Genetic male or female sexual identity remains with everyone for life
sir – What on earth is the reasoning behind the ruling of Judge James Tayler, who found that an employee dismissed for asserting that people cannot change their sex had expressed views “incompatible” with the rights of others (report, December 20)?
Since Adam and Eve walked in the Garden of Eden (and indeed for a considerable period before that time), there have only been two sexes, male and female, designated in nature by the presence and distribution of X and Y chromosomes. The distribution of such chromosomes is inherited when the sperm fertilises the egg and remains with us in unalterable form for the duration of our lives.
The expression of those sexual characteristics manifest in the distribution of such chromosomes represents gender. British society is not at all unique in having a proportion of its population who choose to express their gender at variance with their chromosomal make-up, but there is no way that a male can be identified in nature as a woman, or a woman identified in nature as a man, however many surgical manipulations, modifications and decorations are carried out in order to express a different gender.
There is nothing wrong with a genetic male expressing their gender as female or a genetic female expressing their gender as male. There is everything wrong in stating that one is genetically male or female in contradiction of one’s chromosomal make-up. That is a deception. It erodes truth. Trevor Crofts FRCS
Edinburgh
sir – Following the ruling on the case of Maya Forstater and her view on transgenderism, I’m afraid I, and others such as JK Rowling, now stand in contempt of court – not in the legal sense, but in finding Judge Tayler’s judgment, in his words, “not worthy of respect in a democratic society”.
We members of the public, and all judges and lawyers, need reminding from time to time that many statements made by the legal profession are not matters of law at all but merely the expression of opinion, which in truth carries no more authority than anyone else’s opinion.
The moral groundwork upon which such opinions are made is often simply the prevailing fashion of the time. In continuing to speak on behalf of these ephemeral fashions, judges themselves are not only unwittingly bringing the law into disrespect but, more seriously, bringing devastating consequences upon otherwise perfectly law-abiding citizens.
Rev H Beverley Tasker Stratford-upon-avon, Warwickshire
sir – A court has ruled that voicing a scientific fact can be deemed “not worthy of respect in a democratic society”. If this irrationality continues, then either science or the law will become unworkable.
It is time that this issue was addressed by serious minds. Chris Shannon
Eckington, Derbyshire