Existentialism lost but will not vanish

EXISTENTIALISM lost this week. And yet I will suggest in this column that it will not go away.

- Ron Beadle

Let's start with defeat. The judgment by the Supreme Court in favour of the biological definition of sex has outraged some but delighted others. Trans people now find themselves on difficult legal ground in the UK, whilst those seeking to protect safe spaces and dedicated sport for biological women find themselves vindicated in UK law.

So why the link to existentialism? Well, it was the existentialist Simone de Beauvoir who opened book II of her 1949 treatise, 'The Second Sex, with the claim that "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." De Beauvoir provided a catchphrase for all those, including the non-binary and gender fluid, who hold that beliefs are just beliefs. The point here is not just that one social order may have one set of beliefs and another quite different ones, Navajo native Americans believing in four sexes whilst descendants of Abrahamic cultures believing in two for example, but that, and here is the nub, neither can prove their case.