Michela Marzano resumes on The Republic the ongoing debate in the British Labour Party -and throughout the western liberal left: there is now only that- on the surreal issue "who a woman?"in the face of which even the patriarch Sigmund Freud, who had derived most of his science and language from women -the hysterics- had shown himself more fair and respectful.
The issue agitating Labour concerns so-called transwomen, i.e. people born men who have decided to cosmetically adapt their bodies to their self-perception as belonging to a sex different from their birth sex, a condition called gender dysphoria and which since 2018 the WHO defines as a 'sexual health disorder': are those people women or not?
The first thing to be noted about Marzano's didactic article is the nonchalant use of the misogynist epithet TERF (Trans Excludent Radical Feminist) which she uses as a definition and is instead an insult (Terf is a slur) now banned even by much of the mainstream press (New York Times, The Economist, Corriere della Sera) precisely because it is recognised as mark of infamyIs there hope that Marzano and La Repubblica will get there sooner or later?
But in Marzano's text there are also misinformation and omissions.
Until the recent past, trans women were precisely men who had embarked on a psychological, pharmacological and surgical - and finally anagrammatic - path to define themselves as such. There is no evidence that these so-called transsexuals have ever been excluded from feminist groups or initiatives -although few seemed interested in being part of it-. Today, however, the definition of trans women also includes men who keep their male body, including genitals, completely intact. -the famous women with penises- and who define themselves as women by mere self-declaration, claiming to be able to frequent any space reserved for the female sex. From physical spaces (changing rooms, refuge houses, hospital and prison wards: it is worth reminding Marzano, who elegantly omits, that the cases of sexual violence and cell pregnancies are multiplying) to symbolic ones: labour quotas, political, statistical and so on: you may have heard of the grotesque phenomenon of female rapists, but makes no mention of it. This is the so-called transgender.
Problems that are best analysed by Robert Wintemute (see here) professor of law and expert in human rights at King's College London who in 2006 participated in the drafting of the famous principles of Yogyakarta (has Marzano heard of them?), principles that have guided all subsequent trans policies and that do not mention the word woman once.
Today Wintemute is repentant. He says that women's rights were not considered during the meeting, and that he should have challenged certain aspects of the principles. He admits that he 'did not consider' that 'trans women still in possession of their male genitalia would seek access to women-only spaces: no one thought that males with intact genitals could access women's spaces.". Wintemute says he assumed that most trans women would want to undergo surgeryas was the case at the time.
Wintemute, who is gay, says: 'A key factor in my change of opinion was listening to women'.. Apparently Michela Marzano does not listen to them.
Well, a feminist who does not know how to listen to women has never been seen.
Marina Terragni
