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What’s transphobic about saying ‘only women have cervixes’?
I am going to go ahead and assume that many of you accusing me of libel and threatening SLAPP suits are speaking in good faith and genuinely unaware of the internet last week.
Here, then: last week’s culture war
I am going to go ahead and assume that many of you accusing me of libel and threatening SLAPP suits are speaking in good faith and genuinely unaware of the internet last week.
Here, then: last week’s culture war
CNN posted a medical item saying that ‘individuals with a cervix’ should schedule cervical smear tests. Piers Morgan, Sp!ked, and both the US and UK iterations of The Spectator had strong views about this. So did many gender critical UK feminists
And here is why a medical information service might think it was both useful and medically necessary to frame it that way. If you are a trans man in the UK registered as male, you will not be called for cervical screenings. You need to make those appointments yourself
Here are some more explanations, just so you understand the medical necessity of it.
Like the 2+2 = 5 controversy, the ‘only women have a cervix’ twitter experience is an iteration of the culture wars in which we are interminably engaged. You may well think that I am a postmodern, neo Marxist engaged in a project of deconstructing meaning: that’s the culture war
Here is why it matters for education. Transgender students and school employees are covered by the Equalities Act of 2010. You are fully entitled to your own opinions and beliefs. What you are *not* allowed to do is belittle, harass, or misgender students and colleagues.
This is not a matter of ideology or partisanship - it’s just as much a Classical Liberal position as it is a ‘postmodern’ one. People have rights. It’s worth revisiting the Maya Forstater decision of 2019
Violating the dignity and rights of transgender individuals creates a hostile, degrading and humiliating environment.
“This approach is not worthy of respect in a democratic society.”
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5e15e7f8e5274a06b555b8b0/Maya_Forstater__vs_CGD_Europe__Centre_for_Global_Development_and_Masood_Ahmed_-_Judgment.pdf
“This approach is not worthy of respect in a democratic society.”
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5e15e7f8e5274a06b555b8b0/Maya_Forstater__vs_CGD_Europe__Centre_for_Global_Development_and_Masood_Ahmed_-_Judgment.pdf
And personal? I have a much-beloved, endlessly hilarious, transgender autistic child for whom I will fight to bitter and bloody death. If any educator were planning to hold classroom debates about her right to exist while she was in class, I would file an Equalities Act complaint
And. I. Would. Win.
I’ll be deleting the Bennett tweet because my mother is very anxious that people closely connected to the government are accusing me of libel. And my mother is dying, and it’s my job to keep her comfortable, just as much as it is my job not to discriminate against my students
Before I do, however, let’s revisit. I’ve laid out last week’s culture war. I hope all of you reading now have a suitable context for my good faith interpretation of Bennett’s tweet about cervix having and women.
This 2nd tweet came in the context of a teacher sharing Stonewall guidance about debating JKR’s ideas about transgender children in the classroom. And I reiterate: if any of you choose to do this, you will be creating conditions “not worthy of respect in a democratic society”
It is not about free speech. It is not about your right to your own beliefs. It is about me spending every other night sitting with my child and looking at places in the world that are not actively trying to erase her. It is about human rights. In the classroom & in education
