One year later

It was, to riff off Graham Linehan’s infamous tweet, a protest you could smell. Walking down Whitehall towards the monument to the Women of WWII, a mob of the “most vulnerable minority” bellowed into megaphones, raging against “white supremacist, cis, hetero capitalism”. Beneath baby pink and powder blue flags, trans activists demanded “HRT, over the counter and for free” and, at intervals, “Free Palestine”. They were an eye-wateringly familiar sight, hulking great men in “protect the dolls” t-shirts and fishnets, slight women with wispy facial hair trying to look tough, balaclava-clad bullyboys and the inevitable Socialist Workers Party paper-sellers. Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson wasn’t there, but she might as well have been in the fray waving a “Smash Transphobia” banner. Whether she realises it or not, her inaction places her squarely within their ranks.

Opposite them, across a line of bored-looking police, stood the women’s rights campaigners. They were not asking for the law to change, only for it to be upheld. That would require Phillipson to face down the backbench gender zealots in her own party and lay the EHRC’s statutory code before Parliament. Confirmed as lawful earlier this year after a typically unsuccessful challenge by the Good Law Project, the pages still awaiting ministerial approval appear to have vanished into a Westminster black hole.

Across the UK women’s rights protestors gathered in Plymouth, Houghton Le Spring (Phillipson’s constituency), Manchester, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast to mark One Year On from the Supreme Court ruling that clarified that sex in law means male or female. In each city they were confronted by trans activists who are perhaps best described as falling into the frequently overlapping categories of mad, bad and sad.

It’s fair to say I am something of an embedded reporter on these matters. My heart, head and ovaries are quite obviously with those who are urging the government to uphold the law on sex based rights. That said, I remain curious about trans activists. Do they really believe we hate them, that we are bankrolled by shadowy far-right Christian groups, that their lives will be improved by compelling the rest of the world to collude in their delusion? I briefly considered a guileless Louis Theroux routine, but the moment I crossed into “TERF territory” I was hugged in full view of the other side. I suspected I now smelt too strongly of the enemy to get within dictaphone range.

The organisers of the One Year Later protest really put the work in. There weren’t just speeches, there was a short comedy sketch and a spot of musical entertainment from feminist scholar and campaigner Dr Julia Long and gay activist and musical theatre enthusiast Mr Menno. It was, in short, creative, lively and fundamentally good natured.

To give them their due, some of the trans activists made an effort, donning costumes and waving home made placards such as “The Only Good TERF is a – – – – TERF” alongside pictures of weapons. But tellingly, there were no speeches, just lots of bouts of loud chanting for a shopping list of bonkers demands. Their #BeKind bloc was dominated by a febrile and misplaced sense of vulnerability and victimhood. They accused both government and campaigners of “killing trans kids” and of “genocide”. When they jeered at their opponents “there’s more of us than you”, one woman shouted back: “Well we’re a minority then, stop oppressing us!”

For all their posturing and cosplay as an oppressed and downtrodden minority, trans activists still enjoy the tacit support of the establishment

Notably, while politicians such as Nadia Whittome and Zack Polanski have proudly attended trans protests in the past, none turned out on Saturday. Conversely, there were political movers and shakers, including Akua Reindorf KC and Rosie Duffield MP on the One Year Later side. 

Yet for all their posturing and cosplay as an oppressed and downtrodden minority, trans activists still enjoy the tacit support of the establishment. These confused girls and often predatory men have been elevated into a protected caste, indulged as if the law on single sex spaces simply does not apply to them. The fact Bridget Phillipson wasn’t there doesn’t matter. She doesn’t need to be. Despite a clear ruling from the Supreme Court, and repeated affirmations in the lower courts that sex in law means male or female, the government is paralysed by fear — terrified of offending a mob of confused activists with incoherent demands.

That is the real imbalance on display. Not the numbers on either side of a police cordon, nor the volume of competing chants, but the fact that one group must fight every institution of the state simply to have the law upheld. At least they manage to have fun while they do it.