Hounded, by Jenny Lindsay review: 'brave and important'

This book is not her story, although she does refer to her own experiences; it is a passionate but clear-eyed reflection on what has happened to “countless” others - mostly women, mostly feminists - who have taken a stand on issues around gender self-ID, among them JK Rowling, Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, academic Kathleen Stock, politician Joanna Cherry and novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

The behaviour to which they have been subjected has been, she writes, “extreme, hostile and undemocratic, and [has] caused a considerable amount of unjustifiable ongoing harm”. This much, at least, seems indisputable: death threats, rape threats and high profile sackings are all publicly documented. The more difficult question is why. Why has gender identity activism become so bitter, aggressive and powerful? Why has its ideology been espoused so quickly and uncritically, even at the highest levels?

While Lindsay makes no secret of her own views, she tries hard to be calm and measured, emphasising that she does not oppose the rights of trans people. However, the two sides in the debate are opposed on the deepest level of core beliefs. The tenets on which feminism has fought its battles for decades - that women are a distinct category of human being with specific rights and needs, and the right to campaign for them - is directly challenged by the beliefs of gender identity activists, and vice versa.

Aside from the issues themselves, what seems to offend her most is the quality of debate on the subject. The language used by gender identity activists, she argues, is aggressive, emotive and often bears little indication that they have read or understood the ideas of those against whom they are protesting.

Meanwhile, their ideas have been adopted widely and unquestioningly by businesses, arts organisations and even governments. Nicola Sturgeon’s passionate support for self-ID legislation in Scotland, as a way, Lindsay suggests, to prove the SNP’s “young” and “progressive” credentials, created a situation in which legislators prioritised “keeping gender identity activists happy” rather than “having any critical curiosity about why all these new ideas were mainstreaming and whether or not that was an entirely good thing.” This left little room for public debate, pushing it into the toxic realm of social media.

This is a brave and important book. One has to hope - even if it feels like a vain hope - that it will do more than reignite the flames of toxic backlash and begin to provoke a calm and reasoned discussion on something which, as Lindsay points out, affects all of us.

Hounded: Women, Harms and the Gender Wars, by Jenny Lindsay, Polity, £14.99