The temper tantrums and threats of violence displayed at yesterday’s pro-trans demonstration in London were vile, though hardly unusual. They have happened before on numerous occasions, pretty much every time women have tried to meet, talk about their rights, demonstrate for them or even view a film about them. But the shocked response by various organisations, the statements by some that they will ignore the judgment and the law, the attempts by others to say that the Supreme Court itself is illegitimate because it expressed a view on the law that the demonstrators did not like, the silence of many politicians and statements by others of disagreement suggest something else.
I think it is this. Many of those expressing shock likely did not realise – or fully appreciate – that, before the Supreme Court, the Scottish Government stated expressly that TW were not women, unless they had a GRC. It was agreed by all parties that the legal issue was about TW who did have a GRC. I suspect that many politicians, union leaders, senior corporate officials and politicians did not realise this. Or, if they did, they thought – or hoped – that if FWS lost, the distinction between those with a GRC and those without would, in practice, disappear as impractical to enforce. And so they would get by the back door what has been wanted all along: self-ID and the effective disappearance of single sex spaces, associations and services for women.
It is worth reminding everyone at this point that Stonewall started campaigning for the removal of all single sex exemptions in the Equality Act in 2015. This has never been about giving access to only a few types of men (TW). It has always been about giving all men access to women – their spaces, their services, their associations – and control over their very sense of self, of security, privacy and dignity. The Supreme Court’s judgment has now stopped that in its tracks.
Hence the fury. The effect of the judgment is that:
- No type of man (no matter how loudly he proclaims himself a TW) is a woman.
- A GRC is not an “open sesame” ticket allowing men to invade women’s spaces.
- Effective self-ID cannot be introduced or spread on the sly in the way the Scottish government has done. The deception inherent in the Scottish Government’s approach has been exposed. The Supreme Court has stated that a GRC has no effect on the Equality Act. That is precisely what the Scottish government argued in Holyrood when it was passing the Gender Recognition Reform law. It is precisely what it argued before the Scottish courts in response to the Section 35 Order preventing its enactment into law. The fact that it then argued the opposite before the Supreme Court rather shows that its earlier arguments were no more than a “bait and switch” tactic of a type used by fraudsters since time immemorial.
- Worse, the implementation of the belief that self-identified “gender” trumps sex, will have to be rolled back. Policies and practices will need to be changed. Compensation may become payable. Company directors – normally only interested in HR when it comes to their pay packages and redundancy programmes for their employees – will have to consider the financial and reputational risk of failing to comply with the law and allying themselves with single-issue lobby groups which have, for a doubtless large fee, misled them about the law. Some will have to learn that “going beyond the law” often means “breaking the law“. Others will have to develop the courage to face down bullies, whether from outside or in internal staff networks. (Courage is not a notable feature of senior leaders or Boards.)
- It will be hard for people to admit they have been wrong. Not so much wrong about the law. That happens. But wrong to listen to lobby groups rather than to experienced knowledgeable equality lawyers, wrong to create conflicts of interest, wrong to pay money to those did not have the organisation’s best interests at heart or any legal or fiduciary duty to them, wrong to ignore the interests of their female staff, wrong to attack whistleblowers and those raising concerns, wrong to embark on pointless and expensive litigation, and so on. It is hard for people to admit they have been wrong. Even harder to admit they have been fooled.
- Many will – or should – worry at the legal and financial consequences of admitting error or, conversely, rushing out statements advertising their intention to defy the law. And some will double down in the hope that they can deter anyone seeking to enforce their rights, regardless of what the law says. (This last is the Post Office option 2001 – 2021.) So much easier to attack those who have challenged, those who turned out to be right, those pesky women.
Little wonder the response has been so furious, so inept and so self-defeating. But there is something very dark in it too. On top of the misogyny inherent in any belief system which thinks men know best what women are, there has also been the misogyny and hatred displayed in the viciousness of the attacks on women: the references to “witch-burning“, to TERFS being better off dead, the drawings of nooses, the demands to “shit” on women’s heads. If this were not enough, women have then been blamed for those attacks, the “look what you me made me do” claim of abusers everywhere. It is Triple “A” misogyny.
So I have set out below an extract from an article I wrote in April 2023 (which can be found here) about this debate in 2023 – when the focus was on Scotland’s self-ID Bill. The arguments are the same: the nature of this movement, the determination to exercise power over women, why this matters to women.
The fight goes on.
A new religion?
The desire for a belief system providing simple answers and clear moral certainties is eternal. GK Chesterton put it well when he said —
“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”
That impulse is a strong one, even in people and societies considering themselves secular and irreligious.
Believing that a man can turn into a woman simply by saying so (self-ID) has many of the elements of a quasi-religious belief system:
· Belief is what matters not evidence, however scientific or strong.
· The desire and willingness to reorder society or an important part of it on radically different lines.
· It is Manichaean: the believers, the good guys, and those who don’t, the bad guys and can be called names (TERFS as the new heretics).
· It is, much like all religions, very binary. The irony of a belief system apparently rooted in a love of diversity unable to accept the richness of human experience but determined to force transmen and transwomen into pre-existing categories is delicious.
· Much like religion, it hates such ironies being pointed out or being laughed at.
· The simple unchallengeable catechism: to be chanted but never explained. “Trans rights are human rights”, for instance. Yes, they are. One can equally say “Men’s rights are human rights”. Or — more daringly — “Women’s rights are human rights”.
So what. The questions are what are those rights? And how are they to be balanced against others’ rights.
An even more challenging question might be: are all demands rights? The unspoken assumption behind this catechism is that everything that is wanted (at least by this group) is a human right. This is an assumption which needs unpicking and more consideration than it is given. The apparent simplicity of the language, couched as it is as something self-evidently good, is designed both to obscure this and make any challenge difficult, wicked even.
· So it is with the other half of the catechism: “Transwomen are women”. Transwomen are men who believe they ought to be women, that they are somehow in the wrong body and who want to live as if they were women. Or — to coin a phrase — “Transwomen are transwomen”. If this were how the issue was described, the debate would be very different. That it is not — through the deliberate choice of those promulgating the TWAW mantra — is key.
· The warm feeling of the self-righteous convinced they are right together with the sense of belonging, even the sense of persecution if someone dares disagree.
· The casting out of the heretics (being “cancelled”, even if sometimes overstated, is this century’s equivalent of Amish shunning).
· The manipulation of language and the way some things cannot be said because they cause, allegedly, hurt and offence. (Let’s leave aside for now the question of whether hurt and offence should be forbidden.) This is the new blasphemy, cloaked in the language of politeness. But “misgendering” is not just about simple politeness. It requires the speaker to accept the belief system of the person so described. It is like asking an atheist or a Jew to accept the tenets of Christianity in how he or she sees the world and describes their own experiences, including when it conflicts with the evidence of their own eyes. It is asking them to lie. This is about power. And about a lack of respect, contempt even, for those with different views.
· The use of violent language and, in some cases, justification of violence against unbelievers. This may not be by all those supporting self-ID but the fact that there is a sub-set of such supporters (usually male) willing to use violent language, threats and, on occasions, violent or threatening behaviour against women (mostly) should trouble the advocates of self-ID more than it appears to. Rather like other 20th century belief systems, an element of it is about violence and power and control. It is troubling that it may appeal because of these features, not in spite of them.
· The increasing focus on children and ensuring that both their understanding and their experiences are shoehorned into a very particular understanding of human development, to the detriment or exclusion of any other understanding, including those based on science. Affirmation as Confirmation. It is rather reminiscent of the Jesuit motto about being given a child until 7 and having them for life.
· There is even a priesthood of sorts. Established charities purporting to speak for all, granting blessings on those who follow the faith and indulgences, in return for cash, and increasingly intolerant of dissenters (see the Mermaids legal action against LGBA).
Who / Whom
It is a fight about power. The way the gender debate has been crafted seems designed to allow men to do what they have been doing for centuries: telling women who they are, how they should behave, what they can say and think. It allows them to exercise power over women in the most fundamental sense by saying that it is men — not women — who get to determine where the category of “woman” begins and ends and thereby what her physical boundaries can be. Self-ID — especially by a man as a woman — undermines (a) the idea that women and girls should have boundaries and decide for themselves what those are; and (b) the dictum — “No means No”.
But it is not just this. Men claiming to be women and thereby claiming access to women-only spaces pose a potential threat to women in the way that women claiming to be men and in men’s spaces do not. This is not just about definitions. It is about the use to which men’s greater physical power over women can be put, about the violence, often the sexual violence that frequently results from that.
TWaW or TWaTW
The fact that the debate centres around whether transwomen are women as opposed to how they can live as women is critical. If the issue were described as “TWaTW” it would become very much easier to think about what accommodations are needed — and by whom they should be made — to enable trans people to live full and fulfilled lives. What is interesting is why this has not been done, why the debate has not been about this but about (largely) the redefinition of “woman”. There is virtually no discussion about the redefinition of “man” to accommodate transmen. Nor any discussion about what accommodations men should make, whether for transmen or transwomen retaining male bodies (by all accounts the vast majority of them). That this is so is key to the way the debate has developed.
It avoids accepting — or even pointing out — that transwomen are men with male bodies who feel that they are women. It avoids considering the implications of transwomen having the male strength which male puberty gives them, something which cannot be undone no matter what changes are made to outward appearances (including surgical intervention). It avoids considering how such male bodied people might be accommodated in male spaces, in male sport, in male prisons, how men should seek to be inclusive, how transwomen can be protected from attack or violence from men and so on. Instead, the entirety of the debate is about what women should be forced to do and accept, how women must be inclusive and be made to be so, if they disagree. Attempts to exclude for good reasons — safeguarding — are described and dismissed as middle-class gatekeeping by a Scottish legislator. [1] It feels as if, at least for some, the whole point of the debate is to give men another excuse to control and bully women.
Can words hurt?
Look too at the offensive and abusive language which is often used against women who object or raise concerns: “bigots”, “TERFS”, “hate groups, “transphobia” (if you dare talk about women’s rights)and the threats of sexual or other violence. Vitriolic language is sometimes used by people on all sides of the debate. But there is something particularly threatening when men use violent language against women. They can — and have the power to — follow up on such threats. And often do. It is one reason why we have become more concerned about the use of such language and whether it is a sign of a propensity to commit domestic violence or abuse positions of power (see, the recent reports on misogyny within the police [2] and the recent convictions of two Metropolitan police officers for the use of such language about women, amongst others. [3]) (Vicious language used by women against men, while wholly wrong of course, does not usually or routinely have the same implications or create the same fears for men.) Violent language, threats of violence are used both to stop challenge and to punish those who dare to speak out.
Is it even a debate?
One consequence of the self-ID movement being a belief system based solely on a person’s feelings is that it makes it very hard to argue against it. Women’s groups marshal arguments, evidence and explanations of the legal consequences and it is all for naught. But as the late Christopher Hitchens put it:
“You cannot reason a man out of what he hasn’t reasoned himself into.”
It is no coincidence that it is to the law courts opponents have gone and that it is there that they have had some measure of success. [4] There arguments, reasoning and evidence matter. Beliefs do not. Or — rather — they are the start of the argument. Not the end of it.
The search for power and for power over others is at the heart of all politics and all conflict. It is often brutal and visceral and zero sum. That is why the combination of the language used and how the issue is described together with the imbalance in power between men and women make this such a difficult issue.
Why does it matter?
This is why it matters so much to many women. Why it matters to me. This strikes at the heart of who we are, who we can say we are and how we can live our lives. It goes to the very core of our identity. It goes to the heart of mine.
The language and structure of religion is very very familiar to me. The way it is used to support a world which limits a women’s ambitions is the world my parents grew up in and to an extent sought to escape from. I grew up in its shadow. I was given the tools, education and confidence to escape from it and do and be whatever I wanted. But I have also endured the sexual violence which men so often visit on women. When I was younger I was raped. I have not let it affect my life. Like many I did not report it. I could not bear to cause my family pain. I felt humiliated. I felt ashamed that I had allowed it to happen. I put it away in a box marked “unwanted memories”. It is not the only sexual assault I have had to endure — from groping to lewd language and indecent exposure. There is nothing special about this. Every woman I know has a similar story.
It is easy to say that identity and the risks of sexual violence are luxuries or unimportant, when so many are wondering how to feed / heat and house themselves. The accusation of triviality (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is sometimes quoted) is a bit rich coming from political parties and lobby groups who have seemingly made this a legislative priority. It is apparently so vitally important that it must be pushed through at breakneck speed with little scrutiny but utterly unimportant when women want to talk about it.
But this ignores something fundamental. It was Paddy Ashdown, when High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina following the civil war, who pointed out that before the establishment of any democratic or other civil institutions, there needed first to be order and stability. Only then could the rest flourish.
A person’s identity and security in that identity are a bit like the order which a society needs before it can develop. They are essential to living any sort of good life. It is what growing up means — developing that identity and being comfortable in it, having it respected and understood by others and having the strength and resilience to deal with those seeking to undermine or harm it. Respect for women’s boundaries so that she is free to go about her life without having to worry about assault is essential. It is something men take for granted. Attacks on women’s identity, on what being a woman even means, on the very idea of boundaries undermine this. Women have had to fight so hard to be recognised as independent autonomous beings, to be able to act in ways men take for granted, to speak, to be listened to, to be seen as themselves not simply as the property of men or an adjunct to them or as those who are always expected to accommodate the wishes of others, to “be kind”, to be ‘inclusive”. And now we are being told that we are going to have to fight for this all over again because men, once again, are seeking to take away what is ours, what we have had to fight for — painfully — over decades.
