A dogged insistence on a right to believe in the immutability of biological sex – thereby denying the validity of trans people’s lives – is not a position welcomed by all feminists (The law is now clear: you can’t be punished for having gender-critical views. So why does it keep happening?, 26 January). It comes uncomfortably close to the very biological determinism against which women’s liberationists first arose in opposition. We identified that a patriarchal system classified and subjugated us on the basis of female biology; does this mean, however, that we must embrace such categorisation?
The misnomer “gender‑critical feminism” is in any case a tautology: all feminism stems essentially from critiques of gender and how it is constructed and deployed to oppress. Susanna Rustin states that the women involved in recent employment tribunals were “targeted” simply for their belief, but these have serious real-world effects on real lives. It is hard to fathom why expressing views denying other people’s reality should be legally protected.
