Sandscript

When I was a child my mother used to say 'I'm coming back as a man next time', but this was more a reaction to housework and the onerous task of bringing us up, than a belief in re-incarnation or the innate benefits of being a man. As a tomboy my only objection to being a girl was having to wear a dress on Sundays if we had visitors. Our parents treated us equally and in those innocent days before BBC's 'Woman's Hour' started talking about FGM many of us were unaware of the global range of inequalities for women. As an adult I have not regretted being a woman, except for envying men the convenience of their upright external plumbing.
But now in a more informed society we know there are people who are desperate to be the other sex and people who are actually born intersex.
A person in the public eye recently admitted rumours were true that they had changed sex - still a cause for shame? But does it matter what sex a person is? 99 per cent of what we have in common as humans has nothing to do with gender; the need for food and shelter, the desire to socialise, love of music etc. Even the differences are important for only short periods of our lives, the young macho sportsman or a woman having a baby and breastfeeding.
As any writer knows, it would be dull if we were all the same, but perhaps we are more the same than we think.