Courtesy is fine

As a transgender person the news that London Underground is dropping “ladies and gentlemen” from their announcements, supposedly for the benefit of the transcommunity, disgusts me.

The essence of being trans is that you are born physically one sex, but don’t fit that role psychologically and identify with the other sex.

How eliminating courtesy from Underground announcements could possibly benefit either a trans-woman, who wishes to be treated as any other woman, or a transman, who wants to be treated as one of the lads, baffles me.

A far more serious example of social revolution in the name of trans-rights is the replacement of sex-segregated toilets with gender-neutral ones in public buildings and in new schools, as the Scottish Government and Glasgow Council, respectively, are doing. (By all means have a gender-neutral toilet as an added provision in a large public building, but not instead of conventional toilets.)

These measures do not benefit transgender people but actually harm our interests by creating entirely unnecessary

ill will towards us. Social saboteurs should not be allowed to cause mayhem under the false flag of promoting equality for the trans-community.

PENNY PONDERS East Mains Holdings, Edinburgh