The road back

Flipping heck, where's that? Just so I can remember never to go there !

I remember visiting an Italian resort on the Adriatic in September and it was wonderful. The beach was empty despite the weather. I saw a photo of the beach in summer and it was full of serried ranks of umbrellas and chairs. Looked just awful.

Anyway in a fit of madness, we did return the following summer as we had enjoyed ourselves so much. Yes the beach was busy but the arrangement of paying to enter a section, which came with your personal space with umbrella, table and chairs, and beach boys coming along to de-sand you after you had been to the sea. It was very civilised in a strange way.

There's no requirement now for a trans woman to have Gender Recognition Certificate to use a female toilet. While in the Quango one of the members, a Ministerial Appointee not a Civil Servant, transitioned male>female. At some point they started using the ladies bogs; the only person to comment was male.

To my mind the issue isn't Arthur who wants to be Martha so much as those who would abuse the concession to gain access to female spaces. If Arthur is an abusive male wondering round the ladies changing room with a massive hard on then there's a problem. If they're on hormones and have breasts but are in the ladies changing room without/before undercarriage surgery that's more of a conundrum. Some women will say 'hang your hat on it' others may genuinely feel intimidated.

Some women, particularly those who've escaped abuse, have an issue with men generally. We have it at work from time to time, not just face to face but occasionally on the phone too. That cohort are owed consideration on a 'reasonable adaptations' basis too. OTOH there are trans women who've had the sh!t beaten out of them and need refuge. 

Sport needs to be compartmentalised and dealt with as a discrete issue. Folks who went through puberty as males should not be competing, whether professionally or just for kudos, against those born female.

There's a joke somewhere about that NZ weightlifter's snatch :-)

I'm not aware of ever having met a trans man (ie female>male). I've been aware of several who've 'gone the other way' including the Quango member above. They did a reasonable job of passing as an older woman albeit a bit Alastair Sim as Lady Bracknell. My son's friend's transition was no surprise, he's always dressed androgynously and although married to a woman has been open about being bi. One might feel sorry for his wife but she must have known what she was taking on. There was a trainer in my Civil Service department who at some point in the eighties took the moniker Louise he also dressed androgynously albeit much more conservatively so than The Lad's mate.

You just deal with it remembering to use the correct pronoun even if it feels funny.

As person working on the phone it can be mildly unnerving to speak to what sounds like a male voice but has a female name. The embarrassing one was where a referer sent us contact details based on out of date billing information referring to Stephen, the person answering in a pretty gruff voice said 'it's Stephanie'!!

A senior person at work has disclosed that her son was born female and had recently got their GRC as part of a wider discussion about E&D in the organisation. They put a somewhat different perspective to those who say changing sex is not possible; you recognise the person for who they are. There are some concerns about the number of girls in early puberty presenting as trans and being referred to the Tavistock Clinic where the issue may be the changes to their bodies and the sexism and harassment aimed at girls in far too many schools.

I guess 'the toilet scenario' is a conversation we may need to have with our daughters but unless the 'bloke' in the next cubicle is misbehaving, and any hairy arsed abuser can potentially do that absent a security guard, is it an issue?

OPen plan changing rooms much more so.

The bottom line is we need to work through reforms to the Gender Recognition Act and how to manage the problems thrown up by doing so. Shouting insults like TERF or refusing to accept the possiblity of change of gender will get us no where.

So, pretty much all Covid restrictions to be lifted on 19 July in the UK! Anybody worried?

Presumably any subsequent wave of infections will be tempered by the high level of vaccinations in the UK, so hospitals won’t run out of beds? I am assuming that this is the government’s strategy?

Meanwhile over in Sydney a strict, prolonged lockdown looms (like Melbourne last year) because hardly anyone has been vaccinated yet, and people have been flaunting the lockdown-light these past 2 weeks...

14 million Australians now under lockdown. Things are going backwards in this part of the planet. NZ suspending all quarantine-free flights across the Tasman. I’m living in Hermitland 😬😂

I now picture you as some weird Bond villain. Say "Good evening Mr Bond, I've been expecting you.". Are you Carl Stronberg ?