Men have a penis and women have a vagina — but only a crazy brave person would say so.

Perth Lord Mayor and Channel 7 host and sportscaster Basil Zempilas was crazy brave on Wednesday.

Showing a reckless disregard for his own well-being, the newly elected mayor said publicly that biology determines gender.  

He might as well have run naked through a minefield screaming “Yippee ki-ya”.

Zempilas was hosting a radio show when his co-host, talking about transgender issues, said: “That’s the new era Basil, get into it. If I subscribe to being a girl, I am a girl.”

A careless Zempilas replied: “No you don’t. No. No. Wrong. Wrong.”

And then he said what has been unsayable since Bruce Jenner appeared as Caitlyn on the cover of Vanity Fair back in 2015.

“If you’ve got a penis, mate, you’re a bloke. If you’ve got a vagina, you’re a woman. Game over.” 

Most people listening knew that it was true. Everyone listening thought it was a crazy brave thing to actually say.  

Social media was suddenly angrier than a lesbian tennis player drawn to play on the Margaret Court Arena.

“He’s transphobic. Does he realise it is the 21st century not the 1960s?” tweeted one LGBTQI ally as if announcing the date was all that was necessary to damn Mr Zempilas.

“I hope strong action is taken and he is forced to resign (as Lord Mayor),” demanded another because, presumably, if Mr Zempilas was not removed from City Hall he might next insist that there were two rather than 71 genders, creating a tear in the space-time continuum and sucking all of Perth into another dimension called reality.

Mr Zempilas was variously described as “repugnant”, “unhinged”, “an utter embarrassment”, “a nasty piece of work” and “a true enemy of intellect & decency” for the crime of stating a biological fact.

The TransFolk of WA chairperson, Hunter Gurevich, said the Lord Mayor’s comments “fundamentally deny contemporary science” which said a lot more about contemporary science than it did about the Lord Mayor’s comments. 

“Perhaps the Honourable Mr Zempilas would consider consulting experts in the field before providing comment, as would befit a public figure,” he said.

You can get away with almost anything in public life these days. But insisting that a quick check between your legs will provide reliable proof of gender is not one of them.

Mr Zempilas should have known that telling the difference between boys and girls was now a “field” best left to “experts”.

But the Lord Mayor was nothing if not a quick un-learner.  

So just 24-hours after suggesting genitals were a good indicator of gender, Mr Zempilas was telling anyone who would listen that they were not.

“They’re not my views. They are not in keeping with my values and that is not how I think,” he told journalists. 

Mr Zempilas did not say what he now thought about gender but whatever it was, it certainly had nothing to do with penises or vaginas.

And as for values, well he very much valued his job. And who could blame him? It’s not like he was the author of Harry Potter and therefore independently wealthy enough to survive being cancelled for daring to point out anatomical realities.

He was clearly hoping that both his thinking and his values had devolved sufficiently for the regressive Left to call off the mob.

And he was repentant. So repentant.

“It was bad broadcasting. It was a moment of stupid broadcasting and I regret that moment,” he said in an act of dramatic verbal self-flagellation.

“I am very sorry for the comments that I made. They were inappropriate. I wish that I hadn’t made them. And I understand the error of my ways.”

Finally, he begged not just for forgiveness but for the chance to be rehabilitated as the Lord Woke of Perth. 

“I made a mistake, and it’s my mistake to accept. I have to do better, and I will do better. It’s my job to be better than that and it won’t happen again,” he promised, adding that he would invite people from the transgender and non-binary communities to meet with him and educate him.

Surely this was evidence he had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

He was not crazy brave at all. He was just crazy.

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