***Guest post by Paula Boulton***

Over to you now men! We women are exhausted. We’re handing over the baton to you.  Here’s to broadening the bandwidth of manhood to include those who present as female. After all, they are your brothers and fathers and sons and uncles too!

And can we now acknowledge that those of us who have put immense effort into simply asking for a proper impact assessment of self ID, had genuine and reasonable concerns?

Then let’s resume the social contract that had been established in the ‘80s when I negotiated a newly-built women’s refuge in my hometown of Corby, and as did many others elsewhere, set up a Women’s Centre.

 “Women-only” was, and is a necessary, perfectly lawful and widely understood concept. Necessary for dignity, privacy, fairness and safety.

For Lesbians and Gay Men the right to gather in exclusively same-sex spaces is existential. With the reaffirmation of the biological basis of sex, sexual orientation once again makes sense. We can hold Lesbian-only events and can emerge from the tightly guarded underground where we have been operating in secret to avoid those who were intent on breaching our boundaries.

Ten years wasted when proper solutions could have been found.

And finally — I was part of the Lesbian Intervention in the Supreme Court case. Our input helped to clarify the absurd and unintended consequences of certificated sex.

To those propagating the lie that trans people’s voices were not heard, and intent on putting forward a challenge; the Scottish Government, the EHRC and Amnesty International, three massive statutory well-funded specialist organizations were the Goliath in this case. They left no stone unturned in their compelling legal arguments on behalf of Gender Reassignment and certificated sex.

We were the David in this. Three very small Lesbian organisations -Scottish Lesbians, the Lesbian Project and the LGB Alliance – were the Lesbian Interveners, and Sex Matters articulated aspects of the case in support of the grassroots women’s organisation For Women Scotland.

This was not an ideological battle. It was purely about legal interplay between existing legislation and what the intentions of the law had been when the acts governing sex discrimination, equal pay, gender recognition and equalities came into force.

It was hard work, detailed work, painstakingly boring headache-causing work. 

Eminent legal brains cross-examined and argued eloquently back in November for days. Then 5 judges took 5 months to consider all the arguments.

In conclusion the judge delivering the 88-page decision, was very clear… this is not a win for either side! The law can only work if it is applied as intended with the biological meaning of Sex.

So I say to those who have accepted the hyperbole surrounding this being a deliberate and right-wing-funded attempt to remove rights – let’s all get on board with making the law work.

Yes I understand you are angry. Be angry!

Be angry at Stonewall who misled you about the law and imposed No Debate.

Be angry at the big pharma-funded voices and organisations like WPATH, lobbying for double the profits by lowering the age of consent for puberty blockers from 16 to 9!

Be angry at GIDS who presided over the homophobic insistence that confused 12- to 13-year-old-girls with ROGD seeing a way to escape hyper-sexualization and misogyny by declaring that they wanted out of womanhood, were put on a medical pathway after a one-hour consultation.

Be angry at Mermaids for falsely propagating the lie of being able to choose sex, and the false suicide statistics leading to the homophobic notion of “better a daughter than a dead gay son”.

Be angry at the violent, misogynistic, entitled, woke-warriors, those “angry young men without a cause” claiming to have your interests at heart by donning balaclavas and adopting militant behaviour to resist us so-called “Nazi TERFS”, who have lost you public support with their aggressive off-the-wall tactics.

Be angry at cowardly politicians who did not have the balls to simply say “we know what a woman is and we know solutions need to be found that preserve everyone’s dignity.”.

Be angry at a cowardly and complicit media who have failed to provide balanced coverage of this issue.

Stop being angry at the army of us who held the line! Largely left-leaning women, with the Lesbian canaries at the front, without funding, who have been attacked, reviled, sacked, spurned, scorned and threatened. And in Posie Parker’s case – almost killed.

Behind the well-known celebrities who have lent their names and platforms to this fight, there are countless unsung heroines. You will find them sitting next to you on the sofa, serving you in a café, teaching your children, resilient and determined, unassuming and unafraid. Telling it like it is. The emperor is naked, and he needs to cover up.

So — enough now. Let’s get on with a peaceful co-existence.