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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Lowenna Waters

Macy Gray tells Piers Morgan ‘changing your body parts doesn’t make you a woman’

Macy Gray has entered the transgender debate, claiming that to be a woman you must have been born with “boobs” and a “vagina”.

The American singer, 54, made the controversial claims while speaking in an interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored last night.

Piers claimed that public figures are often wary of being candid on the controversial issue of transgender rights due to backlash.

Gray agreed, describing a woman as “a human being with boobs”, she then added: “How about you start there”, before saying: “And a vagina”.

Discussing the topic of transgender women in sports, Piers said: “I support all trans rights to fairness and equality.”

However, he added that he doesn’t support transgender people with “physical superior bodies” who beat other women in their sports.

In response, Macy said: “I totally agree... if you want me to call you a ‘her’, I will, because that’s what you want but that doesn’t make you a woman just because I call you a ‘her’ and just because you got a surgery.”

She said: “Just because you go change your parts doesn’t make you a woman.”

She also threw her support behind author JK Rowling, who has faced criticism for her outspoken views on transgender rights.

“I don’t think you should be called transphobic just because you don’t agree…,” she said.

“There is a lot of judgement and throwing stones at people for just saying what it is. Do you know what I mean?”

She then said that the experience of being female requires much more than just medical procedures.

Being female, Gray said, required more than medical procedures.

“A woman goes through a completely unique experience and surgery and finding oneself doesn’t change that,” she said.

“Being a little girl is a whole epic book, you know? You can’t have that just because you want to be a woman.”

It comes after trans swimmers were banned from competing in women’s races following a rule change designed to protect female athletes.

Global swimming regulator Fina says the move will make women’s swimming fairer and “protect the rights of our athletes to compete”.

The latest swimming rules mean transgender women will only be eligible to compete against other women if they complete the transition by the age of 12.

They must also have not gone through male puberty.

Elsewhere, Bette Midler has been using transgender people to make a point about the abortion crisis in the United States.

The actress has been very active on Twitter, blasting the Supreme Court for reversing Roe v. Wade.

In one tweet, she wrote: “WOMEN OF THE WORLD! We are being stripped of our rights over our bodies, our lives and even of our name! They don’t call us ‘women’ anymore; they call us ‘birthing people’ or ‘menstruators’, and even ‘people with vaginas’!”

She added: “Don’t let them erase you! Every human on earth owes you!” Of course, that gets to trans/non-binary people ... and some are calling this POV transphobic.”

Her comments come off the back of an Op Ed published in the New York Times July 3, titled The Far Right And Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count, which argues women are being “erased” on the extreme left and extreme right.

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