Two years ago, I attended a workshop on preventing sexual and gender-based violence and torture. I was among a select number of lawyers, medical doctors, journalists, and some civil society organisations at the workshop which was sponsored by several NGOs including the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF).
We must admit that we live in strange and trying times. Despite our scientific advancement like the recent SpaceX exploration and extreme engineering, science seems undecided to answer who a man and woman is, a question that ought to be easy.
Before the workshop began, we exchanged pleasantries and began to familiarise ourselves. While familiarising, I got to know that the gentleman to my left was a doctor who schooled in the UK and specialised in Public Health.
As the workshop began, the very first task was to differentiate between a man and woman. I felt the question was unnecessary and overly simplistic as the differences weren’t in doubt. However, it turned out I was in for a shock.
As part of the differences, a lady stated that women have the capacity to get pregnant, give birth, and to breastfeed, commonsensical, one would say. However, hardly had she finished when one of the participants quickly disagreed. Men could get pregnant and give birth and although they cannot breastfeed they can bottle-feed, he objected.
On hearing this I was stunned, I was more shocked when I turned and realised that the objector was the doctor I had met earlier. This issue, which I thought was a walkover, turned out to be very contentious. It disrupted the workshop temporarily.
When I finally got myself, I asked the doctor, “as of today, does a man have a womb and a fallopian tube”, he said no. How can he get pregnant and give birth? He tried to make references to future scientific and technological possibilities. I replied that even though that might be a possibility, the process will not be biological and natural to man and since we don’t even have those possibilities now, it is erroneous to object to someone’s differentiations as those differentiations are valid. He grudgingly concurred and raised the issue of hermaphrodites. I will not bore you with the rest of the conversation.
Whenever I narrate this experience, people think, the workshop was held either in America or Europe or in South Africa, if at best it was in Africa. When I tell them, it happened in Lagos, they are shocked, their countenance changes, they become more attentive and serious.
I remembered this story, after what happened in the past weeks to J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series many of us grew up either reading or watching Harry Potter.
J.K. Rowling in a series of tweets sought to defend biological sex. One tweet reads, “If sex isn’t real, there is no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth”
In another tweet, she disagreed with an article that has a title, which was, “Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate,” by suggesting that the word “women” be used instead since indeed it’s only women that menstruate.
As expected, she has received backlash and cancellations, her tweets have been termed offensive, bigoted, hate speech, disappointing, ignorant, and uninformed, you name it.
Even casts of Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts haven’t spared her Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) and Eddie Redmayne, distanced themselves from her tweets and affirmed their support for the LGBTQIA group. Two of the biggest “Harry Potter” fan websites, MuggleNet and The Leaky Cauldron condemned her and committed to distancing themselves from her by not featuring her pictures or quotes.
In protest to her remarks, three authors of her agency, Blair Partnership, resigned after the agency refused to affirm “their stance to transgender rights and equality”. Also, a school in West Sussex has dropped plans to name one of its houses after J.K. Rowling, because she “may in fact no longer be an appropriate role model” for pupils.
This kind of backlash is not new. Even our dear Chimamanda Adichie, who is poised and an expert in political correctness, got a taste of the ire in 2017 when she was accused of implying that trans-women aren’t “real women” when she said, “When people talk about, ‘Are trans women women?’ my feeling is trans women are trans women.”
We must admit that we live in strange and trying times. Despite our scientific advancement like the recent SpaceX exploration and extreme engineering, science seems undecided to answer who a man and woman is, a question that ought to be easy. When it pertains to issues of sexuality, clearly science is no longer pure and neutral; it has now become heavily ideological and political.
Previously known and respected for its conclusions, it is now known for its inconsistencies and inconclusive statement. Ironically, the same people who proclaimed science was superior to faith are now proclaiming that feelings and people’s desires are superior to science and reality.
Concepts like male and female which have been known and settled for centuries are now being questioned, we now have funny concepts like sexuality, sexual orientation, 100 types of gender, gender identity, gender dysphoria, preferred pronouns, gender fluidity, gender spectrum, non-binary etc.
Notwithstanding the times, rather than run off and kowtow, we can learn from J.K. Rowling how to adapt and stand for our opinion.
Despite the backlash and being termed homophobic, transphobic, Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF) J.K. Rowling has not kowtowed to these ideological and anti-intellectual bullies, on June 10, she published a pretty long essay doubling down on her tweets.
In the essay which is available on her website, she highlighted the difficulty in discussing this issue which is surrounded by toxicity. In her essay, she highlights that these accusations and name callings have been sufficient to intimidate both people and institutions to cower before the tactics of these new trans activists. She wouldn’t cower and she gave five reasons why she would not remain quiet.
The first reason is the fear that new trans activism is pushing to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender and this is going to affect her charitable work which focuses on women, particularly, female prisoners and survivors of domestic and sexual abuse.
Secondly, as the founder of a children’s charity, which is interested in both education and safeguarding, she is concerned about the effect the trans-rights movement is having on both.
The third reason is the impact on freedom of speech. And the fourth is “the huge explosion of people transitioning and also the increasing number of people detransitioning (returning to their original sex) because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably”.
According to American physician and researcher Lisa Littman: ‘Parents online were describing a very unusual pattern of transgender-identification where multiple friends and even entire friend groups became transgender-identified at the same time”. “Littman mentioned Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram and YouTube as contributing factors to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers”. In other words, social media and peer influences are factors that influence kids to choose to identify as another person or thing.
This is important because in many Hollywood films, videos and even cartoons, there is an attempt to mainstream the LGBTQIA lifestyle, just last month, Cartoon Network which is meant for kids, celebrated Pride Month and encouraged people to push for equality, also Nickelodeon announced that SpongeBob Squarepants will now identify as gay. This indoctrination is inappropriate and it should be a cause of concern for parents.
The fifth reason is her concern about the consequences of trans activism.
In defence of motherhood, she said “I’ve read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don’t have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive. It’s also clear that one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities. Also, she declared as dehumanising and demeaning, the ‘inclusive’ language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’.
The vitriol against J.K. Rowling, which is not an isolated case, is an eye-opener to what to expect when society goes the slippery slope of admitting the confusion surrounding gender and sexuality, like Rowling while showing sympathy and fight against violence, lets refuse to bow down to a movement that is intolerant and is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode woman, commonsense and freedom of speech.
Nwachukwu, a lawyer, writes from Lagos, he can be reached at [email protected]
