When they met on Mumsnet these women thought they’d be talking about shopping. Instead they grew determined to prove that sex is biological.
Calder, Smith and Budge established the grassroots feminist group For Women Scotland (FWS) and . . . achieved an era-defining victory when the Supreme Court found unanimously in their favour. It ruled that, while the Gender Recognition Act 2004 protects trans people from discrimination, the Equality Act 2010 defines a woman as an adult female, not a man who wishes to identify as a woman, as the Scottish government repeatedly insisted.
The past decade of misogynistic magical thinking — when women, including Maya Forstater and Kathleen Stock, were driven from their jobs for refusing to believe that womanhood is a feeling rather than a biological fact — is now over, and it is thanks to these three utterly normal, extremely brave women.
Calder and Budge saw each other’s posts on Mumsnet and messaged each other about starting a feminist group, along with Calder’s friend, Magdalen Berns, a computer programmer who made increasingly popular videos on YouTube about the absurdities of gender ideology. “We’re all straight,” says Calder, referring to herself, Budge and Smith. “And Magdalen represented the lesbian contingent.”
The women started making plans to launch FWS, but in 2017 Berns was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour. She died in 2019, at the age of only 36. In her short life, Berns made a huge impact on the then nascent gender-critical movement, and one feminist in Scotland in particular. Shortly before Berns died,
JK Rowling contacted her and later described her as “an immensely brave young feminist and lesbian”.
Trans activists have accused FWS of being funded by far-right American groups, which makes the women hoot with laughter: “Unless the American far right has set up hundreds of PayPal accounts that give us £2.50 a month, it’s not true,” says Smith.
By 2020, the Scottish government and Sturgeon was increasingly focused on passing the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which would usher in self-ID, and lower the legal age when young people can transition to 16.
That same year, Smith was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a single mastectomy. Ten days after her surgery, she gave a speech in front of the Scottish parliament, a pillow clamped under her arm. “Having gone through a mastectomy myself, which I needed to save my life, I am disgusted by people who celebrate giving mastectomies to healthy young women as a ‘gender-confirming’ surgery. I think it is genuinely wicked,” she says.
In February last year, the women were given permission to appeal to the Supreme Court after the Court of Session ruled against them. FWS crowdsourced donations to fund their legal challenge;
Rowling donated £70,000.
In the 24 hours since its win, FWS has been inundated with abuse by gender activists, much of it consisting of grossly obscene personal insults.
They’re used to this by now, but it never fails to amaze: “It would never occur to us to send messages like this, or to call our opponents ugly. But we get this every day,” says Smith.
But for now, the mood is jubilant — they finally got an answer to the question that has stumped politicians for years: what is a woman? A woman is officially a woman. “So there’s only one thing to do now,” says Calder happily. “Have a gigantic party.”
Source: We’re bloody-minded, not bigots: the women who changed gender law
