Virginia Blackburn

IAM currently reading a very amusing novel called Fortysomething by Nigel Williams, which was written about 20 years ago. One of the running gags concerns the number of senior BBC executives who are considering a sex change. Perhaps that wouldn’t be deemed funny now but the point is that so few people had the op a mere two decades ago that it remained extremely unusual. Fast forward to our own enlightened times and now we can pick a gender at will, no matter what sex we are born into.

This is giving rise to all manner of idiocy, a point brought home by David Lewis, one of the few Labour activists in the country who still seems to have an iota of common sense (for which, incidentally, the party has suspended him).

Lewis (who has a beard) made it on to a list of female-only candidates for women’s officer because he “identifies as a woman on Wednesdays”. Under Labour’s self-identification rules, anyone can choose their gender, which means a man can stand for a woman’s role. Lewis – who if the party had any sense, would be promoted to high office – was doing this to make a point.

In Fortysomething, as in real life, a lot of this is the basis of some ribaldry, although one suspects the millennials might have a sense of humour failure about it all. But how funny is it going to be when a tragedy occurs? Wiser souls, mostly women, point out that allowing men into all-female sanctuaries solely on the basis that they say (with all evidence to the contrary) that they are ladies is asking for trouble. Already there have been concerns about male behaviour in female-only bathing ponds in London. How long before serious troubles arise?

It has been accepted through the