Is that a Gun in your pocket?
Or are you still âtransitioningâ Officer? – As Ms West might have been forced to inquire these days.
An armed MoD police officer making the delicate transition from male to female, had his/her gun licence suspended â the MoD has now made a âsmall ex-gratia paymentâ to the officer concerned, ahead of an employment tribunal, for having failed to support her adequately â though they denied any discrimination.
Around the globe, authorities are struggling to comply with equality legislation as the tsunami of individuals who wake one morning and declare that they wish they were a different sex, dance tantalisingly
between the poles of gender.
Last week I visited our local hospital for the eternally popular âscan in the back of a lorry parked next to the mortuaryâ and discovered that we no longer had male and female toilets. Indeed, we no longer had toilets, or WCs, or even lavatories.
Apparently there had been a spate of secretaries returning to their office only to discover that some âvulnerable individualâ, understandably âstruggling with languageâ and âwestern cultureâ, had, er, crapped in their waste paper basket…..Eventually this event had occurred in the office of someone sufficiently high up the food chain to do something about it.
The âsomethingâ turned out to be printing off a hundred or so pictures of a western toilet in bright yellow, black and white, on an A4 sheet of paper, laminating them all, and causing them to be affixed to the door of every single toilet in the building â obscuring the previously helpful signs saying âwomenâ, âmenâ or âstaff onlyâ.
This in turn ensured that the corridors were full of unsure people hopping anxiously from foot to foot saying âI think it was that oneâ and then emerging saying âSorry, I was sure that was the gentsâ…Iâll let you know on my next visit whether this initiative had any effect on Tomaz the Crapperâs perfectly understandable confusion regarding western toilet habits. Perhaps a picture of a hole in the ground with two footholds might have been more helpful?
I learnt all this whilst filling in a lengthy new two sided form which demanded to know whether I was male, female, transitioning or transgendered, before the NHS could consider injecting me with radioactive fluid and letting me sit for an hour, âto cookâ as they helpfully explain, in the portacabin on the back of a lorry â in this post-white hot age of technology. Things have improved in this department, the old firm has got the boot, and the new outfit is trying hard â even supplying copies of the Daily Mail to cheer you in your cubicle.
So I inquired, possibly rather too loudly, whether the radioactive injection came in pink, blue, or multi-coloured, and perhaps this was why they needed to know who or what I would choose to shag, should I ever be returned to shaggable condition. Never crack anything approaching a joke with an NHS employee; mindful of the ever present cctv, they choke on their tongues in most distressing fashion.
The old questionnaire merely wanted to know whether you were more or less than 25 stone, and whether you could get on and off the table unaided â now they demand to know whether you are buddhist, muslim or C of E, who you dream of shagging…and whether âyou suffer from ill healthâ…..I managed to fit âask me in a monthâs time when you deign to give me the results of this bally scanâ all on one line.
Across the pond, questions of equality and trangenderism, or to be more accurate, transitioning, are occupying a battalion of happy lawyers. A happy lawyer is a dangerous one. You see, before you can become transgendered, you have to transition, and before you can transition you have to âtrans-identifyâ.
In deepest Illinois, a 13 year old teenage boy decided that girls have more fun and heâd rather join them. In truly politically correct US fashion and mindful of Title IX equality legislation, âherâ teachers and the school administrators reared up as one and agreed to address her as âMissâ, even going so far as to change all evidence of âheâ to âsheâ in (now) âherâ school reports and sat back well pleased with their liberal tolerance. Why, âsheâ even played in the girlâs soccer team…
They drew the line at letting âMissâ 13-years-old âstill with his her bitsâ into the girlâs showers when the game was over, citing the privacy requirements of the rest of the girlâs team. âFoulâ cried the lawyers! âIf Miss 13-year-old âstill-with-his-her-bitsâ self-identifies as wishing to change gender when he she is older, then you must accord him her full female rights and privileges.
Several hundred thousand teenage boys who for generations had employed every trick in the book to gain a peephole, never mind physical access to, the girlies changing rooms watched rapt. âSelf-identifiesâ eh? No messy surgery or hilarity inducing hormone treatment needed eh?
A forest of trees was consumed between competing lawyers, âtil finally a compromise was reached. One shower, one toilet, and one changing area in the girlâs locker room would be screened off for the sole use of Miss by-now-16-years-old, and so long as she agreed to use that, she could enter via the door marked âGirlâs Onlyâ.
âMore discriminationâ cried the lawyers! âShe should have the choice of whether to use it, not be forced toâ.
The head master, Superintendent Daniel Cates, no doubt mindful of the rush to âself-identifyâ by ever ingenious teenage boys said that this was âa serious overreach with precedent-setting implications.
âThe students in our schools are teenagers, not adults, and oneâs gender is not the same as oneâs anatomy,â Cates said in a statement.
âBoys and girls are in separate locker rooms â where there are open changing areas and open shower facilities â for a reason.â
The school has 30 days to reach an agreement with the authorities or risk having their federal educational funding suspended or even terminated.
In Houston, âpotty panicâ has reached potty new heights; they recently voted down an anti-discrimination bill that covered many, many areas, on the grounds that it would also allow any man who âself-identifiedâ as female to cunningly lie in wait in that âsafe spaceâ previously known as a âfemale toiletâ and have his wicked way with a passing vulnerable woman.
The vision of thousands of men dressed as improbably as Mrs Doubtfire, concealed behind the doors, impeding a womanâs progress towards displaying her derriere over the toilet and relieving an urgent need, succeeded in uniting the sexes. The women fretted about their daughters, the men about their wives and children. They voted 61-39 against.
Toilets in France have been unisex for donkeyâs years, since they were invented probably. The men have no privacy whatsoever, standing in a line pointing percy at the porcelain, whilst the ladies bustle past them into the closets.
Whatever must those Texas matrons make of a visit to France?