Whilst men argue about what women are, let's talk about women's voices.

Thread.

Let's talk about the voices of the women who were historically subjugated and silenced for hundreds of years, the women who had to fulfill the roles allotted to them by the patriarchal society in which they lived, and do so in silence.

Let's talk about the women who wrote and published books and poetry and research and treatises under a male pseudonym, or worse, as Anonymous.

Even as we fought over the years and won our hard won freedoms, even as we began to speak, to rise from the ashes, to find our collective courage and raise our voices, now we are once again being silenced for saying no.

Thus far, and no further. No. Not at the cost of my rights, and the rights of other girls and women. No. Not when you take what isn't yours, not when you come into quotas for a subjugated sex and take it for yourself, not when you threaten injury or worse to female sports people.

No. You cannot. No further. Not when we have fought so long and so hard for our sex, no.

And it is for saying no, for drawing this line in the sand, for raising our voices not to threaten or to intimidate, but for simply saying that no, for using science and evidence, that we are now being targeted by trans activists to threaten us into silence and complicity.

The threats, as we all know, are violent and violently sexual. They are physical. They often threaten actual physical torture and death, as the 'pov you're a terf in my mentions' photographs demonstrate. This is not an accident.

Women are the easy targets of violent sexual crime. Trans activists know this. They also know that it's a good intimidation tactic. Threaten us enough and we'll shut up. Go away. Go back to our lives. Give up.

We'll just give them what they want and stop being such bitches; we'll just 'be kind' to people who have been anything but kind to us.

No. Not this time. Not this day, as Aragorn said in LOTR. That entire speech has been sitting in my head the entire day; this morning and afternoon as I worked at my desk; as I cooked; as I mothered; as I went through my day.

It is so apt, and I would like to repeat it now, to you, with a few adjustments.

My sisters. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of women fails, when we forsake each other and break all bonds of sisterhood, but it is not this day.

An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the age of women comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day and every day, we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, women of the world, and raise your voices!