I'm grateful to have freedom of speech in the UK - but gender activists are threatening it

More seriously, I’m grateful to live in a country that at least pays lip service to the idea of freedom of speech and assembly. Due to knowing women worldwide who don’t have either, I make the most of it.

Unfortunately, the past decade has seen mass indulgence of a group – gender-identity activists – who’d like nothing better than to rob women of their rights, starting with those (speech, assembly) required by women to discuss or advocate for their other ones. These activists have enjoyed enormous backing from police, Parliament – and, often – the judiciary.

This past weekend, at the international feminist conference FiLiA in Brighton, a small-but-loud group of activists aggressively protested the approximately 2,400 women attendees, vandalising the building, amongst other tantrums. I’ve been to two FiLiA events; difficult, robust, but ultimately inspiring weekends of discussion about women battling male violence globally, while meeting like-minded others for the ‘sisterhood and solidarity’ that is the organisation’s tagline.

The behaviour of the Brighton activists follows a smaller protest at Glasgow’s FiLiA in October 2023. Tom Harlow, who goes by ‘Cabaret Against the Hate Speech’, and trans-identifying Scottish Greens councillor Elaine Gallagher were in attendance at the protest, where other activists chanted "f*** you” at women entering the venue Platform.

Though Harlow is an irritant, and Gallagher wasn’t vandalising or throwing punches, aggressively berating women meeting to discuss male violence is hardly a great demonstration of the Nolan principles expected of those in public office.

Though I couldn’t attend FiLiA in person this year, my social media feed filled with clips of activists blaring sirens, shouting in attendees faces, while brandishing placards demanding they “F*** Off”.

Helen Donaldson of the Scottish Feminist Network told me getting past them was so frightening she shook uncontrollably long afterwards. The noisy intimidation is bad enough, but other pro-trans ‘protestors’ have been known to become violent.

A trans-activist group called ‘Bash Back’ is behind this weekend’s attacks. Their aggression started on Friday, smashing the venue’s windows and daubing graffiti on its entrance. One slogan read ‘Feminism is the refusal to define a woman’. For trans-activists, the definition of a woman as ‘adult human female’ must be broken as aggressively as the panes of glass of the conference centre. Up is down, some males are female, ‘feminism’ means men verbally abusing women in public.

Contrary to male-centred trans-activist ignorance, women had quite enough to be getting on with before they came along roughly two decades ago, demanding our rights, steadily persuading the entire culture that’s justifiable, and setting about getting women sacked, ostracised, and threatened for daring to oppose them.

Among other topics, FiLiA’s sessions covered domestic violence, refugee rights, pornography and blasphemy laws. Trans women aren’t considered women by, I’d wager, a majority of FiLiA’s attendees. But, first: they’re not, and second: who cares?

Trans-identifying males have full protection against discrimination in UK law, which does NOT include an unfettered right to women’s spaces and services. We’re constantly told they ‘just’ want to live peaceably. It’s time to demonstrate that, rather than the worst male entitlement.

“Events that inflame division and create tension should be guarded against,” local Green MP Sian Berry tweeted, in response to the aggression in her city. “The choice of Brighton was clearly provocative from organisers and the problems caused predictable.”

Feminist author and FiLiA speaker Victoria Smith unpacked this twisted narrative: "Women, always remember that men who hurt you must be really, really upset! What have you done to upset them? The more they do to you, the worse you must have been!"

She added, “This is a standard attitude towards domestic abuse and it's really distressing to see it repeated by politicians.”

Meanwhile, though standing by FiLiA’s venue-hire, the Brighton Centre said they “understand the anxiety and stress” of trans residents. This pandering is commonplace during the ‘gender wars’. As Bash Back have shown, it won’t stop them punching your windows in.

The group has since released a statement vowing, in psychotic caps lock: “WE ARE NOT FINISHED. OUR TARGETS HAVE BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS.”

Are political parties ever going to demonstrate leadership and oppose this? The Greens – both UK and Scottish - certainly aren’t.

Maggie Chapman MSP attended a protest this year where author JK Rowling was defamed by trans-activists, including one – a former Scottish Green election candidate - who said he wanted to "take a shite on” the “heinous, creepy auld b***h.’ Be kind, folks. These guys are ‘vulnerable and marginalised’ apparently.

This is a hideous backlash against women. The genderists’ push for self-ID, embraced by – we’re constantly reminded – representatives from all parties in Scotland, was like watching a slow-motion legislative car crash, then being told the subsequent wreckage is women’s fault for noticing it.

April’s Supreme Court judgment that women are ‘biological females’ in UK law should’ve stopped this. Instead, it’s stoked the male fury that has always underpinned trans-activism.

To continue keeping the existential crises at bay, I also practice gratitude I live on ‘TERF Island’, where, contrary to elsewhere, women’s rights are legally protected.

The terrorising genderists must cease. They need – and I say this with all the compassion I can muster – assistance to face reality. Continued indulgence is insanity.

The Supreme Court has ruled – men can’t have women’s rights. That’d mean women wouldn’t have any. That’s not happening.

Let’s not forget, trans-identifying men have their own legally-underpinned rights. That this isn’t enough speaks volumes.