Witch hunts have long tormented Scotland. Thousands of women were tortured and executed there in the early-modern era, for the opaque crime of “witchcraft”. Over the past five years, a similarly senseless, though slightly less violent, campaign has been waged against feminists who reject gender ideology. But this time, the women fought back.
The 21st-century battle began in 2019, as Scotland was on the verge of introducing a law that would allow men to self-identify as women. That same year, Katie Dolatowski, a six-foot-five transgender paedophile, was convicted of sexual offences against two girls aged 10 and 12 in a women’s toilets in Fife. Dolatowski, born male but identifying as female, was placed in a women-only hostel, putting vulnerable women at risk. Despite this, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the self-professed “feminist to my fingertips”, forged ahead with self-ID legislation that most of Scotland either didn’t understand or didn’t want. Dolatowski, meanwhile, praised her for being a “great first minister”.
Around the same time, a new hashtag was born: #WomenWontWheesht. It was coined by a mother worried that her disabled daughter, given the proposed legislation, might be given intimate care by a male carer. In response to her voicing such concerns, she was accused of being a pearl-clutching transphobe. Her worries for her daughter’s dignity and safety were effectively deemed not inclusive enough of the sensitivities of adult men. And she was told to “weesht”. As a result, the hashtag became a battle cry: the symbol of the feminist resistance to being silenced. And this week, their book was published. The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht tells the stories of the individual women who fought to protect women’s sex-based rights, with testimonies from an SNP MP, a prison governor and J.K. Rowling.
As the book details, Mumsnet was an unlikely forum in which women would organise. In response to Swim England’s new guidance, released in 2018, Mumsnetters organised “Man Friday” events, in which they self-identified as men and rocked up to men-only swimming sessions bare-breasted and sometimes even sporting fake moustaches. Within two weeks, the new guidance had been withdrawn. Such demonstrations were akin to the Reclaim the Night marches, Greenham Common and the Lesbian and Gay Liberation Movement, marking a return to grassroots feminism. This was an antidote to the horrors being visited on women under the cloak of transgender rights.
Yet such movements were often hindered by financial constraints. The pro-gender ideology organisations were often funded by the Scottish government, while the women resisting did so on a shoestring. Women had to resort to shaking tins asking for donations to pay the lawyers, and crowd-funders were plastered all over social media. In the time-honoured tradition of feminist activism, this work was unpaid.
Female campaigners during this period faced appalling abuse. In 2018, the then-newly appointed rector at the University of Edinburgh, Ann Henderson, was plagued by baseless and vexatious complaints supported by the University and College Union. In the new book, she reflects on her experience: “Lesbian staff members felt excluded from networks. Women-only events were increasingly difficult even impossible — to arrange, and women were concerned about losing their female private facilities.”
Then, in June 2019, I spoke at Edinburgh University about the feminist campaign to end men’s violence towards women. As I was leaving the venue, I was attacked by a six-foot male transactivist, who was shouting that I was a “cunt” and responsible for the suicide of several trans people. The next day, Scottish Green MSP Andy Wightman caved into pressure from his party and apologised for attending the event.
That same month, poet Jenny Lindsay took to Twitter to complain about an article published in an arts publication, the Skinny, which advocated for violence against lesbian activists at Pride. The backlash was abhorrent — one friend turned against her, writing an “Open Letter on Transphobia” that more than 250 people signed. Lindsay recalls: “Every name I recognised was an emotional stabbing.”
A major boost to the feminist campaign came at the end of 2019, when J.K. Rowling publicly expressed support for Maya Forstater, who had lost her job after tweeting gender-critical views. Rowling recalls: “I’d watched in silence as girls and women with everything to lose had stood up in the face of a modern-day witch hunt, braving threats and intimidation, not only from activists in black balaclavas holding placards promising to beat and murder them, but from institutions and employers telling them they must accept and espouse an ideology in which they don’t believe, and surrender their rights.”
But even she couldn’t make the world see reason. Rowling was cancelled, as were all her supporters. After expressing her admiration for Rowling on Twitter, Young Adult author Gillian Philip was cast out of publishing circles and has since retrained as an HGV driver. She says: “I’m a great believer in fantasy fiction for children, but I draw the line at telling them it’s reality — especially when it threatens to do them actual physical harm.”
Together, these women who wouldn’t wheesht contributed to the downfall of Nicola Sturgeon. In early January 2023, the UK government prevented Sturgeon’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill from becoming law, arguing that it illegally impacted the Equality Act. Days later, Adam Graham (also known as Isla Bryson) was convicted of two counts of rape, both of which he committed before he decided he was a woman. Graham was sent to a women’s prison: a photograph emerged of him wearing a blonde wig and tight leggings — his male genitals clearly visible. In a car crash of an interview, Sturgeon was grilled about whether Graham was a man or a woman. Just over two weeks later, she resigned, giving no reason.
It is not my style to be precious, but I found reading this book exceptionally hard in parts. It reminded me of the dozens of hellish scenarios I have had to endure in the 20 years since I first spoke out against gender ideology. The memories of the physical attacks and threats, the humiliation of being de-platformed, the betrayals by women I had thought were committed feminists.
But the book also reminded me of the enduring strength of the feminist movement. Despite facing the worst men’s rights backlash in more than 40 years, feminists from all generations are uniting to fight back. This is a story of a war, written while the bombs are still exploding. But it’s also the story of the resistance — and it isn’t over yet.
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Source: UnHerd Read the original article here: https://unherd.com/