Mick Hartley

From today's Sunday Times (£):

A female prisoner who was allegedly sexually assaulted in jail by a male-bodied transgender inmate has launched a High Court action for a judicial review of government policy.

She says the transgender woman, who is serving a sentence for rape of a female, groped her breasts in the prison toilets. Shortly after the assault, the victim was moved to a different prison only to find her assailant had also moved there and would be sharing accommodation.

She is challenging the lawfulness of the government decision to place trans-women prisoners convicted of sexual and violent offences against women in women’s prisons without, it is claimed, adequately protecting female prisoners.

Not unrelated, on the same page – No more ladies and gentlemen in gender‑neutral theatreland:

Last week Equity, the trade union that represents actors and entertainers, released its new guidelines for people working with LGBT performers. Venues are now being encouraged to adopt “gender neutral terminology for collective calls, both front of house and backstage”.

Last night the National Theatre, which supported Equity in producing the guide, said that it was still using “ladies and gentlemen” in some of its announcements but would make it a priority to phase the words out.

A spokeswoman said: “We do not use ‘ladies and gentlemen’ back of house and this is being phased out in our front-of-house announcements.”

Some LGBT campaigners argue that phrases such as “ladies and gentlemen” are outdated and inappropriate for people who identify neither as male nor female but instead as non-binary such as the singer Sam Smith who uses the pronouns they or them.

The Equity guide also advises against complimenting an actor on their voice or calling them “brave”.

“Avoid backhanded compliments or ‘advice’ regarding to appearance, clothing, voice quality, identity or the performer being ‘brave’,” it says.

In response to the publication of the guide, the Royal Shakespeare Company said that it would undertake a “comprehensive review” of its front-of-house procedures, including “all announcements, signage and the introduction of some gender-neutral facilities”.

A spokeswoman added that the company welcomed the Equity guidelines and said it would “strive to create environments which welcome and support trans people and people who identify their gender as fluid”.

The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, central London, also confirmed that it still used “ladies and gentlemen” when speaking to the audience, but said it would now “carefully consider the latest guidance from Equity”.

Sadler’s Wells, the theatre in north London, and the Barbican Centre in the City, both say they have now removed gendered phrases from their public address systems.

Because we're no longer a species comprising two sexes, apparently, but a just an undifferentiated bunch of gender-fluid organisms. It happened quite quickly, without many of us even noticing…

The thinking seems to be that, because T has been added to the LGB (controversially), and because society has seen wave after wave of successful campaigns against racism, sexism, homophobia, and the rest, gender fluidity is the next barrier to be broken down in the great progressive advance. But perhaps it's not progressive at all. Perhaps the belief that we all contain some gender essence which may or may not conform with our biological sex runs counter to these earlier liberal advances. As Jonathan Kay puts it, in the Quillette article I linked to on Friday:

[T]he whole arc of left-wing activism over the last century has created a spirit of triumphalism in regard to every cause premised on an expansion of asserted rights—including anti-sexism, anti-racism and anti-homophobia. In the media, as in activist circles, anti-transphobia typically is presented as simply an obvious extrapolation of these earlier causes, and so anyone who offers any form of opposition to the orthodox stance is assumed to be a bigot. There is no acknowledgment that social-justice campaigners now have scraped up against the bare-metal limits of the rights that can be vindicated by society without biting into other, older rights won by previous activist cohorts.