The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht are speaking out - Sue Webber

JK Rowling

Reaching Shandwick Place, I was directed towards the City Chambers, and only discovered the venue as I approached. Guests and participants were instructed to arrive in two waves, and there was an absolute ban on any social media posts which might identify the venue or the restaurant afterwards. I still can’t reveal details in case there are repercussions.

There was door security with bag searches, and a tightly-controlled named guest list with a photo-ID policy. “Don’t mention people not shown in the photograph without their consent and please don’t mention the venue by name or give details of personal or sensitive conversations,” we were told.

This is the climate of fear created by the aggressive trans rights movement, because we were at the delayed launch party for The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht, the book of essays by Scottish women who challenged the plan enthusiastically embraced by the SNP, Greens, Labour and Lib Dems to change the law so a man could become a woman simply by saying he was female.

The book is now soaring up the best-sellers list and although the Gender Recognition Reform Act was blocked by the UK Government, Labour still plans to simplify the gender recognition system by scrapping the need for a document trail, making changing legal sex easier than obtaining a Blue Badge disabled sticker.

Despite the warnings from the Cass Review of gender identity services, Labour remains determined to outlaw conversion therapy, making it more difficult for medical experts to have conversations with young people confused about their sexuality.

And Labour’s education spokeswoman Bridget Phillipson this week refused to endorse ministerial guidelines about teaching of gender ideology, attacked their “partisan and unnecessary language”.

The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht, marks the fightback of women defending their right to be protected from predatory men, yet Labour is undermining women’s rights to single-sex spaces and services while dishonestly claiming to defend the Equality Act, the legislation which allowed the GRA to be blocked.

I still find it staggering that so many politicians, like Sir Keir Starmer, who claim to know what’s best for us, are unable to say women don’t have penises and men don’t have a cervix. How can anyone who claims not to know the difference between a man and a woman, or can justify sending a rapist to a women’s prison because they have decided to wear women’s clothes be allowed anywhere near positions of power?

No wonder author JK Rowling, a lifelong Labour supporter who contributed to the book and was at the launch party, says she cannot support the party while it “remains dismissive and often offensive towards women fighting to retain the rights their foremothers thought were won for all time.”

Next week voters will make their choice based on priorities and policies and of course I think the Conservative offering is the best available, while also recognising the polls are against us. But I am more than convinced that if you are at all concerned about the erosion of women’s rights, as everyone should be, then you cannot vote Labour.

Sue Webber is a Scottish Conservative MSP for Lothian and candidate for Edinburgh South West