You cannot stop the women. All you can do is make their lives difficult and harm your reputation by being seen bullying them.

These are the armies you are trying to fight (do you want to pick a side?)

Mothers, sisters and allies

1. The confabulators

Almost all women and girls – the vast majority – gather defensively around a dysphoric youngster.  A large number of young people have been persuaded to attempt transition in recent years – persuaded by peers, by internet groomers or by their school equalities trainers who say they are ‘the other sex really’.  Some defend the children by affirming their wish to change their body, their appearance, their names and ‘their’ pronouns. The last bit is the hardest, as pronouns are not ‘yours’. They are things other people use when talking *about* you, so this particular defensive action entails trying to censor and control the whole world. Taking on an impossible job makes people very desperate.

You cannot change your sex – even Nancy Kelly, CEO of Stonewall has admitted this now. Sex is real, and sex matters – on medical, legal and other records – so the trans-ally women, and the teachers, police, and others who think the best defence is validation of ‘gender identity’, have a gargantuan, impossible job – to bury the truth and silence all opposition. No wonder they are so militant, so emotional in their determination to make their sister/daughter/friend’s assumed sex seem real.

2. The philosophers

Others, equally passionate in their defence of those dysphoric youngsters, try to hide their fear that the children will harm themselves, or fall into the hands of others who mean them harm. These defenders, swallowing oceans of emotion, try to stay ‘neutral’, and discuss options calmly with the youngsters. This brings to them a second wave of fear. Debate, according to trans activists, is ‘transphobia’ and ‘hate speech’ and the consequences for social life, career and peace of mind are alarming. Because the philosophers have to be brave to stand their ground against those rules, they tend to be passionate and emotional about their freedom of speech.

3. The ‘sex matters’ campaigners

A third and growing group is those, mostly women (but increasingly joined by gay men and concerned fathers and partners) who, in all their variety, are known as ‘gender critical’. They passionately believe that, for the sake of those dysphoric youngsters, and for the rights, dignity and privacy of all women and girls, they must defend the Equalities Act and public understanding of why sex matters.

These campaigning women believe they need to present a model to the youngsters of how to be female, out, loud and proud, happy in your own skin, despite the sexism and misogyny of the world around you. Their actions are designed to set an example of how to fight off sexism, bullying and abuse.

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As you can probably see from the way I describe the ‘positions’, I number myself among this third group and, like most women, I struggle because I have friends and loved ones in all three camps.

I do not though, subscribe to the view that it’s ‘six of one and half a dozen of the other’. I don’t think any of these three groups ‘started it’, and I don’t believe they are responsible for most of the abuse and sabotage.

Having taken shed-loads of abuse, slander and obstruction in recent years, I now find it very, very difficult to stay calm and talk politely about this situation. I can tell you from personal experience that women like me spent a lot of years fighting the good fight very politely, and I daresay those in other camps feel the same way. If we sound angry now, it’s with good reason – but it’s the bullies we are angry with, not the children and young people caught up in all this, nor those children’s would-be protectors, nor with trans people.

More in common than…

All three groups I describe above are passionate and have the best interests of the youngsters, as they see them, at heart. The three groups are portrayed as being at war with each other – and it’s true there are bitter rows, because the situation is urgent and dangerous but nevertheless…

You cannot stop the women.

If you try to, you will end up looking as silly as all those politicians who got caught out by ‘the cervix question’. You are also liable to get sued, as Maya Forstater, the Fair Cop group, and various others have now demonstrated, because sex IS a protected characteristic in law, and we ARE allowed to talk about it.

But there is a fourth group in play and, if you’re going to pick a side to be *against*, perhaps this is the one to choose?

The troublemakers

As well as the parents and allies of dysphoric children, who are probably several thousand in number, there are some thousands of ‘gender radicals’, mostly university students, who are doing what the rowdier students of every generation do – they have found a cause that gets them attention, and they are applying their energy to ‘the gender wars’.  These two groups together constitute ‘transactivism’. Some thousands, in a nation of seventy million people – a very, very small portion of the population. They are informed and inflamed by mature (as in not young) members of LGBT organisations that are really US-inspired corporate lobbying groups. Throw in the mainstream media’s addiction to stoking any wars they can find, and you have what APPEARS to be a vast movement in favour of self-ID and the forced acceptance of ‘gender identity’ as more important than sex, a movement committed to silencing and ‘cancelling’ what they claim are tribes of dangerous, hate-mongering women.

Trans activists are not really a vast army, nor do trans people necessarily agree with them. My own friends who are trans are furious with them for allowing their actions to be seen as a war between women and transwomen. As to ‘haters’ and ‘dangerous’ people, I suggest it is some group other than women where you should be looking.

The majority of those now trying to stop the women are political and charity organisations that fear getting caught in the battle, lefty groups who fear being disrupted by angry women, and police forces who are still trying to follow Stonewall’s former instructions (those instructions they gave when they were cheerfully breaking the law, before it was brought to their attention that lesbians are members of that alleged ‘LGBTQ+ community’, and are also women, and that women and girls have rights – such as the right to privacy and dignity, and to talk about their own situations.)

And then there are the misogynists who have decided that any women who talks about her rights now must be a radical feminist, and that radical feminists should be told to shut up.

To them above all, I say: you cannot stop the women. All you can do is make their lives more difficult, and make yourself look very stupid in the process. You will at the very least get your ears bent by a lot of very angry women if you try to tell them it doesn’t matter, and they should be quiet.

To those three groups of women, with passionately opposed views, I say – look carefully. If the people you oppose really are trying to defend the youngsters, they are not the enemy. Agree to disagree, and focus on the real enemies – the lobby groups and organisations who happily back policies that harm women and children, and the misogynists who are just along for the ride – better still, disregard all of them, and get on with making your case legally and politically, and discussing the issues – with anyone and everyone, until everyone gets that this is the terrible transphobic idea that transactivists are complaining about, this is what they call ‘hate’ and ‘violence’ and ‘transphobia’. It is also the soul and centre of almost everyone’s opinion on sex and gender…

So really, most of us broadly agree. Like some other big stories in the news at the moment, I suggest to you the ‘wars’ are started not by any of the camps you see, but by corporate trouble-makers who feed on the prejudices and fears of our society, so let’s not ‘pick a side’, let’s gather in solidarity, and disarm the lobbyists by demanding truth, debate and fair play.

( *Re the G-police in the title of this blog: All kinds of things start with a ‘G’. Gender, for example, and Gwent. There’s also at least one in LGBTQ+ Take your pick )

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