Random Musings #3: The Penis Uncertainty Principle

The Penis Uncertainty Principle states that we can’t determine the biological sex of a person based on his/her genitalia. So that brings us to the real question: Can women have penises?

Growing up in Bihar – a truly utopian land of food, music, and politicians – one of the most colourful genitalia-related slang I heard was: “Lauda fek ke marenge (I will throw a dick at you)”. I have always pondered it with the same seriousness as Camus grappling with the philosophical reasonings of suicide. Whose penis does one throw like a projectile? Does one do an X-rated Van Gogh before launching it? Does one find a person to detach the appendage? Does one have a repository of cut penises like Pope Pius IX? To my young mind, the none-too-salubrious cuss word was quite hilarious.

Little did I know in 2023 that the Penis Uncertainty Principle would pose one of the deepest ontological questions of our times, particularly in the West, which I like to refer to as the WENA (Western Europe and Northern America).

The Penis Uncertainty Principle is a simple analogy of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. For the uninitiated (humanities students), the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that we cannot know both the position and velocity of an electron at the same time. The Penis Uncertainty Principle similarly states that we can’t determine the biological sex of a person based on his/her genitalia. So that brings us to the real question: Can women have penises? A corollary of that would be: Can there be a male lesbian?

Most have fumbled while asked about this, including Supreme Court justices in America. But not British PM Rishi Sunak. In an era where cockamamie liberals have a vice-like grip on WENA discourse (triple pun intended), it’s refreshing to see a politician speak his mind (not named Giriraj Singh, who perhaps speaks too much of his mind).

The first British Hindu Prime Minister – who will get to pick who ought to lead the Church of England (God bless the horny Henry VIII for breaking up with the Pope for refusing to sanction his breakup), broke ranks with most Western leaders by refusing to beat around the bush. Abdicating the chance to be on the same page as Labour chief Sir Keir Stammer who said that 99% of women don’t have a penis, Sunak went the whole hog and said he thought that 100% of women “didn’t have a penis”.

Channelling his inner JK Rowling, the British PM added: “When it comes to these issues of protecting women’s rights, women’s spaces, I think the issue of biological sex is fundamentally important when we think about those questions, I’ve said that repeatedly.”

That instantly became a clickbait heading for publications across the world.

Of course, Rishi Sunak’s fascist tendencies – the amalgamation of Churchill-like conservatism and hegemonic Hindutva – are well-documented. His desire to mainstream math — the secret love language of fascists — is enough evidence of his loyalties.

But this is about more than Sunak. All jokes apart, it’s fascinating to see post-fourth-wave feminism eschew the idea that women ought to have safe spaces or that JK Rowling is somehow transphobic for pointing out that “biological sex is real”. Now whatever your views on gender – and however you choose to identify – the science on the existence of sexes is clear. And it’s not some imaginary Gingerbread spectrum.

One of the better examples was in a Quillette piece which pointed out a cyclist can’t become a motorcyclist by wearing a leather jacket.

As the article pointed out: “ …a person riding a motorcycle wearing a spandex suit and lighter helmet doesn’t become a cyclist (or less of a biker) because they share these secondary traits more commonly associated with cyclists. And a person riding a bicycle wearing jeans and a leather jacket doesn’t become a biker (or less of a cyclist) by sharing secondary traits more typical of bikers. Just as these secondary traits do not define bikers and cyclists, secondary sex characteristics do not define males and females.”

If sex isn’t real, then how can people have same-sex relationships? In its own way, this debate, which refuses to accept the existence of biological sexes, is similar to the Conservatives who wanted to teach “Creationism” on par with Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Creationism is bunkum, and talking about it like science shows why the burden of existence should always be on theists, not atheists.

On the other hand, Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is based on hard facts and will be the received wisdom on how we came to be until a better explanation comes along. Of course, that’s not impossible. Quantum physics did, eventually, replace Newtonian classical physics to explain how the universe functions.

But I digress. Whatever one’s views on Sunak’s politics are, it’s refreshing to see a politician ascertain that women cannot have penises. It’s even more crucial to speak up now, in a world where incidents like a woman raped by a transgender inmate are covered up, where NYT is more concerned with the self-christened pronoun of a murderer, or where Nike picks a transwoman without physical breasts to sell sports bras.

The debate is even more terrifying when it can make pre-puberty kids transition before they know enough about the sexes, esp. because most kids are absolute idiots, who shouldn’t be allowed to make such life-transitioning decisions. Once you swap genitalia, it’s not like you can swap it back again like an Amazon order.

And yet a bill passed by Washington state will allow medical transgender interventions on youngsters without parental consent. The bill states: “Gender-affirming treatment can be prescribed to two-spirit, transgender, nonbinary, and other gender diverse individuals.” Affirming care will include puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and even surgeries, and no matter how you put it, it sounds a lot like legalised child abuse.

De-transitioning is a complex process, and as a de-transistioner wrote in The Economist: “There is a responsible middle path between making transgender people jump through hoops to access needed medical care and allowing people experiencing psychosis and delusions to have their testicles removed. Until gender care providers accept their ethical responsibility to find that path, the American medical system continues to serve this community of people poorly—but this time, this neglect is designed and perpetrated by allies under the banner of transgender rights.”

It's fascinating how deeply entrenched this has become in the WENA countries. Even as far back as 2015, no one would’ve thought that the saying: “A biological woman can’t have a penis” would be considered brave, let alone revolutionary. That’s like saying Wodehouse is a great author, or Pathaan sucks. It’s just an irrefutable fact of nature. 

Ricky Gervais pointed out this fact in his Netflix stand-up skit titled Humanity, in which he had a host of jokes about Bruce “Brucie” Jenner’s transition to Caitlyn Jenner. Ironically, even Jenner – a former biological male Olympic gold medallist – is on the same page, at least as far as the participation of biological males in female sports is concerned.

The problem isn’t the mainstreaming of trans terms but doing so at the expense of biological women, a group that must bear the brunt of every Abrahamic movement, from Catholicism to wokeism. We don’t live in some sort of post-sex utopian state where biological women aren’t vulnerable to predatory men. Yet when we use terms like “People who Menstruate” or “Birthing People” seeks to appropriate experiences biological women have had since the dawn of time and reduce them to some sort of kitschy meme.

So why is Rishi Sunak treading a different path from his more enlightened peers? The thing to remember is that Rishi Sunak is a pragmatic man who became the leader of an openly racist party – many of whose constituents hate people of his skin colour and religion – and is now looking like the adult in the room while bringing the party back to track. He’s also married to the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in India and clearly understands where the smart money is.

The same outcome ought to be expected about the entire wiener debate in WENA because capitalism – which is inherently linked to politics in those countries – will eventually decide when the madness has gone too far. There’s only one god, and that’s Mammon. Brands don’t pretend to be AWAKE because they have some innate desire to create a better world. They do so because they think it aligns with the views of their consumers so they can sell them more products. If incest was a commonly held belief among a large group, Budweiser would show a brother and sister kissing in Alabama (of course, that could sell more products, given it is Alabama). The beautiful thing is that the market eventually decides, and finally, the companies will have to come to terms with the fact that a big chunk of their consumers think they have absolutely lost their minds because capitalism exists only to sell things. All else is embellishment. And there is no uncertainty about that particular result.

Edited by Alekhya Boora.