woman had liquid thrown at her as she tried to enter. Even the men who attended were shocked at the scale of the harassment because they’re not normally subject to this.”
Those were the words of a WPUK spokeswoman, reported in this newspaper [The Morning Star]. Shockingly, the context was a meeting to discuss women’s rights on the fringe of the Labour Party conference.
How on earth did we get here: to a place where women meeting to discuss sex-based rights and the trafficking of women and girls are accused of hate speech and denounced as “TERFs?” TERF stands for “trans exclusionary radical feminist,” but it has become a dreadful slur — akin to bitch or whore.
Wir können uns für geteilte Anlagen einsetzen, um unsere Würde zu schützen – und auch für klare Aufzeichnungen, die unseren Erfolg anerkennt – aber überlass Frauensport den Frauen. Wir sind es unseren Töchtern schuldig.
“Transfrauen sind Frauen” ist mehr als ein Wahlspruch, es ist eine Forderung nach Zustimmung. Es ist aber auch geistlose Rhetorik, die uns von der Wahrheit und in ein Land der Phantasie abgeführt hat.
Mit mehr Erwartungshaltung anstatt Einfühlungsvermögen haben Transgenderaktivisten Zugang zu Stellung und Stipendien in Sport und Politik gefordert, die früher für Frauen reserviert wurden. Mit Zuckerbrot und Peitsche – indem sie an ihre Gutmütigkeit appelieren, während sie Dissidenten als Eiferer anprangern- sind Frauen unter Druck, Transfrauen wie mich nicht als Verbündete, sondern als eigentliche Frauen zu akzeptieren. In einer Welt, wo Gefühle Vorrang vor Fakten haben, werden Abneigungen auf der Grundlage von Biologie als gemein verworfen. Continue reading “Wir Transfrauen sollen nur gegen Männer konkurrieren”
Possiamo fare una campagna per i servizi separati per proteggere la nostra dignità – e conservazione della documentazione separata che riconosce il nostro successo – ma lasciamo lo sport femminile alle donne. Lo dobbiamo alle nostre figlie.
«Le donne trans sono donne» è più di uno slogan, è una richiesta di acquiescenza. Ma è anche una retorica vuota che ci ha portati via della verità e in un paese immaginario.
Pensando che tutto sia dovuto invece di proseguire con un sentimento di empatia, gli attivisti transgender hanno insistito sull’accesso a prestigio e a borse nei campi dello sport e della politica che prima erano stati riservati per le donne.
Usando il bastone e la carota – facendo appello alla sua benevolenza mentre stigmatizzando i dissenzienti come bigotti – le donne hanno subito alla pressione affinché accettassero le donne trans, come me, non come alleate ma come donne vere. Obiezioni basate sulla biologia vengono scartate come cose sgarbate in un mondo dove i sentimenti hanno la priorità sui fatti. Continue reading “Noi donne trans dovremmo gareggiare solo con gli uomini”
Nous pouvons faire campagne pour des installations séparées pour protéger notre dignité – et une tenue de registres distincte qui reconnaît nos succès – mais laissons le sport féminin à la population féminine. Nous le devons à nos filles.
“Trans women are women” («Les femmes trans sont des femmes») est plus qu’un slogan, c’est une exigence de conformité. Mais c’est aussi une rhétorique vide qui nous a éloignés de la vérité et nous a menés dans un pays imaginaire.
En adoptant un sentiment de droit plutôt que d’empathie, les militants transgenres ont exigé l’accès au statut, aux bourses d’études et aux bourses de sport et de politique qui étaient auparavant réservées aux femmes. En maniant la carotte et le bâton – faisant appel à leur bonne nature tout en dénonçant les dissidents comme des fanatiques – les femmes se sentent obligées d’accepter les femmes trans comme moi, non pas en tant qu’alliées, mais en tant que femmes réelles. Les objections fondées sur la biologie sont rejetées comme cruelles dans un monde où les sentiments priment sur les faits. Continue reading “Les femmes trans ne devraient concurrencer que les hommes.”
We can campaign for separate facilities to protect our dignity — and distinct record-keeping that recognises our success — but let’s leave female sport to female people. We owe it to our daughters.
“Trans women are women” is more than a slogan, it’s a demand for compliance. But it’s also vacuous rhetoric that has led us away from truth and into a land of make-believe.
With a sense of entitlement rather than empathy, transgender campaigners have demanded access to status, scholarships and bursaries in sport and politics that were previously reserved for women. By carrot and stick — appealing to their good nature while denouncing dissenters as bigots — women have come under pressure to accept trans women like me not as allies but as actual women. Objections based on biology are dismissed as unkind in a world where feelings take precedence over facts.
Continue reading “We trans women should compete only against men”
