Isn’t it more important that all children – whether they are born male or female or choose to switch – get the same chances?

Not male or female? The latest scuffle in the battle of the sexes seems to be taking place in the media, and this time it is about what happens if a child doesn’t feel right in the skin they were born in.

Once, the discussions of what men or women, or little boys or little girls, should do, or enjoy, or wear, or be paid, centred solely on the struggle to make opportunities the same – or anyway as good – whether the child or adult was male or female. But according to Alice Thomson in the Times, things have taken a new turn. The new question is whether the child is to be labelled as male or female at all, as the growing youngster might be transgender, and may well want to change.

One approach to this new world (and our realisations about the fluidity of gender) is that children don’t need to be brought up as either boys or girls. But surely what most of us really want is to ensure the widest opportunities for all sexes, instead of holding one down, or simply ignoring the current inequality.

Call me old-fashioned, but rather than get sidetracked by gender, I’d rather carry on fighting for equal opportunities for all.

Alice Thomson got her first job after her grandmother wrote to me and I suggested who else she could talk to for advice – three women acting together. In my view it is more important to make sure all children have the same and equal chances to form their own lives, and be given the help they need, whatever the sex they are born into – whether they later change or not.

What do you think? Have your say below