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| ... and Giles Fraser |
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| Unlikely allies: Andrea Dworkin |
The late feminist writer Andrea Dworkin said that every man was a potential rapist. I rather took exception to this, thinking that I ought to be judged on what I do rather than what I might do. All women are potential nags or shrews. That does not make any individual female one. Judge a person on their actual character not their potential crimes – or sins.
However, I have finally realised what Dworkin was meaning by this. She lived in an era before trans rights was an issue and most people stuck to their birth sex. They were what are now called ‘cis gender’ in their outlook and approach to life and she obviously found something unappealing about the heterosexual male – her own partner was openly gay.
Women need protection against the threat of rape: that much seems obvious. You cannot prevent crime happening altogether without locking up every potential rapist – nearly half the population according to Dworkin. (We can eliminate men who are gay or too old or too young to manage sex.) Nevertheless, you can reduce the chance of rape actually happening.
Yet now we are in a situation in which it is possible for a trans male to redefine themselves as women simply by stating that they are one. No medical procedures or proof of the process are needed to make this statement. Put bluntly, you do not have to have your penis removed before you think that you are entitled to be regarded by the world as a woman.
‘Self-identification’ is increasingly considered enough to change your gender and everyone is expected to accept your decision without question. Yet, like a very vocal set of traditional feminists, I do question this right when it comes to men transitioning to women. They have gained the nickname TERFs – Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists. It is not a compliment.
Many previously lionised feminists like Germain Greer, Julie Bindel and J K Rowling have been attacked for their anti-trans views and subjected to what seems like a very male form of bullying by people who were previously males and now identify as female but seem not to have left male habits of mind – and action – behind as they adopt a new gender identity.
(See Giles Fraser's piece on Terfs being bullied here)
Self ID may make things a lot easier for the increasingly large number of people who feel they are born in the wrong body. However, it also make it much easier for a potential rapist to prey on his mainly cis victims. He simply has to declare himself a woman in order to gain access to female only spaces where he can then wreak havoc on vulnerable women.
This has happened on more than one occasion and Dworkin, I feel sure, would be horrified. The phrase that comes to mind is letting the fox into the henhouse, leaving often vulnerable women in shelters for battered women, for example, open to the prospect of being raped by a man who has identified as a woman simply so he can exploit real (or ‘cis’) women.
If you do not believe me, check out this example here - there are other examples as well.
If someone wants to identify as a member of the opposite gender he or she was born into, that should not present a problem. A friend, who knows several trans people, has said that they are usually the most gentle, unaggressive people imaginable. However, it only takes one person to wreck the system and spoil it for everybody else, who has no sinister motive.
It is not that being trans is the problem in itself. It is more of a case of what trans peope are allowed to do – or forbidden from doing. The law does not concern itself with the vast majority of law-abiding people, the gentle transitioners, who want to lead lives they feel more suited to. Laws are needed to protect the vulnerable, who are usually women.
They may be children as well. There seems to be a fashion for accepting, even encouraging, the process of transition amongst parents of young children. I have no problem with someone dressing up as a member of the opposite gender when young. If they want to act as a member of a different sex, I like to think I would be fully supportive of them
However, I do have a major problem with the idea of allowing life-changing surgery - which would affect a person’s ability to reproduce later in life - to people who are not yet adults. We have an age of adulthood – generally eighteen, sometimes sixteen – for a reason. It is to protect young people from making decisions that they may well regret later in life.
Take voting, for example. You have to be eighteen to vote in most elections, the age of adulthood. That does not mean you are not allowed to have political opinions prior to reaching that age. Plenty of young people do and campaign for causes and become involved in discussions. They are just not allowed to cast a vote before their eighteenth birthday.
You can always change your mind about the party you vote for – plenty of people do – but you cannot reverse the removal of a womb or a penis. That is a serious business and definitely not one to be undertaken lightly, certainly not as a young teenager who thinks he or she knows all the answers. These ‘answers’ may well be different next week or month.
I once saw a sign saying simply “Trans Rights Now’ in the window of a house. That depends on the rights being demanded I thought. There should be no problem with acceptance of people who want to transition once they have reached adulthood. Those who are not yet adults may have to wait until they are before they can be allowed to choose their gender.
At least this gives them a chance to change their minds before they change their bodies.
Edwin Lerner
My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com
