Women and Biology: Reality's Last Stand
Women, Biology, and British Politics
British Labour Has a “Women” problem, in that, they don’t seem to think that they actually exist!
Watch this video by UK opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer (British Labour Party) on why it’s wrong to say that only women have a cervix. The funny thing is, he can’t explain it!
This kind of stuff terrifies me.
I understand that:
Gender is a social construct about roles and expectations for men and women in a given culture.
Some people are non-binary and don’t identify with the either/or of gender stereotypes.
Some people are intersex – a complex series of developmental sex disorders – so that their biological in rare cases can be complex.
Some people have gender dysphoria and wish to present in another gender to alleviate mental anguish.
Some people have experienced abuse, alienation, and discrimination because of their gender, sex, or self-presentation.
We should have a network of rights to prevent discrimination and harm against people who are non-binary, transgender, intersex, etc.
However, what I don’t understand is:
The denial that human beings are a sexually dimorphic species who reproduce by the production and union of large and small gemmates.
The denial that women’s rights are for biological women, not for people who think/feel they are women.
The politicization and tribalization of human biology.
The reduction of personal “identity” to a mixture of sexual desire and individual personality when there are so many other aspects of human existence that contribute to who we are as individual persons.
The demand to make private self-identification a state-enforced dogma requiring mandatory public assent.
The attacks on anyone who raises questions about the dangers of the premature transitioning of adolescents.
The “cotton ceiling” whereby Lesbians are “transphobic” if they refuse to have sexual relations with a trans-woman with a penis.
The aggressive anthropological monism that tries to erase the biological differences between human beings.
A Personal Story
To be open and honest, I have a son on the autism spectrum and autistic persons are more likely to experience gender dysphoria and to identify as transgender. There’s a few sides to this, such as whether autistics sometimes have brains that are configured in such a way that defies the male-female binary, or whether autistics have difficulties at negotiating social ambiguities which make them susceptible to interpret their confusion about adolescents and personal identity as trans. Either way, precisely because autistic persons have a susceptibility/high-representation as transgender, I am naturally inclined to sympathy and support.
We should not have to choose between respect and rights for trans-persons and basic women’s rights, but we are sadly being forced to do so. An affirmation of non-binary and transgender persons should not require a reinterpretation of human biology let alone the erasure of women as a biological category.