Donnan did not address my points about LGBT report

Stephen Donnan ('˜Trans kids deserve to be protected,' Oct 3) predictably does not attempt to address any of the points in my letter about the recent report entitled '˜Post-Primary School Experiences of People who are LGBT' and rather seeks to attack my character.

Of course he ignores the fact that the opening sentence in my letter made clear that everyone should seek to end bullying in schools.

He goes on to imply that denying biological males access to female toilets and changing facilities and questioning the right of biological males to compete in female sports leads to suicide.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Presumably Mr Donnan believes that the risk of women being filmed in “gender neutral” changing areas – as has happened in a number of Target stores in the US after they introduced the policy he advocates (see http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/09/15/target-urged-to-end-transgender-bathroom-policy-after-2nd-man-caught-recording-women-undressing.html ) – is a price worth paying.

Presumably Mr Donnan has no problem with biological males competing in female sports events in spite of the fact that they have naturally bigger lungs, bigger hearts, etc meaning that a male will always beat a female at a similar level of fitness by around 10% (see https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/the-golden-ratio-the-one-number-that-describes-how-mens-world-records-compare-with-womens/260758/).

Where’s the equality in that?

Presumably Mr Donnan has no problem with a male rapist being moved to a female prison because he says he is a woman. The fact that he is serving a sentence for a crime which a woman cannot physically commit is a mere detail.

Presumably Mr Donnan agrees with the Chief Commissioner of the Equality Commission, Michael Wardlow, who phoned in to tell Stephen Nolan “I’m glad that you stopped that debate” when I dared to raise these issues on one of the radio?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The underlying suggestion in what both Mr Donnan and Mr Wardlow have said is that people should shut up about these profound questions.

Frederick Douglass – a former slave who unlike them believed in freedom of speech – once described this sort of censorship as a “double wrong” because it “violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”

Samuel Morrison, Traditional Unionist, Dromore, Co Down

Related topics: