Noah and I are together in our sitting room. We are having a drink before supper. If this sounds mundane, it is because it is.
This is no pre-prandial piss-up. The drink is non-alcoholic, the prand is a bowl of soup (plus a crust of bread, if you must know), and our mien, our aspect, and our bearing, are downright glum. For the glumness, we must of course take the blame, for we are the captains of our souls. For the fare – so determinedly austere, so grimly abstinent – our health stands accountable, full-on and fair and square.
After years of treating our bodies as slaves, we now see that they have become our masters. We are bound to serve them for the balance of our days. We must grit our teeth and recognize that mens can be sana only in a sano corpore.
Old Lucullus would doubtless disapprove, but I suspect he met an early death. We are plumping for a long life even if we are being shunned by our bibulous friends and no longer present a felicitous Norman Rockwell picture. Good health is our safe haven and the devil must take the hindmost.
Deprived of merriment, Noah has taken to fubbing, a habit bad enough in itself but execrable in company. I have castigated him on several occasions, but he persists. The bug has bitten, it seems, and his fingers, previously so dexterous, now scroll from one doom-laden post to the next. If this is mens sana, point me to the nearest sanitorium.
He breaks the silence.
“The alphabet people are at it again. Here is a man, a bulging homo intactus, who proclaims that he is a woman and insists on running in women’s races. Unsurprisingly, he wins by miles.”
“Surely not miles, dear. The races are only a few hundred metres.” Wigging Noah is one way of dispelling the glumness. Levity is the soul of wit. Have I got it right?
“No, but seriously. They divide races up by gender because men are stronger than women. Everyone understands this. Everyone, it seems, except the cross-dressers.”
“Penile amputees”
“Cross-dressers, you say. What about penile amputees. Would you permit them to participate? I mean, of course, the people who have undergone surgical mutation?”
“Perhaps, but I doubt it. Testosterone has made them genetically stronger and, for all I know, still serves the purpose. Women have less of it than men and so cannot compete against them. This is true in athletics, rugby, cricket, boxing, soccer, or wherever physical prowess counts. In chess and bridge competitions I believe no distinction is made, nor need it be.”
“What about hermaphrodites? What about poor Caster Semenya?” I ask, a trifle slyly.
“Caster was bollocks ….”
“Or wasn’t, as the case may be,” I interject.
“Let me finish. The proper way to resolve that problem was not to gaze at his anatomy, but to test his levels of testosterone. Strength is what matters, and gender is just a proxy for it.”
“Mmm, you could be right. Did they do such a test in Semenya’s case?”
“No, I don’t think so. My recollection is that the harpies of identity activism would not permit it. I think their attitude was that Caster should choose.”
This is a new side of Noah. I never thought gender was a hobbyhorse of his. I resolve to keep him riding on. I am enjoying this.
“What about toilet facilities? Should trans men be allowed in women’s toilets?”
“Well, yes and no ….”
“And three bags full too, I suppose.”
Ignorance is bliss
Noah ignores my interjection. Years with me have taught him that ignorance is bliss.
Doggedly proceeding, he says “Once again, we must examine the interests at stake. Women don’t want to be raped, they don’t want to be molested, and they don’t want to be leered at. That these are legitimate concerns is plain; equally plain, I would have thought, is that the underlying interests deserve legal protection.
“The sphere of proper regulation is very limited, however. Where cubicles are provided, there will generally be no need for it. Unisex loos demonstrate as much. It is only when nudity is overt that problems really arise. Showers, for instance, and comparable ablution facilities.”
“What would you do in such cases, pray?”
“I would oblige at least the cross-dressers to heed the call of nature. It is that males are males howsoever they dress. They must use the men’s facilities. The amputees are in a different class, I suspect: there seems no reason why they should not use the women’s facilities.”
“Cross-dressing men say homophobes will diss them, even violate them, if they are forced to use the male facilities,” I say.
“Don’t use ‘diss’, it’s vulgar.”
“So it is, but it is appropriate for a vulgar conversation.” Touchè.
“Fair enough, but let me meet the point. Cross-dressing men who expect to be using male facilities must take that risk or dress as men for the day. If they cannot expect the State to protect them, they must take steps to protect themselves. I mean, everyone understands this principle – you wouldn’t lightly go into a dangerous area of a city, would you.”
Dangerous
I smile wanly. This signifies that I have thrown in the towel. I have a fear that we have taken mens sana into a dangerous area of conversation: we seem fast becoming prey to men’s sanitation.
“I do love you, darling. You, the eternal chum, buck us up whenever we are glum. I shall write to Henry Higgins and tell him.”
“Ah, my dear, you are truly my fair lady.” This rather heavy-handed compliment delivers us up for supper. At the dining table, we confront our gruel. Life can be a gruelling affair.
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