Feminists and Jews have bigger problems to worry about than a bogus culture war - The Jewish Chronicle

When I was a child in the 1970s, there were no openly gay people at my girls’ school. The word “lesbian” was a horrible insult; a friend wept when she confessed to me that she was bisexual, thinking that it might put our friendship at risk. This was even before the years of Section 28, which prohibited the “promotion” of homosexuality in British schools.

That statute was only lifted in 2003 and gay people were allowed to enter into civil partnerships in 2005.

I lived abroad for eight years until 2007. When I returned to England, one of the changes I noticed most was people dedicating music to their civil partners on Classic FM. At last it felt safe and normal to be openly gay in the UK. And, lo and behold, quite a few of the girls that I was at school with turned out to have been lesbians all along. Now they are happily and openly married to other women.

Were things better in the 1970s, when shame and fear led to secrecy? Not at all. We all benefit from living in a world in which people aren’t constrained by expectations and are free to define themselves in a way that feels comfortable. Yes, for social conservatives it’s a challenge, but were the old ways trouble free? I think not. And so now that the rights of transgender people are in the spotlight, I tend to think that it’s a positive step forward to make our society more diverse and inclusive.

I know that some other women of my age do not feel the same. They worry that women are being erased. They complain about gender- neutral toilets, changing rooms, prisons and refuges, about sport and the word “chest-feeding” used instead of breast-feeding. I have lost friends over it because for some of them, concern seemed to lead to obsession, which took the form of — at best — incessant Facebook posts and — at worst — tweeting mocking pictures of transgender people deemed not to be adequately “passing”.

I also know several trans people and even more mothers of young, trans adults. They just wish to lead their lives with dignity but the “debate” that’s escalating feels scary and isolating.

They’re not a threat to anyone. They wait years for NHS treatment to help them live life in a way that feels right to them; or they compromise their privacy by appealing for donations to pay for private surgery. Their aim is a life that is authentic and — above all — happy.

When I think of women being “erased”, I think of the brave women of Iran, risking their lives to protest against police, whose job it is to curtail their freedom and hide their faces.
I think of women in Afghanistan denied education. And women in America, denied the right to medical treatment, even for life-threatening conditions, because abortion has been politicised.

All of these things are examples of actual erasure of women. Gender-neutral toilets? Not really such a big problem. For me, not a problem at all.

The issue of women’s safety is an important one but the focus on trans people is a distraction.

Surely the focus should be on all types of abusers — who can be any gender, any sexuality — and on keeping all of us safe, wherever we are.

As for the calls for politicians to “define women” — well, it’s actually remarkably difficult to define women by biology alone, unless you’re going to exclude some cancer sufferers, the post-menopausal, the infertile and more.

Trans people have been around for a long time. Any of the women so scared and upset now may well have shared a changing room or queued for a toilet alongside a trans woman and never known.

It feels naïve not to acknowledge that, just as the antisemitism “debate” was stoked by malevolent forces — the bots that pump conspiracy theories onto social media every minute of every day — so the “culture war” over trans rights has been shaped and stirred and inflated.

If you find yourself sucked into a vortex of fear and outrage, take a few moments to think about who might want you to feel this way and why. What are they distracting you from?

I am not trans, and nor is any of my family. But I know that the number of trans people in the UK is tiny, just 262,000 or 0.5 per cent — very similar to the number of Jews. Trans rights are being debated in the media on panels with no trans people on them. Real people are being trashed in the interests of an over-politicised debate. It all reminds me of the way Jews were treated during the Corbyn years: marginalised and mis-represented.

Feminists — and Jews — have bigger problems to worry about than a bogus culture war.

Topics:

Gender