They noticed
Graham Linehan nails it in his Spiked article on the For Women Scotland ruling.
Sitting in court on Wednesday, I was especially delighted to hear the word ‘incoherence’ repeated in the judgement again and again. The incoherence of trans ideology wasn’t just an insult to me as a man who cared for the women in my life, it was also an affront to me as a writer. In standing for women, the Supreme Court stood up for all of us who need words to have meaning.
That. The incoherence and the sheer blinding stupidity. It’s been a grating maddening frustrating outrage all along, and will go on being all that until it dies entirely or the planet dies entirely. It’s incoherent, it’s absurd, it’s childish; why are we being bullied and pushed to sign up to something so ludicrous and stupid? The emperor is buck naked and he’s not a woman so get tf out of here and leave us alone.
This was the decade in which British history repeated itself. For their heresy in standing up to male power, these women lost jobs and friends, were thrown in cells, made the subject of mockery and smears by the press. The state broadcaster, the BBC, simply decided they didn’t exist. Feminist Jenni Murray was removed from her seat at Woman’s Hour, which then proceeded to talk about anything other than the unprecedented assault on rights already won. The most important feminists of the day were denied a platform and told there was ‘no debate’.
Women were told this return to Edwardian values was progress, that they should dim themselves so that men could shine. They were expected to make themselves smaller so men could crowd into their spaces. Eddie Izzard felt bold enough to recast the story of a group of young girls objecting to his presence in a woman’s toilet as an act of bigotry. None of his fellow comedians contradicted this, because to do so would be career-ending.
As Graham knows all too well.
From the linked article:
This allowed the likes of Stonewall to interpret the law to suit its own narrow, novel, and peculiar view. It didn’t matter that they were wrong; they were just loud and bullying, and had the great good fortune of willing “allies” ready to stick it to women while pretending to be virtuous and progressive. This was not an accident; “Stonewall Law” could only ever operate at the expense of women. Women pointed this out. Repeatedly. Continuously. It was applied notwithstanding, becoming official government and corporate policy in a shockingly short time. Nobody could claim ignorance. Sure, they ignored women, or at least some women: they were always able to tell the handmaidens from the TERFs. But they had to hear and comprehend feminists’ warnings in order to belittle and disregard them. Same with the complicit media. You can’t studiously avoid something without having awareness of what you’re avoiding and why. Someone internally sensoring themselves has to know exactly what to cut, to replace “male” with “trans”in the paraphrasing, to hide the original words and intent of a feminist, gender critic defending women’s spaces. At this point, it becomes deliberate, malicious, misogyny. There should be a recconing, but there won’t. All we’ll get from all those institutions who decided to plow women’s rights under will be a retconning (e.g. Anas Sarwar).
Linehan ends his article by pointing out
I hope that sanity will spread and prevail, and that women everywhere will see the incursions of trans “rights” on women’s freedom and safetey finally reversed by the institutions that should have prevented them in the first place. More judgements like this, please.
On Spike’s sidebar there was also What happened to all those female penises, Keir?:
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/04/17/what-happened-to-all-those-female-penises-keir/
Charles Mackay’s quote springs to mind: