NETTY’S WORLD

BY NETTY WENDT

Sock it to ’em

I noticed that Sock it to ’em ) What does ‘gender’ actually mean these days? I know it’s never had anything to do with sexual orientation. One definition is that there is physically male and female of our species and this DNA decision on a cellular level is immutable. Maybe the future will see an ability to alter the chromosomes that make us, but until then, we’re all stuck with XX, XY, or very rarely a true hermaphrodite may have both. Lucky things.

When I was a child, I wanted to be a boy. I’d secretly wear a sock down my pants. I excelled at footy and cricket with the lads. I climbed trees, played with Action Man, Meccano, and read boys comics, all the while despising the trappings of girlish life. It wasn’t a life to me, it was training to be a second class citizen.

“Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore. We’ve come a long way from the days when I was sent home from my office job and lost a day’s wages for having the temerity to wear trousers instead of a skirt”

I remember once a boy said I couldn’t play with him and his mates because I was a girl, so I lifted my school pinafore and showed him my bulge. His eyes widened “Blimey! She really IS a boy!” Being transgender was so easy in my childish world, with no operations, no hormone therapy, just an old sock and a smile!

By the time puberty hit, I realised I did not in fact want to be male, I merely wished for the freedom and entitlement that is universally bestowed upon males at birth. I wanted to break free from the shackles of my female status, but I loved being a woman… and I loved other women too.

Now in the modern world, we are faced with a conundrum. Is gender relevant? ‘Non-binary’ and ‘gender fluid’ are terms that tell me which way the wind is blowing, and quite frankly, I’d prefer a genderneutral world to the cultural polarisation I grew up in. But there are times when a person’s birth assignment cannot be ignored. A transgender male friend of mine still has a cervix and is currently having trouble booking a smear test, because he’s a man.

Another problem all this neutrality masks is the need to identify and address difficult and uncomfortable truths.Journalists now talk about ‘people’ committing rape, when statistics show 91% of victims are women and only 9% male. We have to find new ways of tackling realities no matter how offensive or upsetting it may be to the new gender-free world.

Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore. We’ve come a long way from the days when I was sent home from my office job and lost a day’s wages for having the temerity to wear trousers instead of a skirt. What a subversive devil I was. But the world is still skewed massively in favour of men. Women are still routinely paid less than our male counterparts, misogyny is rife and I’m still scared to walk home at night. Oh bloody hell, better dig out that sock.