INCLUSION IS NOT TO BLAME.

I remember reading an article by a Chinese-Australian writer who asked when people would simply be able to be referred to as Australians without reference to their ethnic background.

Now, we see transphobic comments from J K Rowling in response to the term “People who menstruate,” and asking what they used to be called. It is not, as the right-wing claim, some horrible woke agenda determined to undermine people, rather it is an acknowledgement that a transman may not have had bottom surgery.

Referring to transwomen and ciswomen as simply women and referring to transmen and cismen as men does not diminish a person’s identity. In fact, I say, if an American man walks into a room and introduces himself as David Takamoto, (whether he pronounces it as Tack A Moh-Toe or Tuck-A-Motto) if his parents were American born and so were his grandparents and great-grandparents, whether he is referred to as a Japanese-American, a fourth generation Japanese-American or simply an American, is his choice. But he is still an American. One does not have to be white to be an American.

I remember watching an episode of Enough Rope by Australian TV presenter, Andrew Denton, where he interviewed a man who was an amputee. No, he wasn’t an amputee due to an accident and nor was he an amputee due to gangrene, he had a condition whereby the nerves from his brain did not recognise his leg, even though he had two legs. Previously, he would have been dismissed as weird, and he was finally able to find a doctor who’d amputate his leg.

Unlike a transwoman who I saw on TV who was told by a psychiatrist that thinking he was a girl had to stop, a modern day psychiatrist would see a transwoman or transman to assess that they are truly transgender, and if so, wish them well with the medication and surgery.

Women have not lost the right to be referred to as women. Inclusion means that more women can be included regardless of whether they were assigned male or female at birth. And no, women’s spaces are NOT being overtaken by men, they are being asked to include transwomen in their spaces. Not to do so is segregation.