The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2936 by Angharad Copyright© 2016 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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I was sitting next to Tom and the dean. The people in front of us were all journos some with camcorders. This was going to be on the news tonight.

“Thank you for coming. I’m not sure what you’ve heard but it appears a group of radical feminists have created a nuisance, especially to their views of gender. They are all required to accept the policies of the university regarding discrimination of minorities regardless of race, gender, sex, sexual orientation and religious belief. They have blatantly disregarded these policies and have been suspended for harassment of a member of staff. There will be an investigation in due course.”

“Jim Tinker, Daily Mail, Is it true the member of staff is a transgender person and they’re concerned about them using the women’s toilets?”

“I’m unable to give any personal details about the member of staff.” Tom replied.

“According to the tweets and so on, we’re led to believe she is transgender, so why not confirm it.”

“I’ve told you why we can’t and besides, we have policies regarding the protection of minorities, including transgender persons and that permits them to use the toilets of their current gender.”

“So you’ve got a bloke in a skirt using the women’s toilets?”

“No we haven’t.”

“What have you got then?”

“We have someone who is using the toilet which they feel is appropriate for their gender of which they have informed the university.”

“What about you Professor, are you happy to share a toilet with a man in a skirt?”

“I’m not sharing it with a man in a skirt. The person concerned has been receiving gender corrective treatment and lives exclusively in the assigned role. I have no difficulty with them sharing the same toilet as me. In fact, being married to a Scot, I share the bathroom with a man in a kilt with no difficulty whatsoever. This isn’t North Carolina or Texas where bigots have caused difficulties to gay and transgender people, this is Great Britain, where we try to enable people to live in peace. That some people with extreme views have taken exception to the rules of this university means they’re in breach of our policies not the member of staff.”

“Why can’t she speak for herself?”

“Why are you here? This isn’t newsworthy.”

“Isn’t that for us to decide?”

“So you’ll stir up a hornet’s nest like you did for Lucy Meadows—is that your aim, to drive a poor woman to suicide to escape your persecution?”

“Certainly not, and I resent that you suggest our newspaper was involved.”

“Alex Parkin, Guardian, can we confirm we have a transgender woman who is being harassed by TERFs?”

“That would be one way of stating it,” I agreed.

“Has anyone asked the general student body about it?”

“As it is implicit that our students understand we have policies on discrimination when they accept a place at the university. We’ve had both transgender students and staff in the past and had no problems with either until now.”

“You’re not the woman in question, are you?” called someone from the back.

“I’m not even going to deign to answer that.”

“Professor Watts isn’t the person in question, I am.” I looked up in astonishment. Debbie Matthews was walking down through the room looking like she’d stepped out of a band box. She was wearing a red pencil skirt suit and high heeled shoes. Her hair and makeup were excellent. Cameras were clicking and flashing at her. “Which toilet do you think I should use?”

I leant across to Tom, “Did ye ken she wis gang tae dae this?”

“No, in fact I advised against it.”

“Weel, she’s no daein’ bad, is she?”

Debbie was taking and answering questions and seemed to have most of them eating out of her hand, even the bloke from the Mail. I heard her say she’d had surgery and was all woman now. When I spoke to her about fighting back this wasn’t quite what I had in mind but it seemed to be working, except we, the university no longer had control over what was said. We could therefore no longer protect her, though she didn’t exactly look in need of protecting at that moment—possibly the guy she was flirting with, might have.

Tom and the dean left me to keep an eye on her. I did for about an hour as she seemed to feed off the energy. I was minded that we sometimes get carried away with talking about our obsession and this seemed to be happening. I’ve heard it all before, several times and I wished I’d had my iPad with me as I could have done some work while I sat there.

I remembered I had my mobile in my pocket and called Diane asking if she knew Debbie was going to turn up at the press conference. She didn’t, she thought Debbie had gone home—she did to change he clothes and persona. She appeared to be enjoying the attention, so the woman hiding in the techies’ room earlier appeared to bear little resemblance to the person in control of a pack of hyenas. Don’t think I could have done it.

After the last photo had been taken and the last sound bite recorded she escorted me back to my office where Diane made us some tea. Debbie was still buzzing but it appeared her energy was dropping. I offered to run her home but she said she’d be okay. She wandered off at three o’clock.

I was home dishing up dinner when Julie arrived, “How did Debbie look?” she asked.

“What d’you mean?”

“She said she was doing a press conference and she needed to look as sexy as she could for daytime and could we do an emergency job for hair and makeup?”

“She certainly looked better than she did during the morning.”

“I half expected to see her here, she’s not here is she?”

“No, she opted to go home.”

“How did she get on?”

“Have a look at the news, she’ll probably be on it.”

“She do all right?”

“She practically seduced everyone in trousers.”

“Same tactic as you then?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Watch your two films again—I’ve got to change, I’m going out tonight.”

“D’you want some dinner or not?”

“Go on, I’ll have a little,”—about twice as much as I ate but less than Danielle.

They watched the story on the news which was sympathetic on the BBC and okay on ITV as well. The Echo had on their website, ‘Sex Change teacher at university wins right to use Ladies loos.’ accompanied by a photo of her looking very attractive. It went on about her charming a room full of journalists while her boss looked on enviously. It had a further photo of me sitting and looking bored stiff, which would have been accurate, I was while she indulged in her obsession to talk about her compulsion.