FANCY HOPPING IN MY SHOE ?

I have the body of a weak and feeble woman but, like many of my more able bodied sisters, will go to the ends of this Earth to protect and save our single sex rights and protections.

They exist for a reason – because it is recognised, in almost every civilised country on this planet, that women and girls are vulnerable to attack from males. 

In addition are questions of decency, respect and privacy.

A male body cannot magically become female; a prostate cannot be transported, transitioned and transmogrified into a cervix.

A smear test is conducted on a female body.

No male has a cervix. That cannot happen. Males don’t have ovaries either. No probably about it. Dinosaurs are dead. They are extinct. Those of us who enjoy women’s rights fully intend to hold onto them and Hell shall freeze over before that position alters.

The title “Gender Recognition Act 2004” contains a clue – it is introduced as an Act to make provision for and in connection with change of gender – gender, not sex. That’s because biological sex is determined before birth, not in life. It cannot in fact be changed – that is my view and one I am absolutely entitled to hold. 

If you get a GRC, you can use that to change the sex on your birth certificate – but that cannot in fact transform a man into a woman or vice versa. This is a legal fiction, a kind fib.

So we know that a woman is an adult human female; a transwoman has a male body and always will, for otherwise she would not be trans. None of what I say prevents a transwoman living, dressing, behaving however she wishes, but it does not  automatically gain her access to single sex spaces for she is not in fact of the female sex. Rather, she is a beneficiary of a kindness in society. And her feelings do not trump the rights of women and girls. 

Self identification of course removes gatekeeping in its entirety – any man who says he is a woman can apply to be legally recognised as such. Intact males will have access to womens spaces – is there anyone out there who seriously believes that males have any place in women and girls changing rooms, hospital wards, refuges ?

There is a very easy and decent answer to this war – a truce – a ceasefire – where the Scottish Government bins the ideological approach and actually listens with respect and over time to the views of women whose rights are being trampled upon daily by the Scottish Prison Service, Police Scotland, and other organisations who already allow self identification in the wrong headed view that gender identity is a protected characteristic. it is not. Sex is and so is gender reassignment, but self identification is not the law –  not yet, despite the best efforts of bad actors.

I suggest facilities and spaces be provided for transpeople who will then have no need to seek to invade womens spaces; I will assist them in that desire. What I will not do is allow my weakness prone on a hospital bed, one legged and worn, to be at risk from those who will take advantage of ill-considered and flawed ideology.