Continues
Ibi-Pippi has also previously demanded to change next to women in a changing room in a swimming pool. Fortunately, another option was indicated, and Ibi-Pippi was not successful in her appeal at the Equal Treatment Board. But it shows the challenge. We must not end up in a situation where women in the country's swimming and sports halls can experience changing clothes next to a biological man whose gender identity is female. I am sure that the vast majority of Danes look on with wide eyes when individuals or vanishingly small groups of minorities demand that kind of special treatment. Was it just a single swallow with a con artist.
But it isn't. Internationally, we hear stories about athletes, e.g. a shot putter and a swimmer who are biologically male but have switched genders and therefore compete against females. Currently, doubts have been raised about the gender of two female boxers in connection with the Olympics. What is up and down in that debate is difficult to determine. But if it was me as a woman being put up against someone who was biologically male, I would be furious. Unequal competitive conditions are far-fetched and a potential bomb during women's elite sport. Then you might as well cancel women's sports. We also see the advance of the excessive woke culture in other areas, e.g. the desire that on social media or at the start of a meeting you must mention the pronouns you would like to be addressed with. If someone needs it and to relate to their chromosome composition, that is of course fine. But honestly, it's probably not something we all have to declare service for.
To me, this is an example of us as a society being required to change something fundamentally to accommodate a very small minority in the holy name of wokeism. And as Minister for Equality, it worries me greatly if we can no longer talk about women and men or women's and men's equality problems. When we are reminded that it is no longer called "men", but "people with dicks", as DR's P3 wants us to say. Or when we have to say that it is "people" who menstruate, "people" who are pregnant, or "people" who give birth. It is absolutely absurd. Of course, it is women who menstruate, are pregnant and give birth! Because it is a fact that there are two biological sexes, regardless of what you feel you are or what gender identity you have.
I think we are on a slant when you confuse biological sex with gender identity and gender expression. And yes, I know that. That left-wing critics and others with an excessive penchant for indulgence and self-righteous inclusiveness will probably say that I should just relax. That I have to breathe, shrug my shoulders, and that it will all work out. But I have tried. And it doesn't go away. In fact, I'm just becoming more and more convinced that we have to call it quits. And that's why I'm doing it now with a chronicle like this one. If we as a society overlook the basic fact that there are only two biological sexes, we are not only at imminent risk of landing in a crazy place.
Even worse is that the overt identity politics debates overshadow the equality problems that actually exist. Add to this the fact that the mistaken focus on identity political issues actually also weakens popular support for the many battles for equality that must continue to be fought. Battles that are about creating a society where men and women have equal opportunities. At the same time, we risk a polarization where we put the cohesion in society out of control. As a society, we will have to hold fast to the fact that a trans woman is not and will never be a biological woman. Biology is determined by genes. That cannot be changed. Therefore, there are also limits to which rights transwomen and transmen must have. In my view, biological men should not participate in studies about women's biology and physics, they should not have the right to dress as women, serve time in a women's prison or compete in elite sports for women. As a woman, I actually don't care how these biological men identify. But they are not biological women.
As a liberal, it is absolutely fundamental to me that all people can live their lives the way they want and be who they want. Therefore, I also completely respect that some people want to identify as a different gender. But it is just as fundamental to me that there is a limit where free expression goes beyond the freedom of other people. Because that is exactly what happens if trans women insist on being treated as biological women. And that is precisely why there is a need to say stop. Wokeism must have a limit.
End