The lie at the heart of modern feminism can no longer be ignored

For those of us who have loitered timidly on the sidelines of the trans debate, wringing our hands and wishing everyone would just calm down, it’s tempting to hope that the argument might be about to move onto more scientific ground.

Fina, the international governing body for competitive swimming, ruled this week that transwomen cannot compete in female races if they have gone through any part of male puberty. International Rugby League has now barred all transwomen from female teams – not for philosophical reasons, but simply because people with Y chromosomes tend to be bigger and faster than those without. In rugby, this creates an issue of safety as well as fairness.

Gender-critical feminists will hail this as the victory of reason over a quasi-religious doctrine that many – perhaps most – people do not believe: that there is no meaningful difference between a woman who was born biologically male, and a woman who was born female.

But to be fair, this kind of magical thinking is not confined to the trans lobby. In fact, the idea that a woman can be just as strong as a man – that it would be unforgivably sexist to argue otherwise – has long been a staple of popular feminism. It’s the reason every action film has to feature a kick-ass woman who can break a man’s neck with a twist of her nutcracker thighs. It is the polite untruth that has helped bring about many welcome changes, such as the recruitment of women into the Armed Forces, the police and other traditionally male professions.

It’s a white lie; one that many feminists propounded or quietly allowed as long as it seemed useful. But now it has become impossible to sustain. By adopting the idea that gender difference is all in the mind – that our chromosomes should be irrelevant, even on the rugby pitch – trans activists pushed the lie out into the open.

Being biologically female almost always means living in a smaller, weaker, more vulnerable body, with all the difficulties, risks and societal expectations that stem from this. That doesn’t mean women shouldn’t do competitive sports or physically demanding jobs. On the contrary: any woman who gets to the top in these arenas is likely to be a formidable asset.

But the notion of physical parity between the sexes is false and self-defeating. Why measure our power in a currency that men will always have more of?

On the Tube this week,

I sat opposite two women who appeared to have been moulded out of Plasticine. Their cheekbones were shiny and round, positioned unnaturally high under their eyes. Their lips were made from two slugs of pink Plasticine, rolled between the fingers and then affixed in a porny pout. When they talked, their mouths clacked rigidly open and shut, like Thunderbirds puppets.

It was one of those moments when a creeping trend suddenly becomes glaringly obvious. Twenty years ago, you almost never saw plastic surgery addicts in London. Like the morbidly obese – but much wealthier – they only existed in America. Very occasionally one would flutter into London like a rare bird, alighting at an expensive restaurant where their fellow diners would crane rudely to get a better look.

Now, they’re everywhere – even on the Tube! Presumably – the rules of fashion being famously perverse – this means plastic surgery is about to become passé, and all the most elegant ladies will sport eye bags and wrinkles. That’s my excuse, anyway.