Joan Smith asks what Humza Yousaf thinks he’s doing talking about toxic masculinity.

“Men cannot be passive bystanders when it is our actions that are causing such pain, suffering and misery,” he declares.

The pain of being punched in the face for supporting women’s rights, for instance? The suffering that comes from being locked up in a women’s prison with a convicted rapist? Or the misery of being forced to refer to the man who attacked you as “she” in court because he “identifies” as a woman?

Noooo. Women who don’t comply with the orders issued by men who claim to be women don’t count as women or as having pain.

Of course not. Giving a woman a black eye results in nothing worse than a caution in Scotland, it seems, if the woman in question happens to be a “terf”. And Scottish prisons policy allowed even violent male offenders to demand transfers to the female estate until January this year, when a disbelieving public was confronted with photographs of “Isla Bryson” arriving at court in a blond wig.

…

“As men, we must listen,” Yousaf says in the Guardian, but there is no evidence that he (or indeed the leader of Scottish Labour, Anas Sarwar) is listening to women who offer a compelling critique of the reckless Gender Recognition Reform Bill. The most minimal safeguards were voted down during the Bill’s passage at Holyrood, with supporters flatly denying that predators would ever take advantage of the legislation to get access to vulnerable women. Or “identify” as women in order to serve their sentence in a less scary environment. 

…

Politicians don’t get to pick and choose which types of misogyny, and which aspects of male violence, are beyond the pale. Trans activism has created a tidal wave of woman-hating — and the targets are the very campaigners for women’s safety that Yousaf should be listening to.

Should be but never will be.