Heresy
Conversations about gender identity...
Now that I am shamelessly open about my views on gender identity ideology, I’m having all kinds of interesting conversations with people.
My view? I don’t buy it - “it” being the idea that boy/girl, man/woman (or something else entirely) is determined by how you feel rather than by your actual biology, and that it’s possible to change from one sex to the other.
I’m beyond tip-toeing around the issue. I decided recently that I’m bringing it up whenever and wherever I can because I believe it’s really important and people should know about it. There are few by now who have not encountered at least a whiff of gender ideology either in their place of work or education, on television or social media, or within their family or friendship circle.
Sometimes I’m met with surprise, either at what I’ve said or the fact that I’ve said it out loud. Other times I’m met with relief because most people don’t feel free to say what they really think about this issue. Hearing someone else say it seems to give them permission to do the same. Mostly, adults agree with me (albeit while glancing around to see who might be witnessing their heresy). This is somewhat reassuring - for all that society would appear to be enthralled with this ideology, only a very small minority of people really believe it to be true.
So rest assured, if you have teenagers or other people in your life telling you to get with the program because everybody knows now that sex is a spectrum and man/woman/other is determined by how you feel (not by something as mundane as your human body), don’t worry - you’re not stuck in a bad dream. You haven’t missed a major scientific development that everybody else somehow knows about; sex is still binary and immutable (we’re either male or female and it’s not possible to change from one to the other).
Nothing has changed, but sometimes it feels like everything has changed. Hence the interesting conversations.
The conversations address the following:
Sex is binary (we’re either male or female).
Sex is immutable (you can’t change from one to the other).
People are either male or female no matter how they dress, what they call themselves, or what their sexuality is (who they’re attracted to).
As such, where single sex spaces exist, biological sex must dictate which space one enters. Biological men, regardless of how they feel or what they are wearing, must not use women’s single sex spaces. To do so compromises the safety, dignity, and privacy of women and possibly children.1
Teaching children that it is possible to be born in the wrong body and to change one’s sex is dishonest. No child is born in the wrong body. It is not possible to change sex. Attempts to modify one’s body in order to look like the opposite sex involve mostly ineffectual, risky surgery and lifelong dependence on medication that has serious side-effects. We have a duty to protect children’s health and safety, to be honest with them about human biology, and to prepare them for life as adults.
Teaching children that they cannot trust what their eyes and their instincts tell them to be true about a person in front of them is profoundly destabilising and dangerous. Telling a child that a person who clearly is male, is actually a girl/woman or vice versa, or that someone is neither male nor female, is simply gaslighting2
Teaching children that their sex is based on their biology and is unchangeable encourages self acceptance and resilience.
A progressive society would allow children to play, dress, behave, and dream free from the restrictions of sexist stereotyping. Any child can wear pink, play with trucks, enjoy tea parties, or dream of being a firefighter or a nurse. Preferences like these are not determinative of one’s sex. To suggest that a boy who likes dolls and dresses or a girl who likes trucks and football might be ‘born in the wrong body’ is regressive and sexist.
Sometimes, when I’m talking to the uninitiated I’m aware that it all sounds a bit far-fetched. I can see them wondering if I’m a conspiracy theorist (I’m not). The fact is gender identity ideology is in the school curriculum and the universities, it’s in workplaces and training programs, our healthcare policy and literature, our sport, our legislation. This is not just a fad amongst the teenagers; it is pervasive in our society. The roots are deep and the tendrils far-reaching. Once you are aware of it, you’ll find it everywhere.
The conversations can be tricky, no doubt. While I’m willing to lay my cards on the table now this wasn’t always the case.
A few years ago I was blissfully ignorant about gender ideology. I knew what transgender and nonbinary meant but I figured what people did with their bodies was their own business. I was, of course, kind about it. Each to their own! Live and let live! I thought, correctly, that it must be very distressing to feel one was ‘born in the wrong body’. I assumed that such feelings were very rare and that ‘transition’ to the opposite sex involved psychological evaluation and surgery.
It was only when I started reading about the issue that I realised what was once a rare phenomenon is now commonplace (ask any teenager or student and you’ll find they have a friend or classmate who identifies as something other than what they were born). If you’d like to delve deeper into the whys and wherefores of this I’ve compiled a list of recommended reading here.
As I read a little more I realised too that subscription to the tenets of gender identity ideology meant compromising women’s rights to single-sex spaces because they would now be for women and men-who-feel-like-women. And naturally it follows that women’s awards, women’s sport, women’s everything really, would have to include biological men who say they feel like women. This is neither fair nor safe. Women fought long and hard for the right to single sex spaces. We need them for reasons of safety, privacy, and dignity. Those spaces are often an essential part of child safeguarding too.
Several years ago I shared a quote with my son which I thought was a useful guide when one is deliberating over speaking out about something:
“Before you speak ask yourself if what you are going to say is true, is kind, is necessary, is helpful. If the answer is no, maybe what you are about to say should be left unsaid.”
Bernard Meltzer
Speaking openly and honestly about gender identity ideology, in my opinion, ticks all of those boxes:
I choose to be speak the truth because I don’t see the point in speaking otherwise.
I choose to be kind to women by stating loudly and clearly that SEX MATTERS, woman is not a feeling or a costume, and we are entitled to single sex spaces and categories. I choose to be kind to children by not misleading them about reality and not supporting an ideology that normalises damaging healthy bodies.
I believe it is necessary and helpful to speak up about the impact of gender identity ideology on women and children, even though it might be difficult.
This is not to imply that all men who dress as women (or women who dress as men) are predatory. Most men are good men; some men are bad. Women cannot tell just by looking at a man if he is dangerous and so, to be safe, we don’t allow any men into spaces where women might be vulnerable eg. toilets, change-rooms, dormitories, etc. The same goes for men who dress as women - we cannot tell if they are good or bad by looking at them and so we must exclude all of them.
Gaslighting is loosely defined as manipulating someone into questioning their own perception of reality.