by
Les May
ON
Friday 16 March this year Amy Desir and her friend Hannah joined a
‘men only’ swimming session at Dulwich leisure centre
wearing a pair of trunks and pink swimming cap. They used the men’s
changing rooms having told the staff they could join the session
because they ‘identified as male’. When a man asked if
she realised it was a men-only night she told him she was a man. His
response was ‘Oh really’. No
one was arrested. No one was kicked out.
You
might like to imagine the response if a couple of men had tried to
join a ‘women-only’
swimming session at the
Leisure centre. I
doubt the headline in the following Monday’s Metro
would have been the matched
the ‘Feminists set the a-gender at men-only pool session’
which was used for Amy’s
exploit.
It
was of course a stunt designed to highlight what she called ‘the
ridiculous and dangerous move towards self identification’
and a call for women (though seemingly not men) to be consulted about
the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act.
Two
days ago Labour suspended David
Lewis, who attempted
to stand as
a candidate to be Basingstoke Labour
party’s
women’s officer. He
said
he had decided to stand for the role, which party rules say can only
be held by a woman, in order to draw attention to Labour’s policy
of self-definition, where a person is recognised as a woman if they
define themselves as such. His
intention was to
inform the local
party,
and maybe some other people, about what this policy means and
about
what happens when you say that someone’s gender depends only on
what they say and nothing else.
Lewis
was attacked by
James Morton in a long article which appeared in The Guardian.
Calling Lewis an ‘anti-trans
campaigner’ Morton
produced
no evidence to substantiate his claim. Arguing
for the seriousness of the process of identifying with a different
sex Morton ignores the fact that some self styled ‘trans
activists’
insist that ‘gender
is fluid’
and
thus give
credence to Lewis’s flippant
comments.
Like
Morton Labour seems determined to
prevent any discussion about the potential problems of self
identification. Men
and women may have very different views about why or if they feel
uncomfortable about self identification and should be allowed to air
those views without being dismissed as ‘trans-phobic’.
Amy Desir and David Lewis are trying to draw attention to this.
And
please don’t tell me that in writing sympathetically about Desir
and Lewis I am being ‘trans-phobic’.
As a man I have no greater
objection to sharing a potentially intimate space with someone who
was once a woman than I have to someone who has always been a man.
But I recognise that some women might feel uncomfortable about
sharing such a space with someone who says they are a woman whilst
sporting a full set of wedding tackle.
Their
feelings should be respected. It is called tolerance.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment