I confess that the transphobia kerfuffle with JK Rowling largely passed me by, so I’ll admit to being a bit shaky on the facts of the story.  As I understand it, JKR lampooned the fabricated terminology and imagery of menstruation rather than calling a spade a “woman” and for this she was accused of transphobia.

Let me say from the off that I have no issue with anyone getting a new willy or fanny to replace their old fanny or willy; with anyone simply wishing they had a willy or a fanny to replace the fanny or the willy they’ve got.  Personally, I wish my nudger was the length and thickness of a bratwurst sausage.  Nothing wrong with any of these scenarios.

But it’s the silliness of the terminology which amuses me.  And I too have had my own JK Rowling moment.

While I was researching urinary incontinence on the internet (it doesn’t matter why!) I came across the NHS Advice and Guidance page on this.  Not some barmpot, PC site for woke millennials, but the NHS, mind you.  And, lo and behold, it talked about “if you have a penis” and “persons with a vagina”.  Now call me over-simplistic if you will but wouldn’t the words “man” and “woman” fit the bill?

And it got me to thinking.  Worldwide fans will be familiar with my fondness for a good parody and this seemed to offer up a treasure trove of possibilities too numerous to list.  Suffice it to say that I could have started with that Percy Sledge classic, “When a Person with a Penis Loves a Person with a Vagina”; or perhaps addressed a woke re-write of Louisa May Alcott’s “Vertically Challenged People, Menstrually Transitioning”.  If my French was up to it I might have a bash at that 60’s film script “Un Homme et Une Femme” with “Une personne avec un penis et Une Personne avec un Vagin”, although I suspect I may lose a little of its romance.

 

We’ve been doing wrong for some time now

For eons and eons before

But to call us all men and women

It just isn’t PC no more.

 

It seems there’s a movement of people

Whose feelings are awfully tender

Or else they’re confused by their front bits

And not sure at all of their gender.

 

Well, Coops might present a solution

(In truth, not mine, I confess)

I’ve blagged it from a top website

The home of our own NHS.

 

They recognise gender’s not simple

We all can just take our pick

Like Frosties from a Variety Pack

Despite your quim or your prick.

 

So let use of the terms “man” and “woman”

Be consigned to where it belongs

Expunged like the plague from all language

In books and in films and from songs.

 

I’ll start with this decadent bollocks

A 60’s film dragged up in France

Its fascist depiction of gender

You’ll spot at a cursory glance.

 

The film “A Man and a Woman”

Will no longer offend and displease

Now Coops has wielded his red pen;

The first thing the audience sees

The title emblazed on the screen

Before all the credits began,

“Une Personne avec un Penis

Et une Personne avec un Vagin”.