Last Sunday Jenni Murray, presenter of Women’s Hour on BBC Radio Four had an article published in the Sunday Times magazine which stated her view that Trans Women cannot be ‘real women’. She based her statement on the belief that if trans women grow up in a male role, with male privilege and without other social aspects that most women experience when growing up, then they cannot be women.
Schools OUT UK Committee member Kate Hutchinson responded: “Women across the world have a wide range of diverse experiences in their lives. So many factors are part of who we are from our race to our religion to our differences in cultural heritage. What makes one woman’s life experience more valid from another? What makes one any more a ‘Real Woman’?
“Nothing does. The term real woman is a problem, there are no ‘real women’. There are just women with different views and life experiences, we are all valid.
“Trans people fight through discrimination every day to simply be themselves. If a person is told they are not real, that their identity is not authentic, that they are fake because of the way they may have been raised or because of their body type. Is that not anti-equality, discriminatory, divisive, unsupportive and belittling? Things that modern feminism is not meant to be.
“Trans women are women, simple as that.
“Trans people are people, just like every one else. Please respect individuals personal identities.”
CEO Tony Fenwick MBE added: “Self-identity is a human right, unless you have committed a criminal act and assumed a new identity to escape detection. To deny a trans woman the right to claim womanhood is a denial of her human rights. Simple as.
