Who are You?

Gender has always been debated as an issue and as a term. The UN defines it as “the social attributes and opportunities associated with being male and female and the relationships between women and men and girls and boys, as well as the relations between women and those between men”. It isn’t clear, right? I don’t understand it fully but I get the gist that gender is like a spectrum, one in which people can freely choose to associate themselves with whatever they feel most comfortable. It isn’t, however, the 72 options that Facebook insists of confining it to because it holds within those options “sub- spectrums”.

There has been a debacle as of late as to the roles and definitions of such genders. Does one who identifies as a male go to a male restroom or to a female one if that individual has female genetalia? I understand why this may be an issue for some because it may be evasive to the privacy of those people in the restrooms. Men who don’t want to be seen by someone who they would assume is a female and females by someone they would traditionally call a male. That is an issue that makes sense to me and that I can somewhat relate to. The issue, to me, is somewhat trivialised when one makes the case that it invades the “privacy” of a public toilet. I don’t know about the opposite gender, but males usually go into the toilet, remain in a mutual state of silence and awkwardness, and go about their business with their focus oftentimes being to avoid getting urine on their shoes, the floor or worst of all, on their trousers. After this mentally enduring task they wash their hands, I hope, and go about their day. I don’t therefore relate to the issue of having an invasion of privacy, if someone steps into the restroom, surely you aren’t going to change your behaviour, you will preserve the same level of modesty and silence and go about your business. It isn’t as if these restrooms are a social club in which people sit around and have private conversations, is it?

The issue has now extended to schools. Whilst watching Good Morning Britain, I saw a flustered and somewhat annoyed Piers Morgan. A sight I usually use as a means of morning entertainment, but one which I found myself with. I wasn’t flustered because I was opposed to anything or anyone but rather because I wasn’t sure what I thought. The issue was that students in school shouldn’t be called girls or boys but rather just students and people. You may be asking, why does this matter, surely, it’s just a change in how you refer to someone and a way to be more inclusive of the gender spectrum. However, I found myself thinking about me as a future father or in the position of a teacher as well as my current role as a student. I have always referred to girls as girls and boys as boys. I will continue to do so and expect someone who doesn’t agree with me calling them as such to simply come up to me or stop me in my dialogue to correct my use of the word and tell me what they would be like to be referred to as. The reason this is an issue that I was concerned with is because I feel that it’s all just a bit too political as of late. It’s not right, in my humble opinion, to bring such an issue into schools. I believe that a respect for the gender issues and an education that explains them is an important step into gaining wider societal acceptance for them but changing what schools call their children is not a necessary step. A girl who runs around, plays sport and wears hoodies is no less a girl than the one who likes Barbie’s and playing with flowers. Isn’t the whole point that there isn’t a fixed definition of a girl or of a boy and that in today’s society we have come to a state where we don’t limit any of the genders to any role. If a child identifies differently to his or her sex then that is fine. However, such strands take away from that feeling of childhood, if political correctness creeps into such scenarios, it becomes harder to have free discussion and to make points that perhaps aren’t of the general consensus. A Christian who is evangelical or catholic is a Christian nonetheless, despite the spectrums within. It becomes an issue that is much larger than its origin and one that I still find hard to form a definitive opinion on. But that is the point, I am not sure and that is perfectly fine.

Toilets and schools are a place where gender is an issue. However, it doesn’t have to be, why can’t a person who identifies as a male go to a men’s toilet? If it is such a vast issue have toilets based on Sex rather than gender or have gender neutral toilets like many places have, the sacred nature of the supposed social clubs that exist within the lavatories aren’t ones that must be maintained for all time. The issue in schools is one that is more sensitive, of course we want our children and the children of tomorrow to have the right to freely express themselves, despite the statistics that say gender freedom is damaging, I believe it is something that should be respected. We must also realise that it is school, a place for education. Educate children from an early age about gender and the issues surrounding it and let them identify how they want, but at such a young age they are discovering themselves and perhaps using more gender-neutral language may be a good idea but surely its confusing. If you’re flooded with all these options that may cause you to become lost or not know who you are. Boys and Girls, Men and Women are terms that mean what you want them to. If you want, they can be as liberating and as constricting as you want them to be, however they are terms that, if lost completely, would cause confusion and angst.