A girl called Karen

A post about sex, gender and 80’s common sense

“What are YOU doing in the girls changing rooms?”

I remember it plain as day. I was about 13, she was a supply teacher and I had instantly felt a strange mixture of embarrassment for the adult and devastation for my classmate.

“I repeat WHAT are you doing in the girls changing rooms?”

Silence.

And then it came.

A small, sheepish voice.

“But…..I AM a girl, Miss”

The booming battleaxe continued.

“Go on! Off to the boys changing rooms!”

“She is, Miss, she’s not lying, she is girl”

An ally piped up.

We all nodded. Other voices began to pitch in.

“She’s definitely a girl, Miss. She really is”

“Her name’s Karen”

At that point, the pit bull dropped her bone, realising her gross error.

You see, Karen was one of those girls who always wore trousers, kept her hair very short, liked to hang out with the lads.

So, why did we do this?

Why did the girls in that female changing room rise to her defence that day?

Was it because she’d told us she was a girl?

She hadn’t.

Was it because she liked Bros?

Painted her nails pink?

No.

Because even if those things had been true, at 13 we already knew gender stereotyping to be oppressive, reductive marketing bollocks.

We rallied around Karen for one reason.

Because she was telling the truth.

She was indeed, female. We’d taken showers with her and were 100% sure.

How very 1980’s!

If Karen were 13 today, I can’t help wonder if she’d now be ‘Darren’, googling tips on breast binding and sharing ‘his’ transition on TikTok with a clique of like minded followers, each reaffirming their own ‘journey’ in flurries of likes, comments and follows.

How has it come to pass, that we now favour gender over sex when it comes to deciding whether people are male or female?

Why do we permit this to take place when we don’t allow it with other physical classification?

If I were a 14 year old in a bar, telling the staff I were over 18, they would rightly insist on ID. If I then told the bartender I was self ID’ing as 78 and had always felt older, liked twinsets, fig rolls and cuppa soup, I’d be laughed at.

Why?

Because not only do we know these to be ridiculous stereotypes of the elderly, but they form no sound basis to outweigh hard biological fact. The only thing that would matter would be how many years I’d been alive.

The same applies to race. In the 90’s Sacha Baron Cohen in his guise as Ali G, would famously rip the piss out of white kids faking ‘black kid cool’ with his “Iz it becoz I iz black?”

So, what makes being male and female different? Exempt to this common sense?

I believe it’s the muddy water of gender and sex.

‘Sex’ sounds so…..well, you know… rigid, crude, basic, old fashioned. It has a PR problem.

‘Gender’ on the other hand - ironically - has the more sexed up image. There are connotations of progressiveness, nuance, layers, ambiguity. It fits with the current vogue for non commitment, ‘fluidity’.

But employing notions of gender as determiner of identity causes more harm than good.

It helps reinforce and reintroduce outdated generalisations and limiting beliefs previous generations had worked hard to dispense with.

When Shania Twain sang “Man, I feel like a woman”, she was talking about a certain type of woman. Perhaps she kids herself that when she parades about in ‘short skirts’ or whatever else she blathers on about, she is more female for it.

She is not. Her womanhood hinges on one thing only - the anatomy she was born with.

She could wear a bin bag, jock strap or lederhosen and she’d still BE a woman. What she FEELS is affinity with her own concept of what a typical or desirable female should embody.

There lies the crucial distinction. There are many variations when it comes to how a woman acts, what she wears, her sexuality, careers she has. The same applies to men. Whilst one type may be more common or we may hold preference as to the traits we personally prize, no single version has superiority over another. They are equally valid.

Gender is a social construct. Sadly, it has proven very profitable for toy manufacturers, the porn industry and now, notably the pharmaceutical market. One could ponder whether that’s what keeps it alive……

Hmm….

I do not believe that the way out of this very modern mess is by demonising trans people or hurling insults.

Instead, we must unpick the jargon of gender, displacing its much worshipped church and acknowledging the very sobering reasons female only spaces were created in the first place. 

They did not come about because someone fancied pink doors and fluffy towels but rather for reasons of safety and privacy, recognition of bodily difference. So often, people hear ‘equality’ and twin it with ‘same’ but this logic is flawed since those with vaginas endured - and endure - physical risk and inconveniences that those with penises did not, and do not.

Last I heard of me old classmate Karen, she was a well adjusted, middle aged lesbian.

Thankfully, she wasn’t convinced to have ‘top surgery’ to fit in with the guys she liked to knock about with.

Mercifully, she wasn’t pressured to start flouncing about in mini skirts and pouting on Instagram to ‘prove’ her femaleness.

But, hey……Karen and I grew up in the 80’s.

What did we know?