Gender identity

Re: Speaking of Gender, Jonathan Kay, Mercedes Allen, Dec. 3

This is a complex debate to be sure, but on balance Jonathan Kay’s arguments are more convincing. Especially with his third point on transgender men competing as females in sports.

All I have to say is that Caitlyn Jenner had the good fortune to have earned her medals competing as Bruce in male events and her subsequent gender transition takes nothing away from her accomplishments.

Had she competed against females, her medals would represent little more than baubles to vainglorious narcissism.

As regards the pronoun issue, I am not convinced by Mercedes Allen’s downplaying the legal consequences and assurance that using the wrong pronoun “is only an ( legal) issue if there is harassment” as the definition of harassment itself is subjective.

Who is to say when a transgender person might take offence or what they might deem “toxic” and to what lengths they might go to seek redress not to mention the harm to the accused while the complaint is investigated?

Take Jessica Yaniv as a case in point, whose frivolous and vindictive complaints caused weeks, if not months, of significant financial and emotional hardship to those she accused until her case against them was dismissed on the grounds that bikini waxing is not a human right — not that demanding a bikini wax on male genitals by females is an infringement of their right to refuse. There comes a point where narcissism supported by ambiguous and subjective legislation becomes toxic. We have arrived. Kope Inokai, Toronto