TERF

In our ever more complex societies there's always new terminology to learn. I learnt a new word the other day when watching a YouTube clip of a demonstration by Feminists in Manchester, who were (quite reasonably I thought) asking that there be Female only spaces (like changing rooms et al) and a counter demonstration by trans activists who were chanting the now familiar "trans women are women", you can imagine the scene. Anyway on the trans activist side they were waving banners around labelling the opposition "TERFS", and various derivations of that, some of which weren't very nice. I wondered what a TERF was and so did a quick Google, unsurprisingly it isn't the cartoon above, but apparently stands for "Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist". I guess it means Women who would prefer people wearing Women's clothing who have penises aren't allowed into their changing room at the gym? 

It's seemingly easy these days (particularly on Twitter and YouTube etc.) to hear misinformed (or malicious) trans activists banging on about biological sex being "assigned at birth", i.e. that it's a social construct and not a biological reality. This is false, in mammals like us sex (if that word is to mean anything) is determined by gamete cells, which only come in two flavours, sperm (male) and ova (female) and are fixed to one or the other by our DNA. It is possible to have all kinds of exceptions (mutations) around this including both in one person, hermaphroditism, but these exceptions are vanishingly rare and for the purposes of a broader debate on this subject are not relevant. No matter how many hormones we might take or how much surgery we may undergo it's not possible to change our DNA (at least yet!). However, preferences regarding our gender expression, for example how people dress or which pronouns they prefer etc. are most demonstrably variable, and a whole spectrum of possibilities can and do exist! Clearly this variation is not a reason to discriminate or victimize anyone but it's also not a reason to trample on Women's (by sex) rights either, I would hope that most liberal/reasonable people would agree with this position.