Gender doors need a kick

I’VE been very confused about gender issues. There was a newspaper pitting Nicola Sturgeon’s pins against Theresa May’s lallies – gender stereotyping the two most powerful female politicians in the land. Disgraceful, I thought.

Then I saw that HSBC is offering customers a choice of ten genderneutral titles on bank accounts: Mx, Ind, M, Mre, Msr, Myr, Pr, Sal, Ser or Misc. Unnecessary, I thought. Why don’t we just scrap ALLLL titles? But then I read that schoolsls may be forced to scrap Head Boy and Head Girl badges. Hmm.

Gender equality and identity are hugely importantnt issues which need to be addressed. Everyone has thee right to identify as they wish. h.

But trying not to offend anyone has become a linguistic minefield. Then two women made it a lot less complicated for me. The first was rocker Suzy Quatro, 66, who had a string of hits including Devil Gate Drive in the 1970s. Interviewed ahead of a new tour, she said simply: “I don’t do gender. I never have. When I saw Elvis for the first time I was five. I wanted to be him and it didn’t occur to me that he was a guy. “I was just being who I was and I kicked that proverbial door down.” AndAn the second was Patricia Davies,Dav who spent 77 years denying herhe true gender. She served as a malem soldier in the Second World war but, at 90, is finally living as a woman. “A weight has been lifted off mym shoulders,” she said. “I was livingli a lie. “But now what you see is what you get. I am me.”