“No – but being mistaken for an en-male would be an insult, because he’s migrated out of that gender as surely as any asex. The whole point of being umale is to distance yourself from the perceived weaknesses of contemporary natural males. To declare that their ‘consensual identity’ – stop laughing – is so much less masculine than your own that you effectively belong to another sex entirely. To say: no mere en-male can speak on my behalf, any more than a woman can.”

Gina mimed tearing out hair. “No woman can speak on behalf of all women , as far as I’m concerned. But I don’t feel obliged to have myself sculpted ufem or ifem to make that point!”

“Well … exactly. I feel the same way. Whenever some Iron John cretin writes a manifesto ‘in the name of’ all men, I’d much rather tell him to his face that he’s full of shit than desert the en-male gender and leave him thinking that he speaks for all those who remain. But … that is the commonest reason people cite for gender migration: they’re sick of self-appointed gender-political figureheads and pretentious Mystical Renaissance gurus claiming to represent them. And sick of being libeled for real and imagined gender crimes. If all men are violent, selfish, dominating, hierarchical … what can you do except slit your wrists, or migrate from male to imale, or asex? If all women are weak, passive, irrational victims—”

Gina thumped me on the arm admonishingly. “Now you’re caricaturing the caricaturists. I don’t believe anyone talks like that.”

“Only because you move in the wrong circles. Or should I say the right ones? But I thought you watched the program. There were people I interviewed who made exactly those assertions, word for word.”

“Then it’s the fault of the media for giving them publicity.”

We’d arrived at the restaurant, but we lingered outside. I said, “That’s partly true. I don’t know what the solution is, though. When will someone who stands up and proclaims, ‘I speak for no one but myself’ get as much coverage as someone who claims to speak for half the population?”

“When people like you give it to them.”

“You know it’s not that simple. And … imagine what would have happened with feminism – or the civil rights movements, for that matter – if no one could ever be permitted to speak ‘on behalf of’ any group, without their certified, unanimous consent? Just because some of the current lunatics are like parodies of the old leaders, it doesn’t mean we’d be better off now if TV producers had said: ‘Sorry Dr. King, sorry Ms. Greer, sorry Mr. Perkins, but if you can’t avoid these sweeping generalizations and confine your statements to your own personal circumstances, we’ll have to take you off the air.’”