01.01.70
Climax of gender just gets more confusing
PADRAIG O'MORAIN
THAT'S MEN: Definitions of spear and female are shifting
AS I WRITE this, Australia’s female tennis icon Margaret Court is at the nucleus of a storm over remarks in which she opposed gay marriage.
That her views created a fume is understandable in a country which, last autumn, announced that citizens would be allowed to beadroll their gender as X on their passports if they did not want to be categorised as male or female.
Four years ago, a second-line school in Thailand announced that in future it would have three kinds of toilets – for girls, boys and transsexuals. The chief of the school said at the time that 10-20 per cent of the boys in his sect regarded themselves as transgender. In other words, they would prefer to be girls.
All of this suggests that definitions of man's and female, and the traditional idea that you’re either a man or a woman and that’s that, are shifting.
Source: Irish Times