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It’s a relief that Police Scotland are not dealing with JK Rowling’s tweets calling trans men criminals. Like her, I am not afraid of being considered critical when it comes to gender. I have no fear of using the correct term for a man who likes to think he is a woman.
He’s a biological male. He may wear dresses and makeup, he may have had surgery on his genitals and taken hormones to make his breasts bigger, but as far as I’m concerned, he can’t change his biological sex.
But if saying that out loud were to break the Scottish Government’s new hate crime law, then I and many others like me would just say: “Arrest us!” Fill Scottish prisons with a bunch of very angry women. (Don’t entertain us with male sex offenders posing as women.)
I first discovered the bigotry of the trans lobby when I interviewed India Willoughby – Britain’s first transgender reader and key opponent of JK Rowling – on Woman’s Hour in late 2016.
JK Rowling’s tweets calling trans women men are not being treated like criminals by Scottish police
My conversation with the trans activist made me wonder what was going on.
I discovered that the movement was gaining strength through the Stonewall organization. It seemed to me that, having done its admirable work on behalf of gay men and women, Stonewall needed a new campaign to keep the money flowing. The trans lobby has more than filled the void.
Businesses and government departments, even the NHS, have paid for advice to appear to have opened their arms to the trans community. Breastfeeding should now be “breastfeeding”. The mother and father should be replaced by the parents and those in labor should be called “birthers”.
It was this senseless and insulting destruction of the English language that irritated me more than anything. I was a woman who had given birth to a child and become a mother who breastfed him. I would not use ridiculous terms that refused to acknowledge the reality of who I was.
How, I wondered, could such things be taken seriously? How could someone who had the privilege of growing up as a boy describe herself as a real woman? As far as I was concerned, his male penis would always pass through every part of his body, no matter how much he wanted to be a woman.
Three months after my interview with India, I wrote an article sharing my views. I was careful to show sympathy towards those who had made the sometimes painful choice to change their sex.
I was less patient with the absurd claims that children who did not conform to rigid gender stereotypes were “born in the wrong body” – claims that would see children at the Tavistock gender identity clinic demanding puberty blockers and “sex change” hormones. It is only now that we are beginning to understand the extent of the damage caused to children who have suffered such treatment.
Earlier this month, leaked messages from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) showed that privately, professionals knew patients were sometimes too young or mentally ill to fully understand the consequences of their treatment – that the drugs they were taking could rob them. of their fertility – and therefore could not give fully informed consent.
Some posts from WPATH members, including surgeons and therapists, demonstrate a worryingly cavalier attitude toward patient safety. And yet such a prestigious organization has helped shape NHS policies. In my article, I implored the trans community to understand how hard women had fought for some semblance of equality. I asked them to learn more about feminism and sexual politics. I told them not to call themselves women, but to clarify that they were trans women.
My calls were ignored, not only by trans women, but also by institutions, notably the police, who began to distort crime figures by referring to violent crimes as being committed by women. No! They were committed by trans women, in other words by biological men.
Following my article, India Willoughby tried to have me canceled, just as India has since tried to do with JK Rowling, begging the BBC to fire me.
I wasn’t made redundant, but it was the BBC’s enthusiastic response to a Woman’s Hour presenter who spoke out on such an important issue for women that led me to decide I couldn’t continue to work there.
It became clear that I would not be allowed to discuss the trans issue. Staff were asked to put pronouns on emails; Stonewall was paid for his advice. I was criticized for my lack of impartiality, while the entire organization had fallen under the spell of the trans lobby. I stopped.
So to the Scottish Police, I say this: it is abhorrent that aggressive crowds block the entrance to women’s meetings. It is abhorrent that a woman who speaks openly is threatened with violence. I’ve had a lot of them. It is not hateful for a woman to tell the truth about biological sex and call a trans woman a biological man.
It’s time the police recognized what constitutes a fair comment. And focus their efforts on solving burglaries, car thefts and that other common but overlooked crime: violence against women.
A bit old for rabbit ears, eh Becks…
The Beckhams make the most of the Easter holiday on their £16million yacht
It was Easter on the water For the Beckhams in their £16million yacht. It appears Victoria and her daughter-in-law Nicola have reconciled after rumors of a row over a wedding dress. But honestly, aren’t they all a little old for rabbit ears?
Lucky to have survived my stays at A&E
Why is it that more than 250 people die needlessly every week because they had to wait too long in emergency rooms? I’ve had more than my fair share of dealings with hospitals in recent months. As I discovered, you can wait eight hours – or much longer – to see the first doctor.
This happened to me when I had a seriously infected wound on my foot. It took me a few more hours after that first visit before I saw the consultant – who told me I needed to be admitted and that I was at risk of sepsis and the loss of my foot. Several more hours were waited until a bed was available.
Similarly, when I had pneumonia, it took 24 hours before a bed was ready. There are too many patients, not enough doctors and not enough beds.
I feel lucky to be alive.
How did Emily get a dog into the BBC?
Emily Maitlis presents on Newsnight with her whippet as seen in new Netflix film Scoop
How did Emily Maitlis persuade the BBC to let her whippet accompany her to Broadcasting House to keep her company on Newsnight – as shown in new Netflix film Scoop? My chihuahuas, Butch and Freda, were allowed once, but proved so distracting to the attentive staff that they were banned!
Nationalize our precious water
Looking at my sodden garden in the rain – again – I read that there would be a ban on garden hoses in the summer. What? It is time to nationalize the water industry, stop leaks and pollution of rivers and seas. Water is too valuable a commodity to exist for shareholder profits.
It’s a culinary crime: vegan scones at the National Trust. What is a baked scone without butter? It’s a rock cake and it won’t do the job!