Please bear in mind this is a cisgender male behind the screen typing this… and I encourage keeping that in mind.
I encourage it because it’s where my argument actually begins.
As a male, someone that’s no had any issue wi gender or that from kick-off, I’ll never properly understand the struggles that women and trans folk go through just to live life on an even playing field. I’ve no a scoobie.
Yer probably hinkin right weird place to start but bear wi me.
Cos ats where the conversation is heading. It’s people that have never had a problem in their own skin gawn ‘och goan stop all this madness’ (I didn’t pluck that quote out my reer either, that was actually fae a journo on Sky News last week).
That statement is bizarre to me. That’s just ignorance. You cannae shrug off a worldwide cohort of people that finally have the platform to come out and be themsels as something that’s just a daft phase.
I can only speak from experience wae trying to relate to it… I’m a sufferer of ME and had a horrible few years there trying to figure out what was wrong with me. Never mind even getting diagnosed.
I was so uncomfortable in my own body. I went through wild spells of illness not knowing where it was coming from. I was in a constant state of analysis on hings like what physical pain a had, how I was feeling at the time and what might’ve triggered it. I felt like I was losing the plot.
Playing into that was years of misdiagnosis. Doctor after doctor telling me ‘it's maybe aw in your heid,’ or ‘there's noubt wrong wae you.’ One doctor telt me I’ve probably got tonsilitis just cos of the number of times I wis pullin at their lug about sore throats.
I even ended up on a hospital bed about to get my tonsils ripped out until a doctor stopped the operation havin properly examined me. The seemingly never-ending search for answers went on. It was chaos… or it certainly felt that way in my head.
The only way a can even begin to relate to the struggle people go through wae gender dysphoria is that state of mind when yer feeling something and folk are telling you ‘stop being daft.’
We’ve finally started lookin after people’s mental health, gonnae no go backwards and start shunning how people are feeling.
And that’s another hing, this isnae a few people havin a tantrum. This is millions of people with lived experience.
The complexity of the issue shouldn't make it something we shy away from. These people shouldn't be rejected out of convenience. The ‘but it’s always been this way’ argument just seems crazy to me. Imagine saying that to a Mandela or a Pankhurst.
Dinnae get me wrong, the argument for women’s rights isnae a convenience claim. Far from it & I’m not trying to belittle that either… I’m merely warning against saying things like ‘goan stop the madness’. This is dangerous territory when millions of people are going through a strenuous mental journey.
It’s not madness, it’s a very real problem.
Imagine someone were to shun you based on anxieities you has about yourself. Telling Shiela Jackson from ‘Shameless’ to stop being a radge and go outside. Or giving Richard Keys and Andy Gray a slap on the wrist for comments about women for the sake of entertainment.
We’re talking about people’s right to well-being. So in that spirit, we should pay nothing but respect to the voice of trans people and their calls for equality.
Which, I guess, is all fine and well theoretically but folk will be reading this hinkin right what’s your answers then? What do you do about the problems that come it? Like how we divvy up competitive sport, the dangers of mixed prisons or male perverts goin intae women’s toilets without question?
Well, first off, gender doesn’t exist outside human beings referring to it. It’s a term we use to refer to different types of bodily make-up. Physical characteristics like penises and vaginas are self-explanatory example.
There is nothing inherent that makes you what most folk call a ‘man’ and a ‘woman.’ If you strip the conversation back, we’re all human beings with different organs and emotions. We’re no from different planets or that. 98.5% of our DNA is identical.
And they’re terms that have been manipulated to suit men throughout history. It’s fed into a system of inequality. Decades ago, it was things like the ability to vote. Over time it’s been about what role certain people should have in society. And even now we have women who are paid less in some work sectors and suffer from prejudices, discrimination, and misogyny (to name only a few things). It’s been a tiresome, uphill battle for women to combat it all.
And it’s the blue/pink divide, reinforcing how certain humans should be, that allows this kindae behaviour.
Folk might say aye well that’s ‘gender,’ but there are obviously differences in ‘sex.’ Our biological make-up is different. Our expression of chromosomes varies, along wi our reproductive system and hormones.
While this is true, again, the word ‘sex’ is something humans have come up wi to describe different types of people. Aye, that might be handy for working out biology n that, but the way we understand it is to create a divide between different types of people… all supplemented by this idea of ‘gender’ that has ruined society for so many.
Now, imagine a world where we’re aw just human beings. You could say aye, I’ve got chromosomes ‘M’…. but there wis no strings attached to that statement. That didnae then mean aye I’ve got a blue painted bedroom, wi an action man, and a like the fitbaw and am entitled to better pay and more senior positions at work. A world where there wis no stigmas or different rules for two folk wi ‘M’ chromosomes havin sex with each other. Or a world in which it isn't normal for a group of folk witn ‘M’ chromosomes tell folk with ‘F’ chromosomes to get back to the kitchen where they belong and do the dishes, laughing all the while. All that nonsense comes from the system we’ve created for ourselves that is based on people with certain bodily make-ups being expected to act in a certain way.
So to get rid of that system, or even tmake strides away from it, would be leaving a world of stigmas, misogyny, inequality, paranoia and confusion about things like sexuality and how people identify with certain perceptions of our society. It’s no coincidence that being ‘non-binary’ is ever-growing.
Why? Cos it’s the way the world is moving. Our morals evolve. Things become outdated.
Near enough a whole century ago women got the right to vote, now folk are thinkin hud on… why are women even being pigeonholed to act and be a certain way because of this term we brand aw them under? If people adopt the line ‘we’re aw just humans’ when fighting against racial inequality, why not strip it back that way when talking about people’s body makeup anaw. End of the day, we’re aw just humans with different organs, different skin colours, different sexual desires and so on.
In my head, any steps we make toward that kindae society is a productive one. If we’re to truly achieve equality for women, surely the goal must be to create a society where we see each other as just equal human beings?
The sooner we properly come to terms with the fact gender doesn’t exist, in my opinion, the better.
Ken this is aw very ‘aye, in an ideal world’ but. We’ve had centuries of ‘man’ and ‘woman,’ it's gonna take some time before people snap out ae that frame of mind.
We also face challenges in looking after people when transitioning to that kind of society because of the set-up we’ve got the now. Three biggies in that regard are sport, toilets and prisons.
The sport hing for me is a no-brainer. Athletes competing against each other at top-level sport should be categorised by their bodily makeup. That is the only reasonable threshold. It’s physical activity, so the line we draw should surely be based on physicality. This is totally compatible with a society that doesny see gender.
Admittedly, this deals a snide hand to those who currently identify as transgender in society’s status quo… but to say it affects their basic human rights I think is a stretch. Everyone in this kind of society still has the right to compete, they're just dealt a shanner hand the now.
There’s plenty folk that are dealt a shan hand in this world and those that are blessed to be able to compete in competitions like the Olympics have hardly been dealt the shannest of hands.
Taking myself, an ME sufferer as an example… Every ounce of my being wants to play football. It’s what makes me happy. I’ve no been able to do this for 4 years because of my illness – that is also a shan hand. I’m no comparing my hand to folk that have gone through the mental toil of gender dysphoria, I’m saying in all facets of life some folk drawing a short straw.
The issue of toilets and prisons both come under the concern of people with ‘M’ chromosomes entering female-only zones. Single-sex places aren’t policed, they work out of mutual respect… but there's worries women will feel degraded, threatened or traumatised. Women have a right to safe space and you might, for example, get some (male) pervert who saunters intae a women’s toilet and goes naw I’m actually identifying as a woman so I can chill here as I please.
Honestly, I think if it gets to the point of perversion in this scenario then it is the perversion that is the problem at hand, not the persons gender. Either that or the infrastructure of the facility.
But let’s be real as well, men do terrorise women and it’s a problem. If you were to muck everyone in the gether it would be mayhem in a lot of places… prisons included.
Like any, big ideas need investment. Gender neutrality only works with political and financial commitment. The question we should be asking is why don’t people feel safe? Why are people scared to walk into a public toilet in case a pervert is waiting there? Why are people not able to feel secure in spaces provided by the state?
If there was a genuine appetite to address these concerns, then maybe we wouldn’t have such paranoia about opening up to new ways of thinking. We seem to live in constant fear.
Give the polis a half-decent pay rise. Build infrastructure that protects people. Clamp down on social media platforms making folk paranoid. Let’s have the conversation and no just kid on we’re serious about it. The argument ‘there are dangerous folk out there so we must cowar into our auld ways’ doesn’t wash with me. There’s danger everywhere you go.
Again, a lot of this is ‘in an ideal world,’ but the point is that we shoudln’t shy away from new ideas capable of transforming our society for the better for sake of issues that could be tackled by proper investment. Things like the structure of certain buildings or overworked shouldn’t get in the way of gender equality. Are we not meant to be one of the richest countries on the planet?
I didn't set out to solve the issue entirely in this article, but it's food for thought. This conversation doesn't have to be tribal conflict, we’ve created that illusion by ignoring the path we’re taking on things like race and sexuality.
And aye, we cannae click our fingers and magic a world where we dinnae see gender… but creating ease for transgender people to self-identify feels like a natural step towards it.
If we go backwards and bolster this idea of ‘man’ and ‘woman,’ which for as long as anyone can remember has been manipulated to suit men and create an uphill battle for women to fight against… could it be that we’re halting natural progression?
It’s a whole century after women won over their right to vote and yet we’ve still got gender inequality… that doesn’t seem natural to me whatsoever.
If we live in a society in which the rights of women are constantly suppressed then maybe it’s time to think outside the box.
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