British author Ian McEwan has been criticised for recent comments he made about transgender people.

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McEwan has shared his thoughts about the recent debates about transgender people saying that he considers himself to be old fashioned and he can’t see someone who has a penis as being anything other than a man.

Speaking at Britain’s Royal Institute earlier this week the 67 year old author shared his opinion on the recent debate that has involved writer Germaine Greer.

“Call me old-fashioned, but I tend to think of people with penises as men.” the author responded when asked for his thoughts by an audience member.

“I know they enter a difficult world when they become transsexuals and they tell us they are women, they become women, but it’s interesting when you hear the conflict between feminists now and people in this group.” Ian McEwan said.

“It’s quite a bitter conflict. Spaces are put aside, women are wanting to put spaces aside like colleges or changing rooms, and find from another side a radical discussion coming their way saying men who want to feel like it can come in there too. I think it’s really difficult.

“And I think there is sweeping through American campuses a kind of strange sense of victimhood and a sense of purposeful identities that we can’t actually all of us agree with. Of course sex and race are different, but they also have a biological basis. It makes a difference whether you have an X or Y chromosome.”

McEwan said there were now men identifying as women, who still had a penis, attempting to enter women’s only colleges in the USA. The author also brought up cases where able bodies people were claiming to be disabled, and the example of American woman Rachel Doelzal who claimed to identify as a black woman, despite having Caucasian parents.

Ian McEwan: People choose identity like it’s from a supermarket

Ian McEwan said people are now choosing their identity like it was something from a supermarket shelf.

Last year author Germaine Greer launched a tirade of opinion on the transgender community arguing that transgender women would always be considered men.

“Just because you lop off your dick and then wear a dress doesn’t make you a fucking woman.

“I’ve asked my doctor to give me long ears and liver spots and I’m going to wear a brown coat but that doesn’t turn me into a fucking cocker spaniel.” Greer said in 2015.

Fay Weldon joins the debate

Fellow author Fay Weldon has also added her thoughts to the debate saying she thought men wanted to become women now because women we too horrible to men.

“The only way men have of fighting back against the natural superiority of women is by becoming women themselves,” Weldon said in an interview with British newspaper The Sunday Times.

The feminist author, who is 84, said feminism was needed in the 1970’s but today the situation is different.

“Feminism was necessary in the 1970s because men were so awful then.

“By the end of the 1980s they had realised what was going on and, to their credit, changed. But women didn’t change and went on being victims. Now women can be absolutely horrible to men.” Weldon said.

OIP Staff