This essay argues that we can better understand the rapid implementation of transgenderism by thinking of the Overton window as a sash window which slammed closed like a guillotine on women and children’s rights when its counterbalancing cord broke in 2015.

For those not old enough to remember, sash windows have a system in which the weight of the glass and frame is counterbalanced by a heavy weight, made of steel or cast iron, hidden within the frame. The weight is connected to the window by a sash cord that goes over a pulley at the top of the frame and makes it easy to move the window quickly, smoothly and with remarkably little effort. When I was in sixth form at a school with many sash windows, we were warned not to hang our head and shoulders out of open sash windows because sometimes, the cord breaks and the heavy window comes crashing down. A boy had been killed this way.

But let’s recap on the Overton window first. The figure below shows the classic Overton window moving between 2000 and 2020. At the turn of the century, it was unthinkable to believe that men could become women by saying so, or that sex is a spectrum or that children can consent to sterilisation. It was acceptable to believe in and for government to fund organisations supporting same sex attraction, women only wards and women only sports. Safeguarding children was popular and a high priority. But by 2020, everything had changed.

Figure 1. The Overton Window of Transgenderism

Suddenly in 2015 the Overton window shifted and societies globally turned on a new set of people, whose views suddenly fell from being policy, popular, sensible or acceptable into being radical and unthinkable. Things that could have been said in 2010 became things that should not be said in 2020. Swathes of people were defenestrated, thrown out of their professions, their unions, their political parties and deemed not worthy of respect in a democratic society for failing to keep up with the window. Some reluctantly silenced themselves to save their jobs and status. Many others dutifully shuffled along to keep themselves in the frame and learned the new mantras. And of course, there was a force moving the window and it wasn’t gravity – it was people pushing and pulling. Many gleefully championed the window’s slide, delighting that their previously unsayable, unthinkable radical views were now centred and popular. As this shift happened a new set of people went into the area previously inhabited by radical feminists and other outliers. Now finding themselves outside the window, they were silenced, ostracised, vilified, hounded out of their jobs etc. University professors who’d never seen themselves as feminist were labelled TERFS. Leftwingers, liberals and professionals had to choose which side to be on – shift with the Overton window or stick with their truth.

The window shifted incredibly fast in 2015. You can think of it as a sash window, which was in 2015 open over policy such as safeguarding and single sex hospital wards. We had spent decades gradually opening it, moving the frame, winning the arguments for single sex toilets (to release females from the urinary leash), women’s sport (to give us a fair chance and indeed an opportunity to participate), prosecution of paedophiles in churches, schools, the media etc, etc, and countless other women’s sex-based rights. Then the sash broke and the window came smashing down seemingly instantaneously. Now sex-based rights were unspeakable bigotry and men’s unfettered access to women’s and children’s bodies was reinstated.

A key concept is the way the window moved. It was not a slow incremental shift, but a rapid slamming, jerk – like an earthquake that had been building tension – two tectonic plates snagged together suddenly releasing and shifting violently.

The counterbalancing weight had been putting a heavy stress on the sash window in the years up to 2015. Men wanted their patriarchal rights back and pulled on the window, women who wanted their husbands and sons to get their rights back snipped away at the sash, weakening it, and male identified do-gooder women (sadly a large number of these exist) with their befuddled sanctimoniousness kindly put one way privacy glass on the now closed window so we outsiders couldn’t see what they were doing inside (no debate, no information, Denton’s don’t tell anyone).

It was a restoration of patriarchy that had been waiting to happen, just waiting until they could cut the sash cord and smash the window down on the women’s rights enjoying looking out.

These days sash windows are safer, with child-resistant restrictors that allow windows to open enough to let air in but stop children getting out, or windows dropping closed if the cord fails. Patriarchy is not so easy to make safe. Perhaps we should throw the sash windows out with the patriarchy and remove both risks in one swoop.