OPINION
Diane Sparkes
I identify as Transsexual – born male, now – female, I will never claim to be a woman, so from experience, I know the truth.
This is an ode to Winston Peters because he is a man who knows what all men are capable of – the same as women do. Both sexes developed over time in a very normal manner but in a very specific way. So when Winston realised this reality, he rightly gave the rights of males and females, the rights they deserve in a democracy. And one right goes beyond politics, climate control, global warming and the cost of living, to the very basics of life. Has no one ever noticed – that no matter the climate, hot or cold, hungry or not – the right to procreate and have sexual relations with another, takes precedence? So far from being a political whim by an ageing politician, one of humanity’s basic fundamental rights is dignity.
One cannot remain dignified if you are in a space traditionally reserved for women – if males are allowed to. The problem is clothes and the concept of not always knowing how to tell if someone has male genitalia, or female, under them. The reality is – no one can tell!
Nothing new about that, until the concept of changing physically one’s sex became a reality.
Not that sex can be changed; once through puberty, the sex of every human body is set for life and they will remain that sex until they die – regardless of what they do to their anatomy.
But clever sods we humans are; for a hundred millennia or more nothing changed, no matter what anyone may tell you until doctors turned surgeons gradually came to realise that through modern medical techniques, only medical intervention could change surgically an outie (penis) into an innie (vagina) or more correctly a vulva.
Except this still does not change one’s sex, only the individual’s physical genitalia, so the problem remained: clothes – provided a perfect hiding place and still no one can be certain. Not even Winston!
Then another unsatisfied clever sod decided to refer to these individuals in gender terms, reasoning that it was the person’s gender that had changed, by reason that this same person now dressed as a woman – the opposite sex in now questionable reality. Only, guess what?
Society – still because of clothes – still could not tell one way or the other – no different to dear old ageing Winston.
So when society, even politicians have a dig at Winston Peters for his toilet claim, it should be remembered that “everyone needs dignity” no matter how you define the necessity value or the order of its introduction – they should realise they are no better informed than him, no matter what anyone says – all because of “Clothes” – are we not all in the dark!
Or does that mean all of society should only vote for politicians who make No Clothes their philosophy and their party’s manifesto? In this recent weather – a very cold concept for certain – I doubt National or Labour would accept that as a party policy!