Against the narrowing definition of womanhood
It takes courage to write — especially stories that challenge the status quo. It takes even more courage to stand on a global platform and speak your truth. When Dutch author Yael van der Wouden stepped up to accept the Women's Prize for Fiction on a balmy June night in London, she demonstrated bravery in spades. 'Please be gentle and kind,' she murmured, bracing for her audience's reaction, before coming out as intersex. That she had to make the plea at all is the real indictment.
'I was a girl until I turned 13,' she told the 800 people gathered. 'And then, as I hit puberty, all that was supposed to happen did not quite happen. And if it did happen, it happened too much. And all at once, my girlhood became an uncertain fact… hormonally, I am intersex.'
She need not have worried about how her revelation would be received. The cheer that followed was louder than the one that greeted her name. In that moment, van der Wouden, who had just been awarded a prize that celebrates 'women's voices,' redefined what the term could mean. 'In the few precious moments here on stage, I am receiving truly the greatest honour of my life as a woman, presenting to you as a woman and accepting this women's prize,' she said. 'And that is because of every single trans person who's fought for healthcare, who changed the system, the law, societal standards themselves. I stand on their shoulders.'
The timing of her words and the stage she chose to say them from lend her words particular weight. Just two months ago, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the definition of 'woman' refers strictly to biological sex. The case, brought by campaign group For Women Scotland, argued that sex-based protections must apply only to those 'born female.' The ruling, though framed by the court as not being a victory for one side over another, has major implications for how sex and gender are treated across public life, and for who gets counted as a woman under the law.
It is not just the UK. In the US, the rollback of transgender rights is gaining speed under a second Trump administration. This week, the US Supreme Court ruled that states can constitutionally restrict gender-transition care for minors, the latest blow in a coordinated, nationwide effort to curtail trans rights in education, healthcare, sport, and public life.
More than two dozen Republican-led states have already passed laws restricting care or limiting trans people's participation in public life. Trump has aligned federal policy with a rigid 'biological sex' framework, barred trans people from serving in the military, and ordered that passports reflect sex assigned at birth. Though there have been some legal victories against these moves, the political momentum has shifted in the West.
In a world where womanhood is increasingly being policed by legal and cultural gatekeepers, van der Wouden's declaration is powerful and political.
'Won't thrill you too much with the specifics,' she said, 'but the long and the short of it is that hormonally I am intersex. This little fact defined my life throughout my teens until I advocated for the healthcare that I needed, the surgery and the hormones that I needed, which not all intersex people need. Not all intersex people feel at odds with their gender presentation.'
The statement is telling. She reminded the audience that intersex persons are not a theoretical category. They exist with real needs and identities. More importantly, not everyone has homogeneous needs, wants, and identities. The point is not conformity, but autonomy.
Her prize-winning debut novel, The Safekeep, is about many things: Female relationships and rivalries, repression, queer love, the Second World War, the lingering legacy of war, memory and forgetfulness, and the meaning of home. However, for Wouden it is a story of collective compliance and redemption: 'The conversation [my novel] has entered into felt all the more important to me in the face of violence in Gaza, in the West Bank, and… the violence my own queer and trans community faces worldwide,' she said. However, there is a silver lining, much like her protagonist, Isabel, it is never too late to see the collective error of our ways and make amends.
aishwarya.khosla@indianexpress.com
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