SUNDAY, 6 OCTOBER 2024

… where angels fear to tread. Well, I’m certainly no angel, but I probably am a fool for wading into the controversy surrounding J.K.Rowling and Imane Khelif. The ‘trans issue’ has become completely polarised since it now functions as a kind of marker of where one stands in the broader culture wars that are raging at the moment. The wisest thing to do is probably to stand on the sidelines and not get involved, but that seems rather cowardly when the culture wars are having such a disastrous effect on our collective society.

I might as well be clear upfront and say at once that I found what Rowling said about Khelif to be reprehensible. Rowling, of course, has every right to publicly argue that the trans movement is putting women’s rights at risk, to state that MTF transexuals should not compete in women’s sport, to insist that they should not be allowed into women-only spaces, and to contend that the trans movement is a kind of Trojan horse which is threatening the hard-earned advances of feminism. These are claims which someone else can support or dispute. But to describe Khelif in a photograph as having ‘the smirk of a male … enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head’ was unacceptable on so many levels.

First, as far as I am able to find out, there is no proof at all that Khelif is, or ever was, male. She was assigned as female when she was born, she was raised as a girl, she identifies as a woman, and her birth certificate and passport state that she is female. The chance that she is a MTF transexual is infinitesimally small since this is not allowed in her country of birth and she would probably be either in jail or perhaps even dead if she were.

It is possible that she has a Y chromosome, but there seems to be no clear proof of this. The IBA, the boxing association who banned her from competing in Russia, have stated on occasions that this was the reason for the ban but, to the best of my knowledge, have never produced any evidence to support this claim. Indeed, on other occasions they have said that the decision was made because of the hormone levels in her body, specifically those of testosterone. But this would not make her a man any more than my having high androgen levels would make me a woman: hormone levels exist on a spectrum and there will be differences within one sex as well as between the sexes. It is also worth pointing out that the IBA is hardly an organisation with a faultless reputation: the IOC stripped it of its oversight role in the world of boxing because of accusations of corruption.

And even if Khelif did turn out to have a Y chromosome, this would not excuse Rowling’s personal attack on her. Whatever the reality, Khelif is totally innocent in this matter: she has clearly lived all of her life as a woman and believes herself to be a woman. It is very sad that what was probably the happiest moment in her life – the moment she had worked so hard to achieve – has been tainted by this controversy and her achievements brought into question. Rowling should remember all the times that her manuscript was rejected by publishing companies, and the feeling of pure joy that she felt when it was finally accepted or when she first held a copy of her book in her hand, and recognise how her hurtful words are trashing a similar moment for Khelif.

Play the ball, not the person. Rowling could raise all of her concerns without attacking Khelif personally; she could keep the argument on a theoretical level, but seems more interested in throwing petrol on the fire than in genuinely discussing the difficult issues involved. In addition, as far as I know, despite moral panics in the tabloids and on sites like X, almost no one is seriously suggesting that a man should be able to put on a wig and a pair of falsies and then go into a woman’s toilet or a rape crisis centre. It seems to me that Rowling is raising a straw man (or a straw transexual).

I don’t deny that there are difficult issues here that have emerged because of modern sex-change technology. How do we decide who can enter a sporting competition? I don’t know enough about biology to know whether having a Y chromosome should be the determining factor when assigning sex or one of many. But if so, I suppose one possible way of making the decision is declaring that anyone entering an important sporting contest must take a DNA test and will be disqualified if they turn out to have a Y chromosome. But there are also arguments against this. First is the dangerous precedent it sets of using DNA as a way of singling out and taking action against people who have not committed any kind of offence. Second, it feeds discrimination and prejudice against people who are not the norm. Third, it may have serious psychological repercussions for athletes who identify as female and then have to face the trauma of realising that they are biologically male.

So how do we successfully balance the right of transsexuals to live happy, secure lives free from hatred and prejudice with the right of women to be safe in public spaces? The question of which toilets to use might sound a rather trivial one, but it raises a crucial point: if a woman is potentially endangered if a man in a dress is allowed to use a women’s toilet, a man in a dress is also endangered if forced to go to the gents. It’s very hard to find a compromise which safeguards both groups. I have to admit I have no idea how to square this circle but vilifying one of the groups does not seem helpful or appropriate.

Many of the disputes currently happening remind me of the 1970s and the splits which appeared in the feminist movement at the time. Many women of colour, women from poor backgrounds, and lesbians argued that the feminist movement was a movement for nice, white, middle-class women only, whose main aim was to get the same professional privileges that white, middle-class men enjoy. This split within the movement was a negative development in the sense that it splintered the movement into small groupings who were often in conflict with each other, much to the delight and advantage of people (mainly men) who wanted to retain the status quo. On the other hand, it had the positive effect of broadening the feminist movement beyond its predominantly middle-class origins and bringing a wider range of women under its umbrella. It made clear that a freedom which minimises or ignores discrimination against minorities within its own group is a partial freedom at best.

I really wish Rowling would apologise for her comments about Khelif rather than dig in her heels and make grandiloquent statements about being willing to go to jail for the sake of women. I’m not suggesting that she should retract her arguments – she should make them as forcefully as she wishes as long as they are arguments and not personal attacks – but I wish she would simply say that she regrets the way she expressed them towards another human being who genuinely identifies as a woman and who did nothing but win a gold medal. With her public platform and her fame, Rowling could do so much to take the sting out of these arguments and lessen the culture wars but she seems determined to stir them up and make them worse.

I admit that I find it impossible to be neutral in this discussion because I am too coloured by my own experiences as a young gay man in the 1970s who was part of a nascent gay rights movement. At the time there was deliberate conflation by our opponents of homosexuality and paedophilia, just as there is now conflation of the transexual movement and male aggression against women. I understand Rowling’s fears that the gains which women have made over the last fifty years will be watered down or even lost, for I have similar fears about the advances made by gay men and lesbians. I understand her passion about this. I just feel that this passion would be better expressed in a positive way and in a different direction.

Trans rights and women’s rights do not have to be a zero sum game. The two groups should unite and fight together against the real enemy, which is all discrimination based on prejudice and hatred.