Aphantasia - I never realised I think differently from everyone else

Imagine a beach. Can you see the sand and the waves? I can't.

This week I discovered that I have something known as aphantasia. This is the inability to see things in my imagination - my mind's eye is blind! Of course, I've always known that I didn't really see anything when I imagined it (why would I see it? it's only imaginary after all!), I just never knew that other people really did see what they imagined. I still find it hard to believe that other people see what they imagine.

I was writing something about robot faces as part of my PhD research and I wanted to find out the name for seeing faces in inanimate objects, like doorknobs and car headlights (it's called pareidolia, by the way) and I came upon a page about aphantasia, describing how some people don't see anything when they imagine it. This was not a revelation; it seemed to be pointing out the blatantly obvious. It's like saying that people don't look as beautiful as they wished they looked, or that people aren't as rich as they want to be. Well duh, imaginary things and reality are obviously different. Turns out, it's not so obvious after all, as most people can see what they imagine. Weird.

Baggy McBagface. Image source: The Conversation

It's really strange that I never realised that my thinking was any different to anyone else's, and yet according to several studies, this "condition" of mine affects just 2-3% of people! So I'm in a tiny minority.

So aphantasia is a minority thing; most people have normal phantasia (they see what they imagine), and another minority at the other extreme have hyperphantasia (an exceptionally vivid imagination). I was certainly surprised to discover these differences in how we imagine. I've read Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, and other philosophers who wrote about ideas and imagination, and discussed these with others at length. Yet never did I realise that others were imagining differently from me.

Which of these categories do you fall into? To find out, you can take a VVIQ test here. I scored the very lowest score on every single question: no matter how hard I try, I don't 'see' anything when I imagine it. Visualising a beach is as impossible as visualising a colour that doesn't exist; imagining a house is as impossible as imagining what the thirty-second flavour of the alphabet sounds like.

How do I know what I'm imagining?

You might wonder how I know when I'm imagining something. How do I recall what things look like? That's not particularly easy to explain, but I'll try. 

I know when I am imagining something because I'm aware of the thought in my mind. I have thoughts, such as "I'm hungry", and "I must remember to go to the post office" and "I remember putting my purse on the shelf yesterday" and "horses are yay tall" and "5 x 6 is 30". None of these thoughts have any imagery for me, but I now understand that some of them may have imagery for other people. But the imagery really doesn't seem necessary to the thought. I know that 5 x 6 is 30 without having to visualise a rectangle of five squares in six rows: I just remember the fact. It's the same with where I put my purse, or what my mother looks like. I can rattle off a 'shopping list' of features of my mother, just as I can rattle off an actual shopping list. I don't need to see a picture of my mother in my mind to know that she has short hair.

It's both fascinating and unfathomable to discover that other people's imagination really is different from mine. I had no idea. Our minds are private, and I suppose that's why people like me manage to go so long without realising our minds are different to anyone else's. I could quite easily have never found out.

Wittgenstein gave an example that helps illustrate this. He asks us to imagine that everyone has a little box, and inside their box is something which everyone calls a beetle. No one can look in anyone else's box, but each can look in his own box. Everyone says they have a beetle in their box, but I have no way of knowing whether the contents of my box (my 'beetle') are the same as the contents of yours, or indeed if some people have empty boxes. The mind is the same; I cannot leave my own mind and look inside someone else's to check if it's the same as mine.

Probably not what Wittgenstein had in mind, but it's hard to know for sure.

What is life like for me, without any visual imagination?

Well, it seems totally normal to me not to see things I imagine, but that's not helping you to understand what it's like, so I'll try to clarify. But knowing which features of me are features of aphantasia and which are just parts of my personality is tricky. There's no way for me to separate the two, but I'll do my best. But know this: life with aphantasia feels totally normal. I see things that are real, and I don't see things that are imaginary.

Inside my imagination

When I close my eyes and imagine something, all I see is some sort of brownish blotches such as this. I suppose it's the insides of my eyelids that I'm seeing, because when my hands are over my eyes, what I see is darker, and when I'm in bright sunlight, what I see is lighter. But literally whatever I'm imagining or thinking about, this is what I see (if my eyes are closed; if my eyes are open I see what's in front of me).

Some people with aphantasia say they don't have visual dreams. I do. Dreams seem just as real to me as reality does (until I wake up of course). I can recall some dreams and they seem quite vivid. Of course, when I recall them I don't see any images though.

Many people with aphantasia report having a bad memory, particularly for visual things. I would say I have a pretty good memory actually: I can learn the names of a new year group of up to 60 students in a week. I have memorised all the national flags of the world (if I see the flag, I can identify the country; I find it much harder to hear a country's name and describe the flag though), and I obviously have a mind good enough to manage a PhD. I fare very well on all aspects of IQ-type tests, including things that seem to rely on imagination, such as spatial reasoning. I can memorise lists of things, and I can recall things I've heard more easily than many people can. For example, a few years ago I did some conservation work in the Amazon rainforest, and I learned over 70 bird calls. I didn't find it easy, but I did manage it where many others failed.

But my mind isn't perfect; I'll forget appointments if I don't write them down, and I forget how to do things if I don't practice. But I think that's fairly normal. 

I don't really enjoy reading fiction. Especially fiction which is description-heavy such as Lord of the Rings; it's excruciating to have to trawl through lengthy descriptions of a landscape. The fiction that I do occasionally read is more action-based, or I could happily read a play - where there's almost no description at all. I prefer non-fiction, as it sticks to the facts. Although I can read as quickly as anyone else, my comprehension is slower than I'd like. When I used to read fiction, it wasn't uncommon for me to reach the end of the book, but struggle to recall the plot. I have to make notes on academic papers or I will very quickly forget what I've read. That's a bit of a pain, but I've always managed: I am a prolific writer and happy enough to make notes on things I read.

What must life be like for people who do have a visual imagination?

It seems very strange -- and disturbing -- that some people see what they imagine. If you are seeing things that aren't real, that aren't there, then that to me sounds like an hallucination, if not the sign of a serious mental disorder. And suppose a person is imagining their dog is sitting next to them. When they see the dog, how would they know if it's the real dog or the imaginary dog?! It must be a bit like being in a hall of mirrors. Not to mention terrifying. I have sometimes imagined scary or upsetting events - if I actually saw these things happen in front of me because I'd imagined them, I'd be a dribbling wreck, seemingly surrounded by skeletons and snakes and other monstrosities - all imaginary, of course. 

But maybe people don't imagine scary things - perhaps they only imagine nice things. I must admit, it would be nice if I could call the faces of my deceased loved ones to mind, but I can't. I cannot see them any more, and when I imagine (think of) them, I see nothing at all. Dealing with grief must be a whole lot easier when you can just 'see' your loved ones and talk to them simply by imagining it. 

And holidays.... there'd be no need to go and see the Pyramids at Giza, the Grand Canyon, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, given that you can just 'see' them for free by imagining them. I'd save a fortune on holidays if I could just see anything I wanted to by an act of will! I'd travel the universe too.

Imaginary pancakes... or are they real? 

I've read that it's not just the sense of sight, but that most people can hear, smell and taste the things they imagine too (there doesn't seem to be the same phenomenon happening for touch though). I don't experience any of these things when I imagine them.

If others really can hear, taste, smell and feel what they imagine, then dieting must be a breeze! You could eat a tiny salad but just imagine that it was a burger and chips, or eat the same dull porridge oats for breakfast every day, but just imagine it was a breakfast fit for a king! I can only assume that it's not as simple as that, but I just can't get my head around the idea of really, actually experiencing the things you imagine.

Just a figure of speech

I'm still sceptical that others really do see (hear etc) what they imagine. Surely, no one can actually see something that's imaginary? You're having me on! It's a collective joke, for sure. Or perhaps - just like with the Emperor's new clothes - no one wants to admit that they can't see something which others claim to see. Most people don't want to feel "abnormal", to have a deficiency in place of an ability which others have.... if indeed others really do have it. So if some people say they can visualise something, others may agree even though they can't in fact visualise it. 

Or like the old me, people may think "visualising" something is just a figure of speech. I speak that way too: I say things like "ooh, I can just imagine myself lying there on the beach under the sun"... well yes, I am thinking about it, and as far as I am concerned, thinking about something and imagining it are the very same things. I always believed that people were speaking figuratively when they said they could 'see' or 'visualise' things. I knew I didn't mean it literally, so assumed they were the same.

Life goes on

It's a curious thing to go one's life (over 40 years now!) having an unusual condition and all the while, thinking it was normal. Anecdotal evidence on forums seems to suggest that people can go almost their entire lives without realising there is anything unusual about their thought processes. It's fascinating to think that a condition such as this, which has presumably been prevalent for quite some time, has hitherto gone unnoticed (or unnamed at least) until the 20th century. It does make you wonder what other mysteries people might be hiding within their minds, all of us trapped in our own little worlds, trying to interact as best we can. 

But in truth, lacking the ability to actually see what is only imaginary does not bother me at all, any more than it bothers me that I can't sense electromagnetic signals the way a shark can, or sniff out a missing person the way a dog can. These are not senses I need nor really want. I am perfectly happy to live with my mind the way it is, and be safe in the knowledge that everything I see, hear, smell, taste, and touch is real. 

Probably.

Is it OK to ask whether a woman has kids?

People have made a claim in recent years that no one should ask a woman whether she has children, whether she's planning on having (more) children, and why (not). The claim is that having children is a personal issue which can be very upsetting for some women to talk about, whether they are being asked by strangers or close family members. Below I consider whether these claims are justified: is it really so bad to ask these questions?

Do you have kids?

For many years I couldn't imagine myself as a mother – nor indeed was I sure I wanted to become one. In my 20s, particularly after I'd been in a relationship for a few years, people would ask about whether I was planning on getting married, and whether I planned on having children. Although I found the questions a little tiresome, I gave my answer (‘no’ or ‘I don’t know’) and it was usually met with acceptance. Luckily for me I was surrounded by people who didn't pressure me or try to guilt me into following the conventional path of marriage and children. If I had been subjected to frequent questioning and pressure from my family, friends or even strangers, this could have been unbearable. So I can wholly understand why it is so annoying for people who are frequently on the receiving end of pressure to produce offspring.

During my childless years, strangers also occasionally asked me whether I had kids, and I didn't really mind this, it's a reasonable question to ask of a woman in her 20s or beyond. I wasn’t berated for being unmarried and childless, but I used to have to field the questions about why I didn’t have children, and those were more frustrating, as though I had to explain and justify why I hadn’t procreated yet. After all, parenting is (in many societies, at least) a lifestyle choice and not a moral requirement. So asking someone whether they are a mother seems permissible, but continuing to question them about why they are or aren’t a mother becomes something else. (Analogously, asking someone if they’re a vegetarian is reasonable, but asking “why are you vegetarian?” is infuriating. No one should have to justify their food intake any more than their procreation status, but that’s another post for another day). What we can avoid, and indeed should avoid, are the ‘why’ questions about someone is childless. When someone says they don't have any children, the whys and wherefores of their situation are no one’s business but their own. Asking whether they have children is engaging in small talk; asking why they don't have children is prying and pressuring.

Making connections 

People make connections with others by talking. It's how friendships build up, and conversations often make the day more pleasant and less boring. Generally, small talk focuses on elements of people's lives or the news – look at the weather, what's your job, where do you live, and suchlike. Asking someone whether they have children is in this category, it seems. As a mother, I know that talking about children to someone else who has children is a great way to find common ground and build a rapport. How else could I find out that we have this in common if I weren’t to ask them if they have kids? If someone asks another person whether they have kids and the answer is yes, this will probably be followed up with questions such as how many, boys or girls, how old are they, and so on. This is how people converse and make friends, and this should not be prevented.

There are of course some questions that are out of bounds for strangers to ask one another, for example about their sex lives, or their toileting habits. These are highly personal questions which would rightly be met with shock and condemnation if they were to be asked in most situations, but whether or not a person has children is not in this league. “Do you have any kids?” is much more similar to “What’s your job?” or “Do you have any pets?” than it is to “How often do you have sex?”

But childlessness can be a touchy subject. And there are many reasons why a woman might not have children. (The same is true of a man, but I don't think childless men are questioned and judged in quite the same way as a childless woman is: after all, a woman's sole function on earth is to raise children, right? (*sarcasm)) 

So, why doesn't S have children? Perhaps she doesn't have enough money to support a child; perhaps she is single and has no partner with whom to conceive a baby; perhaps she has chosen to focus on her career rather than motherhood; perhaps she is not attracted to men; perhaps she's planning on having children, but just not right now; or perhaps she simply does not like children and doesn't want to have any! These (and many others) are perfectly legitimate reasons for someone not to have a child. And it may well be the case that if these are the reasons someone doesn't have children they may feel comfortable saying these to family members or strangers. 

But there may also be people who would really like to have a child but for some reason they don't. For example, perhaps she or her partner may have a health condition which makes it difficult or impossible to conceive; perhaps she has been pregnant but suffered miscarriage or stillbirth; perhaps she had one or more children who have now died; perhaps she has gone through a divorce and not been given custody of her children; or perhaps her children have been taken into care because she was an inadequate parent. These are not likely to be topics of conversation which someone is happy to explain to strangers, and it is understandable why someone in one of these situations would hate being asked whether they have kids, and I have every sympathy for these people.

"I just get so upset when I think about the rain"

However, anything can be a touchy subject: any question which someone asks to another person in the process of small talk could potentially be upsetting. For example, suppose I strike up a conversation with a woman about the weather, complaining that it's raining again - this may seem to be an innocuous conversation starter, but she may find the conversation upsetting for some reason. For example, perhaps her partner is a meteorologist and she is just discovered he's been cheating; perhaps her daughter slipped when it was raining and fell under a bus and was killed; perhaps she is on the way to her sister's wedding and the rain is going to ruin the day; perhaps when it rains she is reminded of the time she was raped in the pouring rain; or perhaps she was talking about the rain when her mother had a stroke and has been institutionalised ever since. Any of these could be the case, and this could mean that my chatting about the rain upsets the person I'm talking to. However, the mere possibility that someone may be upset by talking about the rain should not preclude us from talking about the rain to anyone.

If mere chit chat about the rain could upset people, then it is easy to see how asking someone about their job, or whereabouts they live, or whether they have any pets, could be even more distressing topics of conversation, after all, they may have lost their job, or maybe they're about to have their home repossessed, or maybe their dog just mauled a child to death - who knows? The same can be said for asking them whether they have children. It might upset them, but given that most people are not upset or offended by being asked whether they have kids, it is reasonable to ask the question. I cannot allow the fact that someone might be upset by talking about children prevent me from asking them whether or not they have children. (As suggested above, interrogating them about why they don't have children is something quite different indeed. The why questions are just prying, and imply judgement too.)

The verdict

This hasn't been my most eloquent or philosophically flawless argument, but I think it is intuitively correct: we need to make a judgement about the chance that someone would be offended, versus the opportunity of building a rapport. "How often do you have anal sex?" is quite likely to offend, and minimally likely to build a rapport, whereas asking about the weather is very unlikely to offend, but doesn't build much of a rapport either. "Do you have kids?" is a reasonable way to build a rapport with someone, and although it carries the possibility of upsetting a minority of people, this should not preclude us from asking it - so long as we don't interrogate others about why they do or do not have kids.

Should sports segregate by sex? If so, how?

A couple of weeks ago, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled against South African athlete Caster Semenya. The findings about her case in particular are supposedly confidential, but based on the ruling, it is easy enough to work out what her sexual situation probably involves, and it has been all over the news. It is thought that she has a disorder of sexual development (DSD); such people are commonly referred to as intersex because of their ambiguous genitalia or mixed sexual chromosomes. Semenya has hyperandrogenism - unusually high levels of testosterone for a female. Women with hyperandrogenism might have external genitalia resembling standard female genitalia, but internally, they may have testes, and they may have XY chromosomes, unlike most women who have XX chromosomes.

Semenya has been subjected to over a decade of speculation and testing of her sex, to determine whether she is "in fact" female. The ruling earlier this month states that she must lower her testosterone levels  (via drugs) if she is to compete in female events.

Below I argue that we should have sex segregation in strength / stamina sports and as such, it is fair and reasonable for sex testing to occur and for sporting adjudication bodies to make rulings regarding the sex of athletes. Although it might be annoying for Semenya herself, it is fair for Sport that the ruling reached the decision it did. (For the flip side, there's a great article here giving 10 reasons why the ruling is flawed.)

Let's get back to first principles: why do we have sex segregation in sports? We have it because on average, men are stronger and faster than women. That's not to say all men are stronger or faster than all women, of course; if we take some top female athletes I'm sure they'd be faster than most men with office jobs.

I recall when I was at Keele University doing my undergrad degree back in the 90s, some of the female sports teams had an idea to prove how great girls are, which rather backfired. The idea was this: the female teams would play male teams from other sports clubs at the female team's own game - so for example, the female football team would play football matches against the male hockey team and the male rowing team; the female athletics team would play athletics events against the male rugby team and the male swimming team. As I said, it backfired horribly, as the women's teams lost at their own games a startlingly high number of times. What was intended to show Girl Power instead only showed that men were better at sports - even ones they'd hardly ever played - than the women who practiced them every week! It was a tough bullet to bite (I was on the hockey team and we got trounced by the male cricket team in a hockey match). It showed us that men were faster and stronger than women were, and that gave them a huge advantage over us.

If men were to compete "on a level playing field" against women, then Olympic teams would probably consist of over 95% men. There are some events - say, shooting, horse riding, diving, synchronised swimming and a few others, where strength and speed are not so important and women could fare well again men. But for the most part, men will outperform women in almost every sport. Most people think that because of this, there should be men's events and separate women's events. This seems fair in the same way that we wouldn't expect a primary school football team to compete against a university football team; the primary school team should play other primary school teams, to make for a fairer contest.

So let's go with the idea that it's not fair for men to compete against women because men have greater strength, speed and possibly stamina too.

Now for a trickier question: what is a man, and what is a woman? In the old days this was an easier question to answer: at birth, babies with a penis were called boys, everyone else was called a girl, and that sex stayed with the person for their whole life.

Now things are a little more complicated. There are people whose sex doesn't correspond to their gender identity; there are people with ambiguous genitalia; and there are people whose sex hormone levels are unusually high or low. Of course, such people have probably existed throughout human history, but weren't recognised. Quite simply, way back when, if you were deemed to have a penis at birth then you were a man, and if not then you were a wonan, end of story. So those who had female bodies but felt they were male, were still classed as female. Those with ambiguous genitalia were classified at birth and that was that. People who had, for example, testes inside the body, no uterus, but an externally "normal" looking vulva would have been classified as girls, and it would probably never have been discovered that they had testes. And the same goes for those with female genitalia but abnormally high testosterone levels - they would have been classified as girls and probably no one would ever have discovered their high testosterone levels.

But that's not the world we live in today: those things can be discovered, and then we have issues for people such as Caster Semenya.

Let's ask ourselves what it is that makes men stronger and faster than women. I'm not an anatomist, but the people in the know suggest that it's because men are taller and have proportionally greater muscle mass than women do (both of which are caused by testosterone levels) and that testosterone levels themselves increase endurance and oxygen transfer or something or other. I don't really know, but the experts do know, and they say that higher testosterone levels give athletes an advantage over others with lower levels.

Testosterone is what causes bodies to develop into a male physique - taller, more muscular, broader shoulders, and so on. And of course, high testosterone levels are closely correlated with external male genitalia. So we usually see higher testosterone levels in men than in women. I haven't been able to find the exact details of Semenya's testosterone levels, but I'm guessing they must be closer to normal male levels than to normal female levels - or at least, that she has substantially more testosterone than most women or most female athletes.

So if it's testosterone which gives a person an advantage, (and which is usually correlated with being a man), then it seems right that someone such as Semenya whose testosterone levels are excessively high is prevented from competing against other women with a more average level of testosterone.

But then, so the argument can go, what about people who have an advantage because they are tall, sturdily built, have long legs, long arms, a bendy body etc.? They have an advantage that was afforded to them by a mere whimsy of genetic chance, but they are permitted to compete against other smaller, chubbier athletes as if it were a fair contest. Also, it cannot be denied that some ethnic groups seem to have an advantage over others in particular events: the Jamaicans do well in sprint races, but not so well in swimming; the Kenyans do well in marathons, but not so well in sprints ... so if we want to make things fairer by counteracting genetic traits, we'll have a lot of work to do with regard to non-sexual genetic traits.

But the point is this: we don't (thank goodness) segregate events based on ethnic group or height - although some events such as judo, boxing etc do separate events based on weight, because weight is an advantage in such sports. But we do - universally in the world of sport, I think - separate events based on the sexes.

If we think it is fair and right to prevent men from competing against women because they have a physical advantage, then we need a way to determine the sexes in a definitive way so that it is clear - for the purposes of competing in the sport, at least - who is in which category. I think it would be fairly universally agreed upon that women should not have to compete against men. (I imagine even staunch feminists would agree on sex segregation - especially if they were to experience humiliating defeats at the hands of men in the same way my university colleagues and I did!)

So if we want sex segregation then we need a segregation method. The Court  of Arbitration for Sport have used testosterone levels as one method of segregation, and there are many people - including Semenya herself - who say that testosterone levels is not a fair method of segregation, so what are the alternatives? Here are three possibilities:

- external genitalia
- genetic sex chromosome testing
- gender identity

None of these are unproblematic.

First of all, external genitalia. Imagine the indignity and the personal intrusion and embarrassment of having a sports adjudicator judge the status of your genitals to see if they are female enough to run in a race! But embarrassment aside, it would not be an unequivocal test which satisfied everyone, would it? Because there are people with ambiguous genitalia who would then be test cases for whether a penis is penisy enough to be called a penis. Also, because if a male sportsman were so inclined, in a bid to win medals, he might decide to have surgery to give him a vagina. Unlikely but probably some might try it (see my argument below about gender identity and the danger of fake transsexuals).

Sex chromosome testing is an option rather similar to what they are currently doing, where unseen genetic markers are used to determine an athlete's sex. A potential problem with this is that there will probably be some people who are physically male and identify as male and are trying to make it as sportsmen - and perhaps not succeeding - and then a test reveals that they have XX chromosomes and suddenly they can compete against women - even though they are physically male. Then they are suddenly a really successful athlete! This is far from ideal. Besides, this is unlikely to please the people who support Semenya's case because it is thought that she has XY chromosomes, so if chromosome testing is the decider, then she should compete against the men.

Gender identity has been a buzzword (well, a buzz phrase) for the past decade or two, even though people with gender dysphoria probably existed throughout human history. In everyday life - shopping, the workplace etc - it is nice if we respect people's gender identity, even if this means that we let people who are physically male into female areas such as toilets because they identify as female. And aside from (probably unfounded) worries about sexual predators, this doesn't really cause a problem. It doesn't make much difference whether the person in the cubicle next to mine is a cisgender man, an intersex person, a non-binary person, a transsexual woman, or a cisgender woman... but it does make a difference if these people are competing against me in a race. This is because - as noted above - testosterone levels enhance performance. The average cisgender man has higher testosterone than the average cisgender woman. I don't know enough about gender dysphoria or non-binariness to know whether they are correlated with differences in sex hormones, but if it turns out that a transgender woman (whether or not she has had gender reassignment surgery) has testosterone levels which are normal for a cisgender man, then that person has an athletic advantage over cisgender women athletes. Simply claiming to identify as a woman cannot be sufficient reason to allow that person to compete against women. Or else the event is not an event for women, but for anyone who decides to say they're a woman. Boxing weight categories are based on boxers' actual weights, not merely the weights they claim to be - and the same should be true for sex. "Ah, but gender is different because if one identifies as female then one is female; but identifying as a Featherweight does not mean one is a Featherweight. The two are not analogous" I hear you say. And that is true, but the point is that anyone can claim they identify as female and we would just have to take them at their word. This is fine in most aspect of life, but in sports we'd have to let them compete as a female sportsperson. A (largely unfounded) worry about transsexuals and toilets is that straight cisgender men could gain access to female bathrooms by claiming to identify as women. What would such men gain from pretending to be transgender in a bathroom situation? Some say they'd gain the chance to hurt or rape women; this seems like very little "gain", given that a man can walk into a female bathroom to rape women at any time without claiming to be transgender. A would-be rapist would not be deterred by the woman symbol on the door. So a bad man gets almost no gain from pretending to be transgender. But what could a man gain from claiming to be a transgender sportswoman (if gender identity is what counts in sport)? Well, he could gain thousands or millions of pounds. Consider: the US Open tennis championship has $3.8 million for the winner of the women's singles. Are there any half decent male tennis players with little moral integrity? Why yes I would think there are (and yes he might only need to be half decent to beat a top ranking female tennis player). And that is a second reason why gender identity cannot be the only factor to decide in which event one competes. (The first was mentioned above - namely that transsexual women may well have male physiques and testosterone levels in the normal male range, giving them a physical advantage over cisgender women.) Gender identity should be respected in everyday life, but should play no part at all in sporting sex segregation. When huge sums of money are involved, any man can claim to identify as a woman, win a few huge cash sums, and then 'revert to being male again. It would be immoral, but allowed under te rules if we were to say that gender identity is what counts.

So where does that leave us? We could let men and women (and all the people who have gender dysphoria, disorders of sexual development, and everyone else) compete against one another without restriction, and thus confine almost all female athletes to obscurity... or we can accept that men and women should compete against their own sex. Some sort of 'middle ground' could involve a handicap system such that all people have their testosterone levels, chromosomes (or whatever we decide) assessed, and are given a handicap score or a head start. This would certainly change things drastically, and could mean that the fastest and strongest people no longer win the events... This would seem odd, not to mention confusing to watch (I like to watch the Paralympics but I do find it frustrating when the person who comes first in the race is deemed not to have won because of his disability score; sometimes I give up watching the races and just read the results. This could happen if everyone has a testosterone score which deducts or adds points to their score: how would we know who'd won?! It would perhaps be fairer, but a lot less compelling.)

If we choose to clearly segregate by sex into just two categories, then there must necessarily be a way of discerning who competes against whom, and whatever method is chosen, some people will be placed into a category which they or others might see as objectionable. Unfortunately that is the price to be paid. Chromosome testing and testosterone levels seems as good and as scientific method as possible, and so although it may not please Semenya and her coach, it is reasonable, and it protects women's sporting events from competitors who have genetically male hormone levels and/or chromosomes, which gives them an advantage on a par with a man.

The funny side of disablism?

A few days ago, a comedian with cerebral palsy and who cannot speak won Britain’s Got Talent 2018 – and the runner-up was a comedian with Asperger’s syndrome. (I know my last blog post was about BGT too, but would you believe I haven’t actually watched it - except the two men I'm talking about here.) Some people are talking as if this is a watershed moment for disability, but I'm wondering whether we’ll look back in years to come and feel uncomfortable about what has happened. Should we be laughing about disablism and disability?

Disabled people can get a pretty raw deal at times; I am able-bodied (now), but I spent most of my twenties in a wheelchair and in pain, and so I have first-hand experience of some of the obstacles (both literal and figurative) that disabled people must overcome. There is some debate surrounding whether autism is a disability (cerebral palsy is recognised as one) but for now I’ll sidestep this debate and just talk about both men as being disabled.

Disablism exists, and disabled people are largely excluded from TV and positions of power. So on the one hand, it’s great to see that disabled people are getting some air-time on a prime-time talent show. Decades ago, this simply would not have happened, so that’s progress. It’s also progress that the voters – who decided the winners of the show – have voted a disabled comedian to win the show.

What made bothered me slightly was that the winner – the Lost Voice Guy – made so many jokes about his disability. (This was true of the runner-up Robert White to a far lesser extent, although he did make some jokes about his social awkwardness.) Winner Lee Ridley’s cerebral palsy means that he is unable to speak, and he used a voice synthesiser to tell his jokes on stage. Many of his jokes centred around his disability: his voice synthesiser sounds like the “Cashier number four please” voice you hear at the post office; someone on the bus wanted him to give up his seat as another person was more disabled; people asking him “what’s wrong with you?”; his mum and dad still wondering whether his first word will be ‘mummy’ or ‘daddy’… the list goes on. Even his T-shirts sported captions such as “I’m in it for the parking”. His jokes were funny, and I found myself laughing along with the audience, thinking the guy was a really good comedian, but his routine should give us pause for thought.

If disabled people were treated fairly and disablism didn't exist, then this sort of routine wouldn’t be possible. Many of his jokes revolved around the ways in which he’s been treated negatively, discriminated against, and the obstacles he faces, and people might suggest that it’s good that he can ‘see the funny side’ of his disability and disablism by sending himself up, but experiencing disablism is not something anyone should have to see the funny side of.

A few decades back, when people of colour were first ‘allowed’ to perform comedy for a mainly white audience in the UK and US, it wasn’t uncommon for their routine to include jokes about their race, or racism they’ve faced. People laughed about it then, but I think we’d feel pretty uncomfortable now listening to a black person joke about their fear of getting shot by a police officer and suchlike. We feel uncomfortable because we think that racism shouldn’t happen, and laughing about it trivialises it. So the fact that the Lost Voice Guy can have people in stitches with jokes about his disability and disablism might not be the watershed moment that it seems to be. Nonetheless, it might be a step forward. For a long time, people of colour weren’t part of the comedy scene in the UK and US, and now they are – and so that transitionary period where they made jokes about their skin colour may have been a first awkward step forward towards acceptance. But a black comedian who is popular because he makes jokes about a range of topics (or a particular topic, such as politics or sport) would surely be preferable to a black comedian who makes jokes about the racism he faces on a daily basis. (Note that I’m not saying that people should keep quiet about the racism they experience; I’m saying that the racism shouldn’t happen in the first place.) Similarly, disabled comedians who continually joke about their disability and disablism are, for me at least, an awkward first step towards a time when we can hopefully accept a disabled comedian not because he makes funny jokes about disability, but because he makes funny jokes about all kinds of things.

Some might say that I am being overly defensive, and that I should lighten up – after all, the Lost Voice Guy (presumably!) wrote the self-deprecating jokes himself, and the audience liked the routine, so why am I putting a downer on it all? The reason why is that disablism is a daily reality for many people, and being on the receiving end is a humiliating and soul-destroying experience. I am in no way a criticising the Lost Voice Guy (or Robert White), because comedy can be a way of regaining control over a situation and dealing with negative treatment, not to mention a way of drawing people’s attention to the fact that (a) disablism exists, and (b) disabled people are in many ways that really matter, just normal people. I think that disabled comedians should be allowed to joke about their experiences if they want to, but what we should take away from it all is a harsher message: jokes about disablism are only possible because disablism exists. We should work towards ending disablism, not just laughing about it.