If someone had said to me a few years ago that one of the most controversial subjects I’d ever write on would be women’s freedom to assert their rights to single-sex spaces, services and sports, I’d have thought they were crazy. I wouldn’t have believed that in a mature democracy people would lose livelihoods, be kicked off degrees or be issued with unlawful police warnings after expressing the belief that sex remains materially relevant in society, a moderate and widely shared view that remains the current legal position in the UK. But the bullying tactics of campaigners who believe that the gender with which someone identifies should, without exception, override their sex, plus the lack of leadership across many big institutions, means this is where we have ended up.
The latest entry in the so-mad-you’d-barely-believe-it column is the unsuccessful attempt by the trans charity Mermaids to get LGB Alliance stripped of its charitable status, in a legal fight that has gone on for years and cost both sides hundreds of thousands of pounds. They have opposing views on sex and gender, and what constitutes appropriate healthcare for children questioning their gender.
