TODAY, women won.
To establish something everyone has known all along, and the great detriment of the years of activism, trial and error, torment and harassment many of us have faced for daring to demand women only spaces, and for refusing to accept that men can be legally considered to be a subset of women, as and when they fancy identifying as one.
I have had more than 20 years of hell from gender activists, since I dared to speak out about this in 2004.
But now, the highest court in the land has confirmed that a woman is a biological female, and that “certificated sex”, meaning a man with a gender recognition certificate, is not the same.
Men's rights activists tended to not go berserk at the time we were setting up women only spaces because of the threat and reality of violence and sexual harassment.
When we campaigned for single sex spaces such as hospital awards and prisons, it was understood why they were needed.
And when feminists set up rape crisis centres and domestic violence shelters to keep women and their children safe from deadly male violence, it was understood why we needed such provision.
Although some men became defensive when we said we could not share public bathrooms and changing rooms, with some telling us they felt labelled and assumed to be dangerous,in the main they understood that single sex provision was necessary because a sizeable minority of men pose a very real threat, and it's the fear for women and girls that means that we have to have our own protected spaces.
Trans activists have repeatedly accused feminists like me of being ‘transphobic' and bigoted when we say that we don't want men in our spaces.
Trans women ARE men, and the law has now, at last, clarified this.
