Transgender issues and common sense
I’m all for freedom of choice – within reason, of course, not least provided that this doesn’t involve harm to others and taking into account the primacy of the principle that the pursuit of the greatest good for the greatest number is generally a “good thing” by which to operate – and the right of everyone to act as they please.
That said – and declaring here that I’m old-fashioned and out of touch enough to hold to the view – whatever anyone might believe or say to the contrary – a human being’s sex is determined by whether they be born as a male or a female – I am uneasy at the way in which the transgender issue is now dealt with against the background of the 21st Century’s increasing obsession with “wokedom”.
For reasons I don’t fully understand (how and why) the “transgender” lobby has been allowed (by default?) to hitch itself to the well-established feminist and LGBT campaigns and now to some extent has “taken over” as the most militant of their respective strands.
It seems to me to be an obvious fact that only a person born a woman can carry and give birth to a baby – and only a person born a man can provide sperm in order to father a child.
Quite separately – of course – I do not find this incompatible with anyone’s right to decide – perhaps at an age when they are old and sophisticated enough to fully understand the biological implications – that they might have been “born in the wrong body” and (if a man) wish to identify as a woman … and (if a woman) wish to identify as a man.
When it comes to public “rest rooms” (as our American cousins call them), however, I am firmly on the side of those women who do not want to allow transgender people born as men having access to female toilets just because they have now decided to identify themselves as female.
Furthermore, I am also fully on the side of J.K. Rowling – and, it seems, a significant number of other prominent feminist campaigners and academics of both sexes – who have been brave enough to air in public their reservations about some of the goals and ambitions of the transgender lobby and who (for their troubles) have subsequently been heavily criticised – if not pilloried – for doing so.
It seems to me as if the rights and aims of the transgender lobby have been unfairly and unreasonably given priority over everyone else’s.
I was prompted to blog on this subject when spotting this article today – about comedian and transgender activist Eddie Izzard’s travails in seeking to get involved in the dating scene as (in his case) a transgender woman – upon the website of the – DAILY MAIL
It seems to me that Eddie Izzard – who, as I understand it, was originally born as a man and now identifies himself as a transgender woman (hence his request mentioned in the article that he be referred to as “she” and “her”) has got his proverbial knickers in a twist.
He apparently wants to date women.
I sense that I am stepping into troubled waters at this point. As I understand it, the percentage of the UK population that identifies as being homosexual is (broadly speaking, I haven’t looked it up) somewhere between about 7% and 12% – for present purposes let’s call it 10%.
That means – again in bucket terms – that approximately 90% of the UK population regards itself as heterosexual.
If Eddie Izzard – born a male – wants to have sex with women, I ask the question why he doesn’t just stay a male and have heterosexual relations with them?
I make that statement because – if I was a gay woman (which I’m not) – then I’d presume I’d like to have sex with other women – and not with a transgender man. Or indeed any man.
I thought I’d just mention it …
