The Inspector

The feminist writer Julie Bindel was claiming that gender identity disorder was a reactionary diagnosis invented by conservative, male psychiatrists fixated on keeping dated gender roles intact

Her claim was that sex change operations - or gender realignment surgery - were unnecessary and often coerced mutilations that often caused deep-seated psychological ill-effects.

Most controversially, she said the diagnosis of gender identity disorder mirrored past claims - still articulated in some quarters - that gay and lesbian people are born with a disordered sexual orientation which should be "corrected" through treatment.

Ranged against her were a combination of doctors and people who had undergone successful operations and genuinely felt they had been born into the wrong body.

I found myself seriously torn during this debate.

On the one hand, I sympathise with Bindel's view of gender as a social construct, and that people should not be born into particular roles due to their biology: logically, one is never born into the wrong body, therefore.

But, as the human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell pointed out, surely people should come before ideology. As there are people who feel they are born into the wrong body and this causes significant psychological distress, gender realignment surgery should at least be an option for them, so long as they are not coerced, and receive sufficient counselling beforehand and support afterwards.

And then we can all work towards the society beyond gender that Bindel envisages, if that's what we want.

Anyway, it was a fascinating debate, which is being repeated on Saturday evening at 10.15, if anyone's in, while there's always Radio 4's Listen Again service.