Transgender: One Shade of Grey

Transgender: One Shade of Grey poses deep questions that are at the heart of the identity politics impacting the lives of all Australians and our democracy. What happens if a biological man who identifies as a woman can play in women’s sports, access women’s domestic violence shelters, lesbian organisations and, if in jail, access women’s prisons? Why are state education departments saying that if a biological boy identifies as a girl, he must be allowed to use the girls’ toilets, showers, change rooms and play in girls’ sports teams? Patrick Byrne finds that the more the term gender identity is examined the more the it becomes uncertain, ambiguous, contradictory and leads Australia into deep legal and cultural conflicts. At the same time, the more laws and governments insist on gender neutral language, gender neutral toilets and sports in the cause of “diversity,” the more we are all treated uniformly. The more the transgender world view is protected in law, the more people are threatened with legal, professional and cultural sanctions if they insist on recognising the biological fact that human beings are either male or female. Byrne critiques the assumption behind the transgender world view, that there is no human nature, raising the question: if there is no common human nature, how can there be universal human rights?