There are many quirks to the British political system. One such is the system of hereditary titles and male primogeniture in the upper parliamentary chamber, the House of Lords.
Take Matthew Simon, born in 1955, the inheritor of the Barony of Wythenshawe. Matthew now identifies as a woman and goes by Matilda. And yet, the Telegraph reports, “Matilda Simon was this week given permission to contest the next by-election for one of the upper chamber’s remaining 92 hereditary seats.” Simon is actively seeking out this title, in other words. And if Simon wins, the House of Lords will ostensibly change from having zero to one “female” hereditary member.
Sam Leith, writing in The Spectator, notes:
Whichever side of the trans debate you stand on – whether you think that biological sex is an immutable characteristic that needs recognition, or that a self-declared gender identity is enough to make you a woman in fact as well as in law – it is surely impossible to have it both ways. If Matilda Simon is a woman, she doesn’t qualify to inherit a male peerage. Indeed, if she’s a progressively minded person you might wonder why she’s so keen to take advantage not only of a hereditary membership of the upper house, but of the still more reactionary custom of male primogeniture. In so doing, be it noted, she leapfrogs her elder sibling Margaret – who as a natal woman is unable to inherit the title.
As many of its critics have pointed out, the trans movement is not really about equal rights but about special privileges. About entitlement, no matter how illogical or sexist.