For Women Scotland - Respect!
Great article in the Sunday Times featuring Susan Smith, Marion Calder and Trina Budge - the driving force behind For Women Scotland (FWS) which is holding SNP ministers to account over their absurd support for self-ID and gender ideology.
Respect!
Meet the Scottish women taking the gender battle to Britain’s highest court
A campaign that began as meetings in pubs a few years ago will culminate this week in the country’s most senior judges being asked to decide what is a woman
The Supreme Court is being asked to rule on the legal definition of a woman
By Mike Wade - The Sunday Times
It’s a question that’s been haunting politicians for years, but thanks to a handful of women who first convened in an Edinburgh flat six years ago, the finest legal brains in Britain will begin this week to determine the burning issue of our times. M’luds and ladies of the Supreme Court please tell us, what is a woman?
The case has been brought by the campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) to the UK’s most powerful court and though it may seem bafflingly complex, in essence it is simple.
The women argue that while the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 may seek to ensure that equal numbers of men and women are included on boards, it has also been contrived by the Scottish government to enable trans women with gender recognition certificates — or “men” as these campaigners insist — to fill roles that should be reserved for biological women.
In doing so, they argue, the Scotland-specific act undermines the safeguards for women’s single-sex spaces and rights to association enshrined in the UK-wide Equality Act 2010.
While a final ruling is not expected until next year, it will make headlines around the world whatever the outcome.
“If the Supreme Court sides with us, that’s fine,” says Susan Smith of FWS. “If they don’t, it’s a headache for Westminster. If we lose, then it means that sex in the Equality Act isn’t really definable. It’s meaningless, essentially.”
Susan Smith, co-director of For Women Scotland, believes that accepting trans women as women goes against the Equality Act - Photo COLIN FISHER/ALAMY
FWS is one of a number of new feminist campaign groups that have evolved over the past few years.
Like Fair Play for Women and Transgender Trend south of the border, FWS came together in reaction to a perceived erosion of single-sex spaces by the expansion of trans rights, led from 2015 initially by Stonewall, the UK’s largest LGBTQ charity.
As debate intensified, some feminists were afraid to speak up on social media, recalls Marion Calder, one of FWS’s founders, for fear of being shouted down or barred from Twitter because of their “transphobic” views.
Marion Calder, co-founder of FWS, says that activists are attacked online for their views
- Photo COLIN FISHER/ALAMY
Not that FWS’s first members were shrinking violets. Magdalen Berns was a YouTuber whose caustic anti-Stonewall polemics highlighted to the absurdity of 40-something bearded trans-activists seeking to “widen the bandwidth of how to be a woman”.
Many other women kept their heads down and the Mumsnet platform became one of the few digital forums where they could express their views. “There was a febrile atmosphere online,” says Calder, who works in the NHS. “If people expressed a view, trans activists would come after them, women were afraid for their jobs.”
Offline, a kind of “underground” formed, women meeting in pubs one or twice or month, which was precisely how the original FWS members first met, Calder says. But within months of their group forming “to make the discussions public” Berns died of a brain tumour.
Smith, 52, who worked in finance, came on board through the Mumsnet connection, and together with Calder and Trina Budge, 53, from Caithness, the three women have kept the group at the forefront of policy debate.
Trina Budge, a co-director of FWS, has campaigned against the prescription of puberty blockers for teenagers and children
They appear to have a talent for garnering publicity. An early intervention was their support for the gender-critical activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull — better known online as Posy Parker — who paid for a digital poster reading “I heart JK Rowling” at Edinburgh’s Waverley station. Network Rail’s inevitable decision to remove the poster, because Rowling’s support for same-sex spaces meant some people might be offended, was widely derided.
FWS has since held well-attended demonstrations at Holyrood and organised press conferences to boost efforts to keep trans women out of female sport. MPs and MSPs have been lobbied continually, as constant campaigning and research has continued.
It has been demanding, not least, says Smith, because the pressure on women is particularly acute in Scotland, where trans rights lobbying organisations have been embedded in politics for more than a decade, acting as both policy advisers and cheerleaders.
The Equality Network, Stonewall Scotland and LGBT Youth Scotland are among six bodies that shared more than £3 million in Scottish government funding between 2021 and 2024 “to improve outcomes for LGBTQI+ communities”.
The poster in Edinburgh Waverley station that was removed by Network Rail - Photo TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JAMES GLOSSOP
Some individuals within such organisations have played key roles in the public sector for years, influencing policy in schools, higher education and workplace culture across the NHS and the civil service.
From 2014, in the aftermath of the independence referendum and the resignation of Alex Salmond as SNP leader, the influence of these groups grew, say Calder and Smith, and for that, they believe, Nicola Sturgeon, Salmond’s successor, bears a huge responsibility.
“When Sturgeon came in, she didn’t have her own natural constituency within the SNP, they were mainly [Salmond’s] people, but there was a group of young activists, and a lot of them were very heavily invested in this,” Smith says.
She points to remarks made by Sturgeon in Bute House, the first minister’s official residence, after she was told by the journalist Mandy Rhodes that “women are in a terrible place” from the “risks of self ID” . Sturgeon gave Rhodes a look “to shut down the conversation” and said: “Young people are really distressed… we need to do something about that.”
Smith adds: “I think Nicola just couldn’t back down.”
Activists protest at Holyrood against the Scottish government’s stance on gender identity - Photo IAIN MASTERTON/ALAMY
As the debate has intensified, so has its rancour. Stonewall’s emphasis on using a person’s “preferred pronouns” has drawn mocking attacks, not least from Rowling, who said on X: “I’ll happily do two years [in prison] if the alternative is compelled speech and forced denial of the reality and importance of sex.”
Other campaigners for same-sex spaces accept that pronouns can be a matter of courtesy towards transwomen. Smith says she too would have used someone’s preferred pronouns before the court case began.
“Written into the public boards act was this line about pronouns. I thought, hang on a second, if I was using [a preferred pronoun], then somebody could turn around and say, ‘You obviously accept that person’s a woman.’
“That doesn’t mean that I would set out deliberately to be rude and say to someone face to face, ‘You’re a man, you’re a man!’ But who uses pronouns when you’re talking to someone anyway?”
Their critics suggest they have big money backing from US religious zealots, though FWS’s Supreme Court crowdfunder suggests otherwise. The £197,000 raised for the court case was made up of contributions from 4023 donors.
As for the notion that groups such as FWS pander to right-wing politics, it’s nonsense, say Calder and Smith.
Joanna Cherry found herself ostracised from her party after speaking out about her gender critical views - Photo RICH DYSON/ALAMY
In Scotland, SNP politicians such as Joanna Cherry and Joan McAlpine were among the first to challenge Sturgeon’s new orthodoxy, with Labour politicians including Johann Lamont, the former Scottish party leader, quickly joining the fray.
There is a reason rightwingers such as Donald Trump have been able to seize on women’s safe spaces as an issue, suggests Calder. “It was an open goal for them,” she says. “The other side didn’t actually see it coming, because they were so blinkered, and no one was warning them that the general public are fed up of being told bonkers stuff about what to think.”
Smith agrees: “[Our critics] say look at who are your allies: ‘Trump agrees with you, Vladimir Putin agrees with you, Victor Orban too.’
“They probably also agree that you should wash your hands in water. It never felt to us as though this was ideologically aligned to anybody nasty. Those guys don’t care about women’s rights.”
Hilary Cass released her report on gender identity services for under-18s in April - Photo YUI MOK/PA
In Britain, FWS is hopeful the tide is turning. Hilary Cass’s review of gender identity services for children and young people in England, seemed a key moment. An eminent paediatrician, Cass concluded that an entire field of trans medicine had been “built on shaky foundations” and warned of the risks of an “affirming” approach to children suffering complex mental health problems.
Separately, some companies and government bodies — including the Scottish parliament — have ended their association with Stonewall’s Diversity Champions training scheme.
Some of issues remain worryingly deep-rooted, not least in higher education but, says Smith cautiously, “I think in the UK, things are moving.”
She adds: “It’s no good if you’ve just got extremes fighting, you’re never going to get anywhere. This is about being rational and having sensible conversations.” A judicious approach, perhaps, but it is for the judges to decide.
It’s a question that’s been haunting politicians for years, but thanks to a handful of women who first convened in an Edinburgh flat six years ago, the finest legal brains in Britain will begin this week to determine the burning issue of our times. M’luds and ladies of the Supreme Court please tell us, what is a woman?
The case has been brought by the campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) to the UK’s most powerful court and though it may seem bafflingly complex, in essence it is simple.
The women argue that while the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 may seek to ensure that equal numbers of men and women are included on boards, it has also been contrived by the Scottish government to enable trans women with gender recognition certificates — or “men” as these campaigners insist — to fill roles that should be reserved for biological women.
In doing so, they argue, the Scotland-specific act undermines the safeguards for women’s single-sex spaces and rights to association enshrined in the UK-wide Equality Act 2010.
While a final ruling is not expected until next year, it will make headlines around the world whatever the outcome.
“If the Supreme Court sides with us, that’s fine,” says Susan Smith of FWS. “If they don’t, it’s a headache for Westminster. If we lose, then it means that sex in the Equality Act isn’t really definable. It’s meaningless, essentially.”
Susan Smith, co-director of For Women Scotland, believes that accepting trans women as women goes against the Equality Act - Photo COLIN FISHER/ALAMY
FWS is one of a number of new feminist campaign groups that have evolved over the past few years.
Like Fair Play for Women and Transgender Trend south of the border, FWS came together in reaction to a perceived erosion of single-sex spaces by the expansion of trans rights, led from 2015 initially by Stonewall, the UK’s largest LGBTQ charity.
As debate intensified, some feminists were afraid to speak up on social media, recalls Marion Calder, one of FWS’s founders, for fear of being shouted down or barred from Twitter because of their “transphobic” views.
Marion Calder, co-founder of FWS, says that activists are attacked online for their views
- Photo COLIN FISHER/ALAMY
Not that FWS’s first members were shrinking violets. Magdalen Berns was a YouTuber whose caustic anti-Stonewall polemics highlighted to the absurdity of 40-something bearded trans-activists seeking to “widen the bandwidth of how to be a woman”.
Many other women kept their heads down and the Mumsnet platform became one of the few digital forums where they could express their views. “There was a febrile atmosphere online,” says Calder, who works in the NHS. “If people expressed a view, trans activists would come after them, women were afraid for their jobs.”
Offline, a kind of “underground” formed, women meeting in pubs one or twice or month, which was precisely how the original FWS members first met, Calder says. But within months of their group forming “to make the discussions public” Berns died of a brain tumour.
Smith, 52, who worked in finance, came on board through the Mumsnet connection, and together with Calder and Trina Budge, 53, from Caithness, the three women have kept the group at the forefront of policy debate.
Trina Budge, a co-director of FWS, has campaigned against the prescription of puberty blockers for teenagers and children
They appear to have a talent for garnering publicity. An early intervention was their support for the gender-critical activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull — better known online as Posy Parker — who paid for a digital poster reading “I heart JK Rowling” at Edinburgh’s Waverley station. Network Rail’s inevitable decision to remove the poster, because Rowling’s support for same-sex spaces meant some people might be offended, was widely derided.
FWS has since held well-attended demonstrations at Holyrood and organised press conferences to boost efforts to keep trans women out of female sport. MPs and MSPs have been lobbied continually, as constant campaigning and research has continued.
It has been demanding, not least, says Smith, because the pressure on women is particularly acute in Scotland, where trans rights lobbying organisations have been embedded in politics for more than a decade, acting as both policy advisers and cheerleaders.
The Equality Network, Stonewall Scotland and LGBT Youth Scotland are among six bodies that shared more than £3 million in Scottish government funding between 2021 and 2024 “to improve outcomes for LGBTQI+ communities”.
The poster in Edinburgh Waverley station that was removed by Network Rail - Photo TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JAMES GLOSSOP
Some individuals within such organisations have played key roles in the public sector for years, influencing policy in schools, higher education and workplace culture across the NHS and the civil service.
From 2014, in the aftermath of the independence referendum and the resignation of Alex Salmond as SNP leader, the influence of these groups grew, say Calder and Smith, and for that, they believe, Nicola Sturgeon, Salmond’s successor, bears a huge responsibility.
“When Sturgeon came in, she didn’t have her own natural constituency within the SNP, they were mainly [Salmond’s] people, but there was a group of young activists, and a lot of them were very heavily invested in this,” Smith says.
She points to remarks made by Sturgeon in Bute House, the first minister’s official residence, after she was told by the journalist Mandy Rhodes that “women are in a terrible place” from the “risks of self ID” . Sturgeon gave Rhodes a look “to shut down the conversation” and said: “Young people are really distressed… we need to do something about that.”
Smith adds: “I think Nicola just couldn’t back down.”
Activists protest at Holyrood against the Scottish government’s stance on gender identity - Photo IAIN MASTERTON/ALAMY
As the debate has intensified, so has its rancour. Stonewall’s emphasis on using a person’s “preferred pronouns” has drawn mocking attacks, not least from Rowling, who said on X: “I’ll happily do two years [in prison] if the alternative is compelled speech and forced denial of the reality and importance of sex.”
Other campaigners for same-sex spaces accept that pronouns can be a matter of courtesy towards transwomen. Smith says she too would have used someone’s preferred pronouns before the court case began.
“Written into the public boards act was this line about pronouns. I thought, hang on a second, if I was using [a preferred pronoun], then somebody could turn around and say, ‘You obviously accept that person’s a woman.’
“That doesn’t mean that I would set out deliberately to be rude and say to someone face to face, ‘You’re a man, you’re a man!’ But who uses pronouns when you’re talking to someone anyway?”
Their critics suggest they have big money backing from US religious zealots, though FWS’s Supreme Court crowdfunder suggests otherwise. The £197,000 raised for the court case was made up of contributions from 4023 donors.
As for the notion that groups such as FWS pander to right-wing politics, it’s nonsense, say Calder and Smith.
Joanna Cherry found herself ostracised from her party after speaking out about her gender critical views - Photo RICH DYSON/ALAMY
In Scotland, SNP politicians such as Joanna Cherry and Joan McAlpine were among the first to challenge Sturgeon’s new orthodoxy, with Labour politicians including Johann Lamont, the former Scottish party leader, quickly joining the fray.
There is a reason rightwingers such as Donald Trump have been able to seize on women’s safe spaces as an issue, suggests Calder. “It was an open goal for them,” she says. “The other side didn’t actually see it coming, because they were so blinkered, and no one was warning them that the general public are fed up of being told bonkers stuff about what to think.”
Smith agrees: “[Our critics] say look at who are your allies: ‘Trump agrees with you, Vladimir Putin agrees with you, Victor Orban too.’
“They probably also agree that you should wash your hands in water. It never felt to us as though this was ideologically aligned to anybody nasty. Those guys don’t care about women’s rights.”
Hilary Cass released her report on gender identity services for under-18s in April - Photo YUI MOK/PA
In Britain, FWS is hopeful the tide is turning. Hilary Cass’s review of gender identity services for children and young people in England, seemed a key moment. An eminent paediatrician, Cass concluded that an entire field of trans medicine had been “built on shaky foundations” and warned of the risks of an “affirming” approach to children suffering complex mental health problems.
Separately, some companies and government bodies — including the Scottish parliament — have ended their association with Stonewall’s Diversity Champions training scheme.
Some of issues remain worryingly deep-rooted, not least in higher education but, says Smith cautiously, “I think in the UK, things are moving.”
She adds: “It’s no good if you’ve just got extremes fighting, you’re never going to get anywhere. This is about being rational and having sensible conversations.” A judicious approach, perhaps, but it is for the judges to decide.
