The Interview (5)
by
Angharad.

When I got to work, the college I teach at, the air was buzzing again. The trans-apartheid was spreading in ripples and various groups were vying for attention. The feminists, especially those of any authority expressed complete solidarity with the supreme court. I wondered if they would do the same with Trump because it seemed the supreme court had voted for him. So there were all sorts of silly women triumphant and shallow. They couldn't see the bigger picture because their prejudice blinded them and besides they wouldn't admit to having been gullible to believe what they were saying.

Now it seemed a retired transwoman judge was going to seek the opinion of the European Court for Human Rights, and she wasn't just any judge, she was a master judge, which mean she had dealt with very tricky and involved cases. She had wanted to give evidence before the supreme court, but they had declined, apparently, it's an option they have. To me it just demonstrates either stupidity or that they had been told what to find before they started. Perhaps someone should ask them what constituted a man and as soon as they got to mentioning male genitalia, then it would exclude women like me, who have breasts and a vagina, but apparently, I'm still male. It just shows its absurdity.

Next we learned that transwomen would be excluded from competitive sport like football or cricket. I began to wonder if tiddlywinks was mentioned or not. Okay, some of this was perhaps acceptable because of the differences in build after puberty. Men were usually bigger and stronger, with heavier bones and bigger lungs and hearts according to the statistics. What they seemed to forget is that if you have a bigger and heavier body, you need a bigger heart and lungs to move it about. Plus you can't dismiss individuality as a factor - some people are more fit than others who seem to do the same amount of training. I remember when I was doing my master's I think, and I joined the local cycling club as a woman and I was younger than many, but there were one or two older, cisgendered females who flew past me when we were on the road. They just seemed to be fitter despite being older and I suppose less full of oestrogen which was busy destroying my muscles. But no complaint from me, they were better cyclists and of course the men were all stronger cyclists.

I think one of the attacks that encouraged women to complain was what was seen as unfair competition by transwomen against ordinary females in sport and festered, coming into the headlines again and again, usually when something happened in sport or politics. It gave a rallying point to both sides, the trans side reckoned they had no advantage and the feminists claimed they did. Because activists are noisy, they both made quite a lot of a din and upped the ante and the amount of ill-feeling there was. It was a self imposed own goal by the transwomen and lost a lot of support from ordinary people who had no real interest in the nitty-gritty of such an argument. The activists got up everyone's nose as they tend to do. I would normally support such groups as 'Just Stop Oil', because I'm effectively teaching ecology which is the science of the relationship between an organism and its environment, and let's face it, Britain has a very dubious record on biodiversity, which is the lowest in Europe, the causes of which one could throw at industry, industrial-agriculture and development for business and housing, plus of course too many people on this small patch of land. Wildlife just can't cope with the competition especially from various pesticides in the farming lobbies armoury.

I called them back to order and we continued with our analysis of the various water sites we had surveyed. We found pollution or toxins in all of them, they had chemicals or sewage in all but one, which was a village pond and had no inflow except from ground water, or springs as some would term them, so the rubbish from a stream or river didn't flow into it, but sadly run-off from fields did and with it several nasty chemicals that farmers used to kill things they didn't like.

I then asked them what we should do about our results, the maths of which had been checked and found correct. The suggestions I received were informing authorities or the local press. I had an aversion to the local press from a personal survival strategy. If they didn't know I existed, it reduced the risk of them outing me. I had a friend who worked for the NHS who was outed by colleagues, she thought, to national press and also to local press on two or three occasions. She passed well and did her job well too, but it didn't stop the press from citing it as human interest stories. That is about as truthful as a Trump claim about the most successful presidency in history. It's about the prurient curiosity that humans have about anything different; some may have a genuine interest to understand but most just want to feel superior by sneering or pointing the finger. It's a bit like the toilet saga, women feel unsafe sharing toilets with transwomen and the TERFs shout it from the rooftops, they may be a bit quieter if they read the statistics and saw that women were more at threat from amorous lesbians than transwomen, but it doesn't sell as many papers or grip as many morons on social media.

At the end of the session as the rest headed off for their lunch I stopped Fiona and asked how she was doing. "I'm still devastated by the supreme court ruling and by the general misogyny and transphobia in the media and online/social media."

I suggested she ignore the media and especially social media where misinformation abounded and disinformation was repeated with none of the passers-on checking to see if it's true. I tried to suggest that if she wanted to be a scientist, she had to learn to deal in hard data not innuendo or accusations. The problem was that no one listens to scientists anymore, the big mouthed lying politicians saw to that and the general public was ignorant if not deliberately so, biased in favour of the bloke who was always on TV, like Farage or even Trump. If they recognise a face they are more inclined to trust the message. That demonstrates that man is governed by his emotions not his intelligence. Education doesn't matter if people feel scared. The immigration topic shows people are scared of a story that is with a little fact but mostly hype.

I am sometimes ashamed to allow myself to be included under the term human because I am sure I meet more intelligent bugs in my lab most days, some are probably brighter than the worst of my students, who are probably there because it sounded easier than astrophysics and they were too young to claim benefits.

Fiona told me that she had spoken to her GP and he advised ignoring the supreme court ruling but be aware in places of risk like changing rooms or toilets. She was already looking more female and more natural. I told her so and she thanked me and said she had been helped by some of the girls in her class. That was very welcome news demonstrating that ordinary women young and old, were not interested in the supreme court and felt that if no one had been attacked in the local ladies by sex-crazed transwomen so far, the chances were pretty remote. So in short, they didn't give a tinker's toss about the whole thing.

I remember once going to the loo in a local supermarket and there was quite a twitter in progress. There was a man in one of the two cubicles. They all gossiped and complained but nobody did anything. It appears the man was Polish and had gone into the ladies because the men's cubicles were out of order and he needed a poo. The smell when he opened the door and beat a hasty retreat showed he had needed a loo. But nobody went for help or reported it to the management, so how much danger would a transwoman be in if she used the ladies? Seeing as men dressed as women have done so for years, transvestites and other oddballs who may get a thrill from running the risk and also some quite masculine looking women.

I warned Fiona to take care and to enter, use the loo and exit, just in case someone spotted her or knew her. Generally, I thought she passed quite well as younger women do, but to avoid drawing attention to herself unless she wanted martyrdom.

She laughed and said, " No martyrdom, but Marydom is okay." She was obviously feeling better and she said knowing she had the support of the college helped her and especially my support. I nodded and went to lunch. It was getting warmer and the headlines of Reform winning a bye-election by six votes sickened me. How could people vote for a disruptive chancer like him or his party, but then Trump showed it could happen against all the odds and Brexit showed that the British could vote for a policy of self-harm, without being able to see it coming, it's like turkeys voting for Christmas.

The principal asked me how things were going for Fiona and I told him that as things were settling down, she seemed reasonably okay and the girl who had caused all the trouble before hadn't appeared lately. "No, she won't, apparently her parents thought we were backing a pervert against their darling daughter and didn't believe she could behave as she did, so we were exaggerating or lying and they withdrew their daughter to go to a proper school. I don't know where unless they meant a Trappist convent somewhere?" We both laughed at his joke and he told me to keep him abreast of any developments. I told him I would. I asked him why I had been chosen as baby sitter to Fiona. "She's in your class, you're usually competent with banana skins, and you're a woman, and it's better if I keep an eye on it at a distance."

"So you can dump it in my lap if it goes belly up?"

"How can you think me so shallow?" I didn't tell him how easy it was and his usual policy of covering his arse, seemed discernible. "Jenny, you are one of the best and I'd rather have you watching my back than most of them here. Beside you seem to care and your rapport with Fiona seems good, she likes you and more importantly she trusts you."

I think that was all I was going to get out of him. I was aware that his position was difficult, but then so was my own or would be if I was outed. I just had to try and ensure that didn't happen. Until recently, I hadn't worried about it, I had the gender reassignment form and was pretty fireproof. Now that piece of paper was as worthless as politician's promise. Now, I would have to be as careful as I could and not contact any trans friends, just in case. That is outrageous and shows how stupid the supreme court was in not thinking things through. Good luck to Dr Victoria McCloud and her mission in Europe. How life can change through other people's actions without any participation from you, it disgusted me so many with hate in their hearts where there should be love or at least solidarity, groups of women against other groups of women while the originators clap their hands with glee as misogyny was now happening between women. How I loathe them and also the stupidity of the general public who can't seem to recognise the wood from the trees.