I woke up with a start early this morning. As I write, it is 5 AM so I suppose I got most of my night’s sleep. I would be up anyway in an hour or ninety minutes.
But something was bugging me. Do you remember Fandango’s Provocative Question yesterday? There’s the link again, in case you missed it. My response is here but I’ll summarise:
It was on the subject of people being able to pick and choose their own gender. I got to the point where I was mostly happy with my answer, but with a few caveats, which I also mentioned. The big one was this:
You have somebody who identifies as a different gender. They commit a crime. Do you send them to a men’s prison or a women’s prison?
and I admitted that I didn’t know. That bugged me, That’s why I’m up, writing, in the middle of the night.
Well, now I do have an answer. Actually, Paula set me off, although this is not her answer. She started off by saying “wouldn’t it be good if we could separate the genitalia we have from the whole gender thing, which I thought was a very good point. Then she brought sport into the argument. I must admit, I didn’t really consider sport specifically, but maybe I should have done?
Because actually, rather than being a waste of time, maybe sport has the answer here?
Do you remember back to 2009? South African athlete Caster Semenya failed a gender test? As in, this person is, to all outward appearences, a woman. She wins a women’s race. They test her. She fails, gets disqualified. Do you remember that? Don’t worry, I had a vague recollection, but I had to look everything else up.
But it struck me – there is a way of separating gender from genitalia! I don’t know what the sporty test is – oestrogen, testosterone, or something more complicated, but there is a value, and if you happen to be below that value, you are classed as one gender. Above that value, another. (I found the terms man and woman unhelpful, here, it’s all far too blurry.)
So, there you go. There is a test. You end up with a sliding scale.
Of course, people can move up and down the scale over time – that is what gender reassignment is all about. But that’s it. Where you are on the scale governs what prison you go to.
You’re not going to be able to apply this to a restroom, where you’d need a snap decision. But, that’s kinda less critical anyway – it doesn’t matter so much is someone pisses into the wrong toilet. You could apply it to somewhere like a prison, though.
There are bound to be winners and losers – unless you have a system where everyone chooses for themselves, there will be losers. And, from what I read of Semenya’s case, this test leaves something to be desired. But we have come on ten years since then.
Just a thought…
On other things, it was a pretty rubbish day yesterday. I discovered a bug in my app which had me stumped – I need to keep looking today. And I created some more “Life Through The Lens” posts on here, and managed to wipe the reusable block I use. There was no way of getting the old block back, I had to go to a site backup from months ago, fish it all out from an old post. I recreated it all, but could have done without that. I took the opportunity to shorten the blurb drastically. But currently, if you asked me to describe the Block Editor, you’d just get a torrent of four-letter words.
Now, do I stay up or try going back to bed for a bit?
Mister Bump 
What if someone has gone through extensive surgery so that, anatomically, they appear to be the opposite sex in ALL ways, but when they take the “gender test,” the results show them to be the sex of their birth? Should someone who anatomically appears to be a woman but biologically is a man be incarcerated in a men’s prison? What about sending a biological female who has fully transitioned to a male, anatomically speaking? Should he be sent to a women’s prison because of some sort of blood test? That sounds like a recipe for disaster.
I think you need to go back to bed and get some more sleep.
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But fewer and fewer people are falling through the cracks, though. I think it is unlikely that someone would have physical changes without also undergoing hormonal changes.
The danger in all of this is sexual assault, which is a danger already, today.
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I hope you got more rest. I trailed after you around 6 this morning, my son snuck downstairs with me and wanted some oatmeal. Sorry about your bad day, but and accidental erasure. Too bad gender stereotypes and sexism isn’t something we can erase. Start over fresh with no expectations on what men do and what women want. It would be lovely, I think.
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At least you have a real reason for waking early! There will come a time when he can get his own oatmeal and allow you to sleep. #JoysOfParenthood
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05:00 AM – Snap. My excuse is I went to bed too early, what’s yours? 🙂
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I dunno. It happens sometimes when I am pondering something. At work, there was nothing like a night’s sleep for being able to solve an insurmountable problem.
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I guess it depends also to where you apply it. In sports I guess its correct to make a test because it makes a difference if you’re one or the other, but in other cases I believe it’s the person in question who should decide. Have a nice day 🙂
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I agree in general. I’m thinking specifically of somewhere like a prison.
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In this case I would think it’s the person in question that should decide indicating to which gender he or she prefers to be recognized.
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I’d decide, in that case, to go to a women’s prison. I have many more female friends than male friends in real life, so I suspect I’d get on rather well!
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The choice should depend on gender the person identifies with.
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I just say I identify as a woman. It is self-identification, after all. (I don’t in real life, by the way, but I’d be pretty unstoppable in the right pair of high heels!)
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Sport is a while can of worms! Some people are born intersex and before genetics got more sophisticated could just be classed as girls born without a womb for example. The fact that nature doesn’t always strictly divide us proves we should accept everyone as just human. But while sport remains divided into two sexes there will be female athletes who can never win against testosterone fueled intersex people who happen not to have a penis.
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Yes but those people are few and far between. Some tennis players spring to mind but they were once-in-a-generation athletes
I suspect Sport is the sector to look in, purely because they will have thought about this issue already so will have a headstart.
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The block editor ruined about a dozen of my posts a couple months ago and I’m still angry over it. I always use classic now. Problem is, when I use classic, for some strange reason wp removes the paragraph breaks in some posts in the app reader. They’re still there in full view mode. I think it has to do with image coding and I have to check each one before posting. Grrrr
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I must admit I always got on okay with the Block Editor. I like that I have a greater range of blocks to use. But why they can’t keep editing reusable blocks and posts separate, I don’t know. (I was editing a post and it trashed a block, With reusable blocks, you can’t get the old one back).
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I was at the airport, DCA, I was getting ready to go into the restroom and guy, so I thought was entering, so, I said this is the women restroom, and it said I know. 🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️. That’s all I’ll say.
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It’s funny because I think we’re headed toward everybody having their own little space, rather that pushing people into one of two channels.
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Hmmmmm
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