Joan Smith on the abusive targeting of Kishwer Falkner:

For years we’ve been told there’s no conflict between women’s rights and the demands of trans activists. If that were really the case, no one could possibly object to putting the word “biological” in front of “sex” in equality legislation, could they?

Nothing could be further from the truth, as the head of the UK’s equal rights watchdog, Kishwer, Baroness Falkner, has discovered. She has endured weeks of abuse since the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) wrote to the Government, proposing consideration of a technical amendment to the Equality Act 2010 to make it clear that sex means biological sex. 

Sigh. It’s like getting in a rage if someone says a toaster is not an airplane, or a papaya is not Mars.

Falkner has been called a ‘“Nazi”, a particularly vicious slur given that her husband is German. She’s been attacked by a slew of Labour MPs, who’ve made the baseless accusation that she’s trying to take “rights and protections” away from trans people. Now it’s emerged that a group of employees at the EHRC has compiled a dossier of complaints against her, including “transphobia” and harassment. Falkner is said to be “heartbroken” about the allegations, which her supporters describe as a witch-hunt, but she’s standing her ground. 

Lots of us have some idea what that’s like, in far less consequential roles. I’m just a scribbler, but I’m well familiar with having people you thought were colleagues hold you up as a target for all the rotten tomatoes they can find.

What’s happening is a nasty, personal campaign against any woman who advocates strengthening the legal protections women already have. Even the Labour Party, with its shameful record of appeasing trans extremists, has said it supports the EHRC’s proposed review of the Equality Act. When the stakes are so high, we need politicians across the board to hold their nerve.

On the upside, there’s nothing like watching people behave like complete assholes to stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood.