Reality Isn’t Optional

The woke are piling on JK Rowling for tweeting, “‘People who menstruate,’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” This supposedly shows disrespect for those with different gender identities.

Monica Hesse had a column in Tuesday’s Washington Post, and then Molly Roberts’s column Wednesday scolded JKR for treating gender as binary. The horror!

I realize that some people actually have non-standard chromosomal arrangements and/or plumbing, and I’m not out to persecute them. Other people are not happy with the sex they are; well, we all have our personal problems. Nonetheless, on some matters, reality isn’t optional, and however someone may feel about her “gender identity” (remember when “gender” was a grammatical term?), if she has a uterus and menstruates, she’s a biological woman, or possibly, in a few cases, an intersex person with at least partial male and female reproductive organs.

If I were to “identify” as a woman, or as non-binary or two-spirit, I would still have my male organs, and would not menstruate. If you menstruate, ma’am, you’re a woman. I do not demand that you like it, and I will not attempt to stop you from getting surgery and hormone treatments, if you feel strongly enough about the matter. Short of going through with major surgery, you’re still a woman, and whether you would still be one afterward is a genuinely tricky question where things get non-binary. Meanwhile, physical and biological reality do not cease to exist because of your wishes or your personal frustrations.

Here’s to JKR and trans-exclusionary radical feminism!

Reality Isn’t Optional

Two readers of my blog responded to my most recent posting, on gender identity and related matters, criticizing my views with a civility which I hope that I succeeded in imitating in my replies to them.

I spoke up for J.K. Rowling, who, professional writer that she is, has been quite capable of defending her own views, and setting forth her reasons for speaking out on sex and gender issues. I recommend the article, and if my readers will excuse the blunt language, I note that Ms. Rowling refers to Magdalen Berns, who “didn’t believe lesbians should be called bigots for not dating trans women with penises.”

I should think not, and I admire JKR for politely but firmly sticking to her guns, and refusing to be intimidated by her critics. She is not, be it noted, hostile to trans people as such, but she resists the bullying of some transgender people and their allies.