Jaw-dropping in tolerance

THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY

(Part III (and conclusion) of trans and dental meditation)

BC PIRES

“I CAN resist anything but temptation,” said Oscar Wilde, and even to champions of the transgendered cause, it sometimes seems like the loudest voices in the trans debate are saying, a la Oscar, “I can tolerate anything but tolerance.”

Not of trans people. But of anyone who dares protest against anything done by, or purportedly for the benefit of, trans people.

Whether woman weightlifter Laurel Hubbard should be allowed to compete against women born female is a red herring, because the rules permitted it.

But tilt your head and this red herring becomes red meat.

The more people willing to defend minority rights, the greater the benefit to the majority. Abandon minorities to defend themselves and all rights not ratified by the majority vanish. There is no violence in the streets (except against minorities) and the trains run on time (except somebody has to go to the back of the bus).

To fail to defend belligerently the rights of a minority so easily singled out for that intoxicating blend of justifiable hatred is to invite fascism.

Deny that Laurel Hubbard is a woman and you invite the eventual domination of the Taliban.

But there’s something about a woman born a man competing against women born women that just doesn’t seem fair.

Young people today go much farther than their parents in accepting trans rights wholesale. I told my son (21) that “the reveal” of a TV real estate show arrived before I realised the couple concerned were lesbians, because I thought one of the women was a man.

“He is,” said my son, “a trans man.”

“Well,” I replied, “she certainly looked like a man, but she’s actually a lesbian, ’cause she’s with a woman.”

My son corrected me. He was a trans man.

I happily stood corrected.

And, said my son, because he identified as a man, he had in fact become a man. The person I thought was a trans man/lesbian was not at all gay, but straight: he was a heterosexual trans man who was – quite naturally – attracted to women. He was a heterosexual man. Although he had no penis.

We created female divisions in sport because men are born with great natural physical advantages over women.

And Laurel Hubbard competes in female weightlifting. Although she has a penis.

Is it fair?

Do the women who lose their Olympics slot to a trans woman also lose the right to argue against their disenfranchisement?

JK Rowling, the Harry Potter author was labelled transphobic for mocking someone else’s description of “women” as “people who menstruate,” a phrase that only became necessary because, in attempting to avoid violence to trans people, advocates of trans rights did violence to language itself.

And, with respect, to logic itself.

It is as offensive to reason for trans advocates to declare that sex does not matter as it is for religious bigots to declare that there are only two genders.

It is not transphobic to assert that women born with penises might be, in some intangible way, different from women born without them.

And this is where those who would defend minority rights may choke on their own arguments.

All the freedoms we have won over centuries have led to understanding and admitting Laurel Hubbard is undeniably a woman. All sense should lead us to simultaneously maintain a simple truth: she is a woman with a penis.

Marks & Spencer, the British chain, allows any man identifying as a woman to use their female toilets.

Is it transphobic to hesitate to use a female toilet if you, a small, frail, female, see what appears to be two burly men in drag go in before you? (This particular issue would disappear if all public toilets were unisex – but so would Laurel Hubbard competing in the women’s division, if all sport were unisex.)

Trans people and their champions – including me – would do well to recognise that passion is critical in any political struggle; but they would do even better to realise that no political gain can be held if it is not based on solid principle. And reason.

It is no more transphobic to disagree with trans people over the unfair treatment of people who menstruate than it is anti-Semitic to denounce an Israeli government policy.

The last thing any trans person should be is intolerant of difference.

Is that too hard to swallow whole?

BC Pires is always in transit, mentally, but never in transition, physically