Janice Turner Quotes

When you write about really difficult and toxic subjects it really helps to have your newspaper behind you and I just want to thank the Times ... who have been completely behind me in dealing with something that is complicated.
I have a privilege in being able to write about this difficult subject, which is not something women in universities have at the moment, and I urge that we debate this more thoroughly and freely.

This is not a piffling problem. The BBC reality check team confirmed that 60 (48 per cent) of the 125 trans prisoners in jails are sex offenders. That compares with 19 per cent in the prison population overall. Yet, since women commit only 2 per cent of sex crimes, out of 8,000 women prisoners there are only 125 sex offenders. So if the 60 trans sex offenders were housed according to gender identity, it would create a sea change in women’s prisons. There would be 50 per cent more sex offenders; they’d be male bodied, physically stronger and have committed far more serious crimes, including 27 rapes, 13 sexual assaults and seven charges of sex with a child.

"It never happens," women were told when they worried that losing sex-segregated private spaces might allow attacks by predatory men. Yet, as FoI [Freedom of Information] requests by The Sunday Times last week showed, 90 per cent of sexual assaults in leisure centres are committed in gender-neutral changing rooms and only a tenth in single-sex facilities. It happens.

[On the case of Karen White, born Stephen Wood (and retaining male genitals), a sexual offender against children and on remand as a rapist. White had admitted in court to the rapes committed before being held in custody.] I’d love to meet those who signed off this decision. What would they say to the four women who, within days of her transfer to New Hall prison in West Yorkshire, White had sexually assaulted? Confining a rapist in a women’s prison, among vulnerable inmates including rape victims, is like locking a fox in a henhouse. Yet they merely followed government guidelines "that prisoners should generally be housed in the estate that matches their expressed gender".

This craze to expedite gender transition in children goes against all clinical advice for "watchful waiting". The young brain evolves, children change their minds, puberty is troubling for many reasons. Yet the Scottish guidance allows no one to dispute a child's view, maybe acquired on Reddit and Tumblr, that he or she is in "the wrong body". Or to suggest that a child may simply be gay. The apparatus of medical transition, a hormone regime causing sterility, plus surgical removal of healthy tissue, is seen as wholly positive. PE teachers must tolerate girls using binders to strap down their hated breasts "which can lead to shortness of breath and can be painful during physical exertion" because they have "a positive impact on a young person's mental health".
We are being ordered to endorse a practice reminiscent of Chinese foot-binding or the Victorian tight-lacing craze where girls fainted to achieve the tiniest waist. Should we also hand out fresh razor blades so self-harm wounds don’t go septic? Or "affirm" anorexics' delusions that they are fat?

[T]he current trans movement is doctrinaire, uncompromising. Led by mainly older trans-women — ie born men — it won’t acknowledge women's rights or feelings. It fights for two principles. First, "self-definition": a person is the gender they "feel" inside, so a trans-woman "is" a woman even without physical change or while retaining male genitalia. Second, "affirmation": everyone must acknowledge this inner gender identity. Hence the right to waltz into women’s private spaces is sacrosanct.

So when is it OK to punch a woman? When she won’t do what you want; when you don’t like what she says. Some things never change.

[T]rans demands and women’s rights are often in such clear and irreconcilable conflict. Take Martin Ponting, jailed in 1995 for raping two girls, one disabled. After cosmetic surgery, but still possessing male genitalia, Ponting, now called Jessica Winfield, was moved to Bronzefield women’s prison but after making unwanted sexual advances to inmates has been segregated. Are you appalled that a rapist is confined with women prisoners, mainly non-violent offenders and themselves often victims of male sexual abuse? Do you think the Soham murderer Ian Huntley should never be allowed to transfer even if, as reported, he calls himself "Lian"? Then you too are a TERF and deserve to be punched.

So at Speakers’ Corner trans activists and feminists were chanting and taunting each other. Maria was taking photographs when an opponent grappled with her, snatched her camera and smashed it on the ground. Then a tall, male-bodied, hooded figure wearing make-up rushed over, hit her several times and as police arrived, ran away. I asked a young activist if she was OK with men smacking women: "It’s not a guy, you’re a piece of s*** and I’m happy they hit her", came the reply.

TERF stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. But lately the definition has expanded to include any woman worried that permitting men who "self-identify" as female to enter women’s changing rooms or refuges unchallenged makes her less safe.

The International Olympic Committee's rule changes on transgender athletes have been applauded as a human rights victory. No longer will trans-females be required to have surgery. To take part in women’s events, they need only declare themselves female and keep their testosterone levels below 10 nmol/L for a year before competing.
Arne Ljungqvist of the IOC’s medical committee welcomed this as "more flexible and more liberal". And it is great news — unless you are a woman athlete.
Testosterone levels in healthy men range between 7.5 and 25 nmol/L. Normal levels in women range from 0.20 to 3 nmol/L. So a male-to-female trans athlete will be allowed to have more than three times the upper range of this performance-enhancing hormone than a born woman. And while taking female hormones reduces male muscle mass and bone density, many biological advantages remain. Men have bigger skeletons, longer stride, larger lung capacity, and a narrower pelvis — unhindered by female reproductive organs — all better suited for speed.

I'd never thought about my gender identity before. It hadn't occurred to me that not being a "girly" girl meant I wasn't 100 per cent woman. The point, I've always believed, is to expand the categories "man" and "woman", to tear down pink and blue prisons. So a little girl can like trucks, spacemen, getting dirty and still be a girl; a boy can put on nail polish, play with dolls and be no less a boy.