Roughly half the population are born with XX chromosomes, with the other half presenting with XY chromosomes. Generally speaking, people’s anatomical development follows a predictable path aligned with this chromosomal presentation and we have traditionally categorised these people as ‘female’ and ‘male’. For the great majority of people these terms do not present a problem.
There are also people born with XXY chromosomes; although this is rare (somewhere between one in 500 and one in 1000 males) this does mean there are likely around 33,000 to 66,000 people in the UK with this unusual chromosomal presentation. We tend to use the word ‘intersex’ for these people. Although that term lacks humanity, it is technically correct. We don’t have clear rules about whether we treat people with this chromosomal pattern as male or female, and their existence demonstrates that the statement ‘sex is only ever binary’ is incorrect, even if that statement holds true for the overwhelming majority. To say otherwise is to disavow the existence of those people with XXY chromosomes, as well as other forms of DSD, which is to disavow scientific evidence.
Some people find that their chromosomal presentation is misaligned to their internal feelings and their anatomical gender. This dystopia can range in severity from mild enough to be managed by relatively benign actions (changes in presentation, pronouns etc), all the way through to so severe that relief is only achieved by undergoing extensive (and painful) surgery to correct the anatomical presentation. We have made accessing that surgery very difficult; although possible, it requires an individual to live in their target gender for at least two years before being eligible for consideration. Thus far we have used the word ‘trans’ to broadly describe this group of people. Both men and women can experience this gender dysphoria and as a result, there exists in our world ‘trans women’ and ‘trans men’.
The pathway to transition is exceptionally challenging. There can be few experiences in life as difficult, both emotionally and physically, as this. However, once complete, i.e. once ostensibly (externally) anatomically and hormonally male or female, society ought to have little if any trouble regarding an individual as being defined by the anatomical and hormonal, rather than their chromosomal presentation. For some reason society has expressed no problem with accepting trans men as men, but trans women have created a furore of discourse that has often felt like there is an undercurrent of resentment and hate behind it. This narative is presented in the guise of ‘protecting women’s rights’ and, as best as I can tell, what that means is ‘don’t allow men pretending to be women to access female only spaces’. If it really were that simple I think that would be an easy wish to grant. Of course it is not.
A key failure of this debate is to either recognise or accept that a ‘trans woman’ who has undergone complete surgical and hormonal realignment presents no more risk, either physically or ideologically, to any other human being, than any other human being. Denying them access to female only spaces is not just churlish, it’s abhorrent and degrading. It comes at best from a place of personal negative emotion, perhaps even transcending this into hate and prejudice. Most likely this emanates from some past physical and emotional trauma that has found expression in hate or distrust of all men. The word for the hate of men is ‘misandry’, and the word for ascribing the negative traits of but a few individuals in a homogenous group to all members of that group is ‘bigotry’ or ‘prejudice’.
If treating anatomically and hormonally female ‘trans women’ as women is an easy outcome, there still exists the problem of how to treat those who are only part way through that journey. There is a point where an individual may be presenting in, and claiming membership of, their target gender but still retains some or all of their genetically aligned anatomy. It is understandable that the presence of someone so obviously male or female in a single sex space might well cause very high levels of anxiety for those around them. It is also more likely that women encountering anatomically male individuals in these spaces will experience that anxiety more than the opposite situation. This is because the degree of sexual dimorphism that exists in humans and the degree to which a much stronger male might pose a risk to a weaker female. In some ways, this has come to be codified as ‘all men present a risk to all women’, which is somewhat understandable, if also somewhat based on prejudice and bigotry (because it assumes to make a generalised assumption about a group of people based on the actions of a very small minority of its members).
Whilst the risk posed by men to women is vanishingly small (you are three times less likely to be subjected to violence as a woman than a man; women are actually more likely to be violent towards an intimate partner than a man, with the important caveat that this violence rarely does any physical harm), nevertheless, the heuristic way our brains process information means that the perceived risk is hugely disproportionate to the actual risk. Society has therefore codified ‘men’ as representing a risk to ‘women’ and for this reason, we have to protect women in some, if not all, of these single sex spaces.
The trans women who are still anatomically and hormonally male therefore probably need to be denied access to these spaces (and probably always need to be denied access to female categories of sport irrespective of where they are in their transition, although the science on this is not so strongly deterministic), in order to protect women, both emotionally and physically. Whilst being ‘male’ is barely a useful predictor of how much a person represents a threat to anyone, not least a woman, if an XY man is looking to target women to satisfy some deeply misogynistic desire to do harm, then claiming to be a woman in order to gain access to those (very likely more vulnerable) females in female only spaces would be an obvious ruse.
It’s also entirely possible, that the experience of gender dysphoria might itself trigger a deep-seated resentment towards women; the hate or anger being an expression of frustration towards those that you wish you could be but cannot because of your chromosomal presentation. There have been at least two incidents of anatomically male ‘trans women’ being placed in female prisons and subsequently raping a female prisoner. That kind of outcome has to be made impossible. All people need to be kept safe from all incidents of violence. To not do so is a dereliction of our civic duty.
But the glee with which some people are celebrating the Supreme Court ruling on biological sex is deeply disturbing. This is not a ‘victory’ for anyone, not outside of it being at best a phyrric victory ; it is merely the first step on trying to resolve the conundrum of how to best meet every human’s right to feel protected and respected by our collective values. The ruling represents an acknowledgement that we have not yet fully addressed how best to do that for the small group of people who experience gender dysphoria strongly enough to want to change their identity.
Granting access to female only spaces for anyone who is anatomically and hormonally female should not pose a problem for anyone who is genuinely free of prejudice or bigotry. However, this is not the case, and what we are witnessing with this latest outburst of ideology is the nothing less than the (un)acceptable face of misandry. It’s very likely that most TERFs don’t hate trans-women, they just hate men. What other explanation can there be for regarding someone with breasts, a vulva, a vagina and oestrogen and testosterone levels in line with ‘XX females’ as a risk to women simply because they present with XY chromosomes?
For all those in transition, we need to take a more circumspect and nuanced approach, but of course, neither political processes nor Supreme Court rulings are very good at this. To some extent, the law is also unable to offer this, but that does not mean we shouldn’t try. At the very least, we ought to be able to resolve that if you are anatomically and hormonally male or female, you ought to be treated as such by society, irrespective of your chromosomal presentation.