2 days Ago By Euan McColm
They move among us, largely undetected. Rendered almost invisible by the effects of time, they are frequently ignored. And, when one of them does manage to attract attention, she should brace herself – at best – for her opinion to be dismissed.
At worst, she should prepare for the most shocking abuse and threats. But, for all the hate sent in their direction, this demographic had the most remarkable impact on 2024. As the year drew to a close, they ensured the BBC and production company Banijay acted on complaints of inappropriate behaviour by television presenter Gregg Wallace.
Wallace, you may recall, initially responded to the allegations against him by going on the attack. In a video released on social media, he denied any wrongdoing and noted that complaints against him had been made by “middle class women of a certain age”. So far as I’m concerned, 2024 was the year of this group.
Middle class women of a certain age did not simply ensure an investigation was launched into long-standing complaints against Gregg Wallace they left the most extraordinary mark on our politics. Two years ago, then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon succeeded in winning majority support at Holyrood for her cherished plan to reform the Gender Recognition Act. A vote in the Scottish Parliament in December 2022 saw Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and even some Tories, line up with the SNP to back the introduction of self-identification for trans people.
There were celebratory scenes inside the Scottish Parliament’s debating chamber but this joy was not replicated across the country. In fact, a majority of voters were against the change in the law. Throughout the passage of the Gender Reform Bill, feminist campaigners, such as the group For Women Scotland, had loudly warned against the negative consequences of self-ID.
How, they wanted to know, could single-sex spaces be protected and preserved if a man could enter by simply declaring himself female? Sturgeon and her allies didn’t merely ignore the concerns of scores of feminists, they attacked those women for daring to speak up. Sturgeon famously said those opposed to self-ID were bigots. The decision, early in 2023, by then Tory Scottish Secretary Alister Jack to block reform of the GRA on the grounds that to introduce self-ID would impact on the UK-wide Equality Act did not, as Sturgeon might have hoped, provoke a furious anti-Westminster backlash.
Nationalist attack lines about an assault on Scottish democracy did not land with voters. Instead, polls continued to show that a majority of Scots were not in favour of reforming the law. The backlash against reform of the GRA contributed to Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to resign as First Minister in 2023.
But, while the efforts of middle class women of a certain age may have contributed to the failure of the crackpot plan to introduce self-ID, they remained unrecognised by political leaders. Senior Scottish politicians, including First Minister John Swinney and Labour leader Anas Sarwar , prefer to pretend that the self-ID debacle never took place. They ignore calls from trans activists to redouble their parties’ efforts in support their agenda while at the same time ignoring the campaigners who want to hear them clearly and simply state that, no matter how anyone might wish to identify, there are only two sexes.
But, while a majority of mainstream politicians preferred to blank those opposed to reforming the GRA, the campaigners in question had no intention of quietly sloping off. The publication in May of the book The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht saw them – predominantly middle class women of a certain age – take their message global. Not only was the book – a collection of essays by politicians, writers, and campaigners about the Scottish Government’s botched plan to reform the GRA – a UK-wide best-seller, it also attracted attention around the world, finding readers among those concerned about the impact of trans activism on women’s rights.
The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht – which included essays by novelist JK Rowling, former SNP MP Joanna Cherry, and ex-leader of Scottish Labour Johann Lamont among many others – was publicly ignored by the political establishment, but any leader with a lick of sense will already have read it. Contained within its pages – edited by journalist Susan Dalgety and academic Lucy Hunter Blackburn – are horrific stories of women vilified and threatened for daring to question gender ideology. Swinney, Sarwar and others are kidding themselves if they think the issues raised in this important book are now dead.
The question “what is a woman?” – often dismissed as a “gotcha” by politicians under the influence of trans activists – will be asked of every leader, repeatedly, during the 2026 Holyrood election campaign and it would be wise for prospective First Ministers to begin formulating answers that don’t make them sound like misogynists, idiots, or both. Among those who contributed to The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht was the poet and writer Jenny Lindsay, whose book “Hounded”, also published this year, examined the disturbing phenomenon of women being driven out of jobs associations and even friendship groups for daring to express view on sex and gender that don’t align with those espoused by trans activists. Lindsay’s excellent, energetic book exposes the cruelty visited upon women whose only crimes were to demand the preservation of entirely necessary single-sex spaces and to question the move among some doctors towards medicalising confused children.
Along with The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht, it should be on the reading list of every MSP and MP in the country. Early in 2025, after considering a case brought by For Women Scotland, the Supreme Court in London will rule on the legal definition of “woman”. How strange that seems.
Women – many of them middle class and of a certain age – have made the most extraordinary impact on the country over the past year and it's perfectly clear who – and what – they are..
