FIVE years ago, when I set up an organisation to fight for free speech, I never imagined that my closest political allies would be a group of radical feminists.
But on Wednesday evening I found myself co-hosting a party at the Hippodrome for Sex Matters, the LGB Alliance and For Women Scotland, the campaigning groups who have just won a tremendous victory in the Supreme Court.
Susan Smith, left, and Marion Calder, of For Women Scotland, celebrate after the Supreme Court ruling[/caption]
The court ruled that when the Equality Act 2010 speaks of a “woman” and “sex”, it is referring to a biological woman and biological sex.
That has far-reaching implications because, until now, it has been unclear whether men who identify as women — trans women — can demand entry to single-sex spaces, such as women’s changing rooms, and sue any service provider that tries to keep them out.
Henceforth, biological men, even those who have changed their legal gender by obtaining a gender recognition certificate, will not be allowed in spaces reserved for women.
Threatened to arrest
That may not sound like a free speech issue, but it is.
Of the 3,750 cases my organisation has fought since 2020, roughly 40 per cent involve women who have got into trouble for expressing their belief that sex is real, binary and immutable.
I’m not talking about public figures like JK Rowling, who’s perfectly capable of defending herself.
Nearly all the “Terfs” — trans-exclusionary radical feminists — we’ve helped are just ordinary, plain-speaking women.
For instance, we wheeled out the big guns earlier this year to protect Connie Shaw, a 20-year-old student at Leeds.
She was put through a gruelling disciplinary investigation by her university after she was accused of being a “transphobe”, i.e. she’d defended sex-based women’s rights.
Happily, we were able to get one of the country’s top barristers on the case and the allegations against her were dismissed.
We currently have 79 open cases like this, ranging from a woman who was arrested by South Wales Police for asking a biological man to leave the ladies’ toilets, to a Newcastle fan — Linzi Smith — who was given a three- season ban by the club for criticising “trans ideology” on social media.
Newcastle also reported Linzi to Northumbria Police, who threatened to arrest her if she did not come down to the station to be interviewed about a possible “hate crime”, a surprisingly common experience for women who’ve previously expressed the same view as the Supreme Court justices have now done.
The Chief Constable has since apologised, but Newcastle still won’t let Linzi back in the stadium and she wasn’t allowed to go to Wembley to watch her beloved Magpies win the Carabao Cup.
In another equally egregious case, we’re defending an autistic teenager who was sanctioned by Lancashire FA last year for asking a player on a “ladies” team she was about to play against if he was a man.
Even though the gentleman in question had a beard, the teen was given a six-match ban.
I’m hopeful that the number of “sex realist” women we have to defend will fall as a result of the Supreme Court judgment.
‘Sex realist’
In future, it will be harder for organisations such as the Football Association — which has a poor track record on this issue — to put women through nine-month investigations for objecting to sharing showers with men.
But while the radical feminists have struck a huge blow for the right of women to challenge trans orthodoxy, it would be premature to hail this as the beginning of the end for “woke” dogma.
In the US, the victory of Donald Trump last November has brought about a cultural sea change with companies including McDonald’s, Google and Amazon starting to roll back their commitment to “equity, diversity and inclusion” and laying off the commissars in their HR departments responsible for enforcing compliance.
But over here, thanks to Labour’s majority in the General Election, there’s been no such “vibe shift”.
On the contrary, the Government is about to unveil a raft of new anti-free speech laws, including an amendment to the Equality Act which will ban some pub banter and football chants.
I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not.
Connie Shaw was put through a gruelling disciplinary investigation by her university after she was accused of being a ‘transphobe’[/caption]
Clause 20 of the Employment Rights Bill will make employers liable for the harassment of their employees by third parties.
I’m not talking about third-party sexual harassment, which bosses are already liable for, but things such as overheard conversations between customers that employees find upsetting or offensive by virtue of their “protected” characteristics.
If that law passes — and I’m doing my best to fight it in the House of Lords — publicans and football clubs could be sued if they don’t take “all reasonable steps” to prevent their employees being “harassed” in precisely that way.
That will mean a blanket ban on saucy jokes, ribald remarks and the expression of politically incorrect views on issues like immigration, gay marriage and abortion.
‘Banter ban’
Once the “banter ban” is in place, a football club could be sued by a partially sighted steward if he overhears a fan shouting “Are you blind?” at a linesman.
The only way clubs will be able to comply with the new law is to outlaw all such chants and expostulations.
If Labour has its way, it won’t just be the stadium of Sir Keir Starmer’s favourite club, Arsenal, that becomes a “library”.
That’s just one of a raft of equally draconian bills the Government has lined up which seem designed to shut down criticism of its progressive agenda.
JD Vance, the American Vice-President, is right to raise the alarm about the parlous state of free speech in this country.
The Terfs scored a victory for common sense on Wednesday.
But when it comes to most other issues, you will still have to look over your shoulder and lower your voice before saying what you really think.
