Over a hundred years ago, women across England, Scotland and Wales chained themselves to railings, knowing they would be spat on by passers-by, and waited to be cut free and thrown in a cell. The Suffragettes were up against a real, honest-to-God patriarchy, an entire society that valued them only for their ability to satisfy the requirements of men. For choosing to resist, they were ridiculed and beaten, mocked in the press, abandoned by friends, shunned and silenced.
If that rings a bell, you probably lived in the UK during the decade leading up to this week’s Supreme Court judgement on sex and gender. The ruling affirmed what a lot of women found themselves, to their surprise and dismay, having to argue for years – namely, that men have a willy and women have a foo foo. The women saying this basic truth, a truth understood even by children learning to read, were written off as bigots, conspiracy theorists, hysterics. But they were right. And now it’s official.
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.
The judges made it clear: a definition of sex that evades biology is no definition at all. It creates confusion and inconsistency throughout the Equality Act, meaning nobody can clearly understand or predict how the law applies. Key provisions become unworkable, and the law designed to ensure equality instead creates uncertainty. Services, associations and sports would all struggle with interpreting the rules, complicating straightforward safeguarding practices.
But of course, writers weren’t the main beneficiaries of the judgement. This win belonged first and foremost to ordinary women. Teachers. Athletes. Social workers. Nurses. Lesbians. Mumsnetters. Lifelong left-wingers and conservatives alike. The ones who questioned why 11-year-olds were being put on puberty blockers. The ones who said no to men in rape-crisis centres. The ones who asked if it was really necessary to call them ‘menstruators’ and ‘birthing people’, the sort of rhetoric that would make even an Edwardian wince.
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.
It should not be unsayable to point out that some of the worst men’s rights activists were women, especially in audience-facing fields like publishing, politics, journalism and comedy: think of Aisling Bea wagging her finger at JK Rowling; Labour minister Lisa Nandy arguing that male sex offenders should be placed in women’s prisons; Joanne Harris, head of the Society of Authors, minimising death threats sent to fellow authors; Katherine Viner turning the Guardian into a version of Pink News; comedian Cariad Lloyd using the disgusting term ‘bleeders’ in a PSA about ‘period poverty’. They all reminded me of nothing so much as those women who helped with the force-feeding of Suffragettes on hunger strike in the years leading up to 1918. They all betrayed women with an unseemly, almost evangelical fervour.
The judgement will be a painful lesson for them, but it also teaches the rest of us – especially in the UK, where the mass resistance to trans began – that standing up works. That holding the line works. That saying ‘no’ works.
It’s not over. It never is. The rights that women won over a hundred years ago have always had to be fought for, and they’ll always be under threat. But something shifted this week. For the first time in years, a major institution admitted that the women shouting from the sidelines were right all along. That matters, because around the world, women are watching. In countries where the debate hasn’t even started, this gives them ammunition. In places where the ideology is still entrenched, it gives them hope. It’s a signal that change is possible. That the spell can be broken. And just as in 1918, the women of the United Kingdom have lit the beacon that shows the way.
Graham Linehan is a former TV comedy writer best known for sitcoms Father Ted, Black Books and The IT Crowd. Follow him on Substack.
