“I won’t say a man is any type of woman. I won’t be forced to say women’s bodies don’t matter – aren’t matter…I won’t pretend woman is the sum total of the traits a man can emulate.” @Dis_Critic (p. 6)
For the first discussion group of 2025 we read The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht edited by Lucy Hunter Blackburn and Susan Dalgety, which is a collection of 30+ essays written by women who were involved in a grassroots activist campaign to protect women’s sex based rights over a five-year period in Scotland.
Some of us felt very familiar with the content of the book, having been active politically whilst discussions were happening and events were unfolding.
“To this day, I do not understand how the accusation that I was ‘transphobic’ was valid, as it seemed to be based on an assertion that I think differently on a public policy to some others, or indeed that I thought parliamentarians should scrutinise legislative proposals.” Ann Henderson (p. 79)
Oliver who was very politically active throughout the events described in the book, listened to the audio book. He somewhat regretted this as the entire book was read by Lucy Paterson, meaning that he missed out on the individual author’s voices.
Oliver recognised that when you tell people that these are actual events, they may actually think you are a little crazy as what happened seems so incredibly unbelievable. Particularly as so little of it was covered by the mainstream press at the time.
“To suggest false eyelashes, high heels and passivity maketh the woman undermines, in my view, everything feminists had fought for from the 1960s to the 1980s. It is sexist.” Joan McAlpine (p. 90)
William said that he was one of the people who missed a lot of what was covered in the book. He felt that for him it was really enlightening to learn about what happened politically, which forces were behind this and how the women organised and resisted the push to curtail women’s rights.
Robbie noted that the book obviously was not covering ‘both sides’ of the events and that this was a conscious choice. Following on from this David asked a really interesting question:
Could we can imagine the book having been written from those trying to push through the reforms, those who violently attacked women, sent them threats?
We all agreed it would be pretty impossible, as they would either have to be honest about their aggression and violence or they would have to try and hide it and be exposed as liars.
Björn felt that it was very eye-opening to get a glimpse behind the scenes and get an understanding of just how many parliamentary protocols and rules were breached to try and force the reforms through without following the proper protocols.
We briefly touched on Stonewall and Mermaids and their involvement as lobbyist groups in Scotland. With regards to Stonewall and some of the changes they have made recently, Robbie pointed us to an article by ‘The Green Light’, called ‘Stonewall’s U-Tun on the Definition of Transphobia’.
The discussion then continued towards the specific chapters and writers. Björn really enjoyed Elaine Miller’s chapter called ‘That Merkin Moment. Björn welcomed the comedy in Miller’s writing after 25 chapters that were filled to the brim with information and infuriating events and actions aimed at silencing women. Björn also felt that the timeline at the back of the book was really useful to help those less familiar with the events to be able to keep up with what was going happening in a much more simplified way.
David felt that the experiences of 3 women in particular were worth reflecting on. Firstly that of Rhona Hotchkiss, prison governor. Hotchkiss has experience of the state of women’s prisons as well as the challenges and vulnerability of the female prisoners (e.g. 80% have mental health issues). Though lesbian Hotchkiss left the LGB staff network after it added the T. Hotchkiss was convinced that male prisoners identifying as female shouldn’t be in women’s prisons because (1) they pose same threat to women as other men (2) women have no option to escape from the situation (3) women unable to challenge men when they express violence or male sexuality (and such incidents are common) (4) a high % of male prisoners identifying as female that are sex offenders (5) the male prison service is good at protecting vulnerable prisoners e.g. gay prisoners, child sex offenders or ex-police, so there’s no case for men identifying as women being treated any differently from them.
Hotchkiss raised concerns with colleagues but got no response. Either they didn’t understand the issue or thought they couldn’t challenge official policy, so she had to get external help from her MSP and activist groups. In the end Hotchkiss was only able to take action after retiring. The Adam Graham / Isla Bryson case gave her a huge platform and she became a strong voice of resistance to government policy.
David felt that JK Rowling’s story also was worth mentioning as it revealed a seemingly wide-ranging attitude of people in the arts world to stay out of ‘toxic’ debates for personal own safety and security of income. Whilst some are critical of gender ideology, may of these individuals are afraid to speak out, there are also quite a few ‘true believers’. There seems to also exist a fear in the arts world of appearing ‘unsophisticated’ (which includes believing there are only 2 sexes). Rowling remained silent until events in Scotland and the Maya Forstater case made it impossible for her to remain silent, leading to her famous tweet and supporting essay. Most of her critics admit to not having read what Rowiling said because they prefer to believe what has been said about her views. Attacks on Rowling were and are vicious but she was more than prepared for them after witnessing the backlash and threats other women had received for speaking out. Many fellow writers were bewildered and distanced themselves from Rowling, of which she has said: “Those appalled by my position often fail to grasp how despicable I find theirs.”. They ignore obvious evidence of harm and repeat slogans in a parrot-fashion where the only thing that matters is to identify someones identity whilst revelations about what happened at the Tavistock Clinic are ignored. Rowling has stated that her only regret is not speaking out earlier.
David also particularly liked chapter 30 ‘Watching Scotland’ by Kathleen Stock, in which she outlined lessons that politicians should learn from the events in Scotland. Stock particularly spoke about preventing ideologies becoming so entrenched into politics that it becomes impossible to question them and the decisions that are being made and the long-lasting effects of this.
We then discussed why this happened in Scotland in particular and why parties considered to be on the political left, such as the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, have become some of the biggest proponents of transgender ideology. Robbie felt that some of this had to do with the fact that the Liberal Democrats and Greens are smaller parties and that those involved at the local level are often not unaware of the decisions that are being made at the top. That bigger parties, including the SNP and the Labour Party are not immune has been evident in recent years as well.
We spent the remainder of the evening talking about political movements and difference between progressiveness and liberalism as well as looking towards who the liberalism and freedom serves. In the latter context, Björn referred to Sheila Jeffreys who has posed that the liberation of the sexual revolutions of the 1920s/1930s and 1960s/1970s actually enabled men to oppress women more (e.g. Anticlimax: Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution).
Overall we felt that the book was a very comprehensive and important historical document of the heroic battle for women’s rights these (and many other) women engaged in in Scotland and beyond. As patriarchy has a tendency to erase or rewrite women’s words, it feels poignant that the women’s voices were captured so completely and so shortly after the events described in the book. Not only because it allows their voices to help shape the narrative and memory of what happened going forward, but also because it means that what happened cannot be so easily ‘reinterpreted’. This book is a very powerful piece of women’s history and should be a compulsory addition to any feminist bookshelf.
It is incredible to think that all profits of the sale of the book are going to organisations supporting the most silenced women and girls and sad to know that the organisations cannot be made public to prevent them being caught in the eye of a storm.
“I have no beef with protest…but the violence and intimidation tactics weaponised in the hope of scaring feminists out of advocating single-sex spaces, it gives me the fear…none of this is liberation politics…and it’s revealing that this behaviour is reserved for feminists, as opposed to right-wing men with institutional power whose regressive views on gender have material consequences.” Claire L. Heuchan (p. 118)
For the first discussion group of 2025 we read The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht edited by Lucy Hunter Blackburn and Susan Dalgety, which is a collection of 30+ essays written by women who were involved in a grassroots activist campaign to protect women’s sex based rights over a five-year period in Scotland.
Some of us felt very familiar with the content of the book, having been active politically whilst discussions were happening and events were unfolding.
“To this day, I do not understand how the accusation that I was ‘transphobic’ was valid, as it seemed to be based on an assertion that I think differently on a public policy to some others, or indeed that I thought parliamentarians should scrutinise legislative proposals.” Ann Henderson (p. 79)
Oliver who was very politically active throughout the events described in the book, listened to the audio book. He somewhat regretted this as the entire book was read by Lucy Paterson, meaning that he missed out on the individual author’s voices.
Oliver recognised that when you tell people that these are actual events, they may actually think you are a little crazy as what happened seems so incredibly unbelievable. Particularly as so little of it was covered by the mainstream press at the time.
“To suggest false eyelashes, high heels and passivity maketh the woman undermines, in my view, everything feminists had fought for from the 1960s to the 1980s. It is sexist.” Joan McAlpine (p. 90)
William said that he was one of the people who missed a lot of what was covered in the book. He felt that for him it was really enlightening to learn about what happened politically, which forces were behind this and how the women organised and resisted the push to curtail women’s rights.
Robbie noted that the book obviously was not covering ‘both sides’ of the events and that this was a conscious choice. Following on from this David asked a really interesting question:
Could we can imagine the book having been written from those trying to push through the reforms, those who violently attacked women, sent them threats?
We all agreed it would be pretty impossible, as they would either have to be honest about their aggression and violence or they would have to try and hide it and be exposed as liars.
Björn felt that it was very eye-opening to get a glimpse behind the scenes and get an understanding of just how many parliamentary protocols and rules were breached to try and force the reforms through without following the proper protocols.
We briefly touched on Stonewall and Mermaids and their involvement as lobbyist groups in Scotland. With regards to Stonewall and some of the changes they have made recently, Robbie pointed us to an article by ‘The Green Light’, called ‘Stonewall’s U-Tun on the Definition of Transphobia’.
The discussion then continued towards the specific chapters and writers. Björn really enjoyed Elaine Miller’s chapter called ‘That Merkin Moment. Björn welcomed the comedy in Miller’s writing after 25 chapters that were filled to the brim with information and infuriating events and actions aimed at silencing women. Björn also felt that the timeline at the back of the book was really useful to help those less familiar with the events to be able to keep up with what was going happening in a much more simplified way.
David felt that the experiences of 3 women in particular were worth reflecting on. Firstly that of Rhona Hotchkiss, prison governor. Hotchkiss has experience of the state of women’s prisons as well as the challenges and vulnerability of the female prisoners (e.g. 80% have mental health issues). Though lesbian Hotchkiss left the LGB staff network after it added the T. Hotchkiss was convinced that male prisoners identifying as female shouldn’t be in women’s prisons because (1) they pose same threat to women as other men (2) women have no option to escape from the situation (3) women unable to challenge men when they express violence or male sexuality (and such incidents are common) (4) a high % of male prisoners identifying as female that are sex offenders (5) the male prison service is good at protecting vulnerable prisoners e.g. gay prisoners, child sex offenders or ex-police, so there’s no case for men identifying as women being treated any differently from them.
Hotchkiss raised concerns with colleagues but got no response. Either they didn’t understand the issue or thought they couldn’t challenge official policy, so she had to get external help from her MSP and activist groups. In the end Hotchkiss was only able to take action after retiring. The Adam Graham / Isla Bryson case gave her a huge platform and she became a strong voice of resistance to government policy.
David felt that JK Rowling’s story also was worth mentioning as it revealed a seemingly wide-ranging attitude of people in the arts world to stay out of ‘toxic’ debates for personal own safety and security of income. Whilst some are critical of gender ideology, may of these individuals are afraid to speak out, there are also quite a few ‘true believers’. There seems to also exist a fear in the arts world of appearing ‘unsophisticated’ (which includes believing there are only 2 sexes). Rowling remained silent until events in Scotland and the Maya Forstater case made it impossible for her to remain silent, leading to her famous tweet and supporting essay. Most of her critics admit to not having read what Rowiling said because they prefer to believe what has been said about her views. Attacks on Rowling were and are vicious but she was more than prepared for them after witnessing the backlash and threats other women had received for speaking out. Many fellow writers were bewildered and distanced themselves from Rowling, of which she has said: “Those appalled by my position often fail to grasp how despicable I find theirs.”. They ignore obvious evidence of harm and repeat slogans in a parrot-fashion where the only thing that matters is to identify someones identity whilst revelations about what happened at the Tavistock Clinic are ignored. Rowling has stated that her only regret is not speaking out earlier.
David also particularly liked chapter 30 ‘Watching Scotland’ by Kathleen Stock, in which she outlined lessons that politicians should learn from the events in Scotland. Stock particularly spoke about preventing ideologies becoming so entrenched into politics that it becomes impossible to question them and the decisions that are being made and the long-lasting effects of this.
We then discussed why this happened in Scotland in particular and why parties considered to be on the political left, such as the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, have become some of the biggest proponents of transgender ideology. Robbie felt that some of this had to do with the fact that the Liberal Democrats and Greens are smaller parties and that those involved at the local level are often not unaware of the decisions that are being made at the top. That bigger parties, including the SNP and the Labour Party are not immune has been evident in recent years as well.
We spent the remainder of the evening talking about political movements and difference between progressiveness and liberalism as well as looking towards who the liberalism and freedom serves. In the latter context, Björn referred to Sheila Jeffreys who has posed that the liberation of the sexual revolutions of the 1920s/1930s and 1960s/1970s actually enabled men to oppress women more (e.g. Anticlimax: Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution).
Overall we felt that the book was a very comprehensive and important historical document of the heroic battle for women’s rights these (and many other) women engaged in in Scotland and beyond. As patriarchy has a tendency to erase or rewrite women’s words, it feels poignant that the women’s voices were captured so completely and so shortly after the events described in the book. Not only because it allows their voices to help shape the narrative and memory of what happened going forward, but also because it means that what happened cannot be so easily ‘reinterpreted’. This book is a very powerful piece of women’s history and should be a compulsory addition to any feminist bookshelf.
It is incredible to think that all profits of the sale of the book are going to organisations supporting the most silenced women and girls and sad to know that the organisations cannot be made public to prevent them being caught in the eye of a storm.
“I have no beef with protest…but the violence and intimidation tactics weaponised in the hope of scaring feminists out of advocating single-sex spaces, it gives me the fear…none of this is liberation politics…and it’s revealing that this behaviour is reserved for feminists, as opposed to right-wing men with institutional power whose regressive views on gender have material consequences.” Claire L. Heuchan (p. 118)
