What is a woman? An appropriate dilemma to be facing the world on April Fool's Day...
As we as a culture have descended into such confused lunacy that eminent scientists, politicians, and "experts" cannot answer this most rudimentary of biological queries (but, these are also the people who claimed the world would be wiped out by a cold virus unless everyone wore dirty hankies over their faces, so what do you expect), I thought I would help them out by delivering a definitive definition.
First, a little background. Accompanying this article is a photograph of me, aged about eight. There are several things you might notice about this photograph (apart from my resplendent nineties spectacles), such as, the rustic vibe of my riding a horse barefoot, which, happily for me, was the vibe that characterised a lot of my childhood. Scampering around woodland barefoot, climbing trees, making forts, and so on. I was part of the last cohort of children that had a free and "normal" (ish) childhood, and I am unutterably grateful that I did - not just because I was able to be a child insofar as playing out all day and exploring the world freely, but insofar as being unimpeded by another aspect of childhood that has now been so grotesquely intruded on and inverted: so-called "gender non-conformity".
As you can see from the photograph, I have short hair and am wearing trousers. This was my typical childhood aesthetic. I liked to have short hair, wear jeans, and play with transformers. A lot of my friends were boys, and of my female friends, they were all the barefoot, tree-climbing types, too. I abhorred dresses and frilly pink things (much to the abject despair of my rather conservative grandmother).
At the time, nobody (except said conservative grandmother) batted an eye at this. It was recognised for what it was: a perfectly normal and unremarkable childhood phase known universally and for centuries as "being a tomboy". As I approached puberty (and discovered Tammy Girl and Take That), this phase entirely evaporated, as is the case with over 90% of so-called "gender non-conforming children" (a hideously medicalised description for a normal childhood phase). I grew my hair and stopped climbing trees (though I retained the abhorrence for pink frilly things). I certainly had no wish whatsoever to become a man.
Therefore, the current lunacy surrounding the "trans" debate resonates very personally with me, because I know without any shadow of a doubt that, were I a child exhibiting those traits now, I would be slapped with the "trans" label, and very possibly presented to the Tavistock Indoctrination Centre for putative drugging and mutilation - and this is, obviously, utterly horrifying: a grotesque abomination and twisted politicised corruption of childhood innocence.
There is no such thing as a "trans child" - there are just children with different interests and preferences, and children who go through various phases, which, in almost all cases, they outgrow. As there is no such thing as a "trans child", there is no such thing as a "transman" or "transwoman", either. Adult human beings fall into three categories - men and women (99%) and intersex (between 0.05% and 1.7%). It is critical to recognise that being intersex is entirely biologically based, and is indicative of something having gone wrong in development - animal studies show it is often related to exposure to certain agricultural pesticides. Intersex is not a "normal, healthy variation", like being left-handed. It's also very rare. And, crucially, it has nothing to do with transgenderism, which has no biological basis and is a psychological condition.
So, almost everyone in the world is either male (XY chromosomes, male reproductive organs) or female (XX chromosomes, female reproductive organs). Being male or female is not a costume you can put on, or something you can create with chemicals and surgery. If you are male, every single cell in your body (except red blood cells) is recognisably male, and no amount of hormones or scalpels can change that. Same if you are a woman with female cells.
A woman who has a shaved head, big muscles, joins the military, and has the elocution of sailor, is every bit as much a woman as one with radiant flowing locks, a wardrobe stuffed full of frilly frocks, and with ten angelic children gambolling happily at her feet. Being a woman isn't a social costume or a lifestyle choice. It's entirely biologically based in a way that cannot be altered or redefined by science or politics.
I understand that some people are gender dysphoric, and that this causes them a lot of distress, and I feel genuine compassion for these people. What is now called "transgenderism" has been around for a long time, and it is often the result of sad and traumatic backgrounds (and there is growing evidence it could have some basis in exposure to certain chemicals). But this, feeling deep distress at the sight of your normal, healthy body, is a psychological disorder, and we don't treat psychological disorders by colluding with them. I would not agree with an anorexic's distorted perception of their body as fat and therefore offer them liposuction to affirm their delusion, so I would neither suggest that a gender dysphoric person takes powerful drugs and irreversible surgeries to "treat" a psychological issue.
A gender dysphoric man is not a woman, and it is infinitely preferable that he is supported psychologically and emotionally to come to terms with that fact and accept his natural, healthy body as it is, rather than be doused with chemicals and irreversibly operated on - extremely radical action which very often does not ease the psychological pain associated with gender dysphoria, and does create lifelong medical issues. The regret amongst "transitioned" individuals is enormous.
But it's not just the pain and suffering of the gender dysphoric that concerns me: it's the pain and suffering now being experienced by biological women as they - we - battle to retain our hard-won rights and distinctions based on biological sex. So it's critical we robustly confront this issue now and in a clear and unapologetic way, without pandering to the "liberal" extremists, to ensure these crucial and inalienable sex-based rights are not sacrificed on the altar of wokeism and political correctness. I am extremely inured to sanctimonious hectoring and personal attacks from the so-called left, and so I certainly won't let that possibility deter me from stating the truth. The reason it is so crucial we do that, and do it now is that, if we don't, women will be redefined out of existence, because, in many ways, men make "better" women than women do.
They can run faster. They can fight harder. They can lift more. As we see in women's sports, mediocre men make excelling women, and if no proper, firm distinction is made between the sexes now, eventually and inevitably, women will disappear from public life altogether. Male actors will play women in films (just as men traditionally played women on the stage). "Trans women" will fulfil female criteria in politics and the workplace. Biological men have all sorts of advantages to high-powered career success over women (testosterone fuelling assertiveness and competitiveness, for example, and the lack of ability to become pregnant - and let's just clarify one more time and for the record - Men. Cannot. Get. Pregnant.).
As I said, I feel compassion for all sorts of human suffering, of which gender dysphoria is undoubtedly one. But I will not be hectored and bullied into redefining myself out of existence to appease a tiny lobby of fringe extremists. Trans "women" are not women. Adult human females are women. Women are not made by chemicals, clothes, or castration. They are born that way.
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Absolutely agree. I remember I watched Trisha show years ago (maybe 20 years) and this exact topic was discussed. There was some professionals and saying the same thing. But over the years this discussion vanished.