The development of attitudes towards transgender people is wonderful, but it cannot spoil fair play

April Ashley rose to fame not only because of her transformation, but because the man she married in 1963, Baron Rowallan, took her to court when he found out she wasn’t born female – and lost her.

Back then, April faced prejudice and humiliation: strangers on the street would try to feel her breasts to test how “real” they were. But she maintained throughout her life that she felt compelled to change her gender and live as a woman.

The case of Jan Morris, formerly James, the writer and war correspondent, also came to public attention, and Jan wrote an articulate memoir of her experience, puzzle. These personal stories (along with that of American former GI George Jorgensen-turned-Christine in the 1950s) helped change attitudes towards gender reassignment surgery.

There have been and still are people who feel they were born into the wrong body, and the disparity causes them misery.

A more compassionate public attitude developed, and doctors and psychologists broadened the approach to transgenderism.

And then, as Helen Joyce writes about the problem in a forensic book, Trans, academics, politicians, social justice movements and even businesses were quickly “captured” by trans ideology. And so a humane reflex got caught in the crossfire between suffragettes and the transgender community.

It has now reached a point where it can feel like anyone who maintains the biological facts of sex among humans – that those born with XX chromosomes are female and those with XY chromosomes are male, of of conception – could be “cancelled”.

Public toilets have now become “gender neutral,” and men who identified themselves as women have been sent to women’s prisons.

It has become a mantra among progressives that “trans women are women” – the official language has changed to refer to “pregnant women”. But in the realm of sport, the transgender agenda has now proven problematic. This is particularly highlighted by US swimming champion Lia Thomas.

Images of her became the first transgender athlete to win the US College Championships 500-yard freestyle championship. However, female athletes are increasingly protesting that trans women, who like Thomas still have the musculature, pace and testosterone reserves of born men, are unfair competitors. Our own Sonia O’Sullivan writes on the subject in the Irish times also recently noted, “It’s not just about setting rules for testosterone levels, it’s also about the physical size and ability of the person.

“When you’re bigger and stronger, you’ll be better, whether you’re a big, strong woman or a big, strong man. Size definitely matters.”

In the meantime, “Save Women’s Sport” has campaigned for naturally born women in the USA. A number of feminists are upset that male-born people can compete in arenas designated for female-born people.

And yet some elements of the feminist movement can be blamed for this unfair playing field.

They believed in the idea that the differences between men and women are “socially constructed” and that biology and nature have no part in sexual identity. (There was also some confusion between “sex” and “gender”: Originally, “sex” referred to a biological condition, while “gender” referred to social role. Now everything is “gender.”)

The leading ideologist of this movement – that sex is socially imposed – is the American academic Judith Butler.

Her teachings dovetail with the theorists of postmodernism, where everything is viewed subjectively. I am who I “feel” to be. If an adult decides to change gender or live according to their feelings and it doesn’t harm anyone, they have the right to do so.

But where ideology begins to sway the public and distort fair play, as in the case of Lia Thomas, then we certainly have to question that.