A relative of mine called me this morning for the first time in a long time&we had a good chat about all sorts of things. Then I asked her what she thought of self-ID. She said “what’s that?” And I said “the proposed changes to the gender recognition act” and she said “to what?”

I explained about the Act,about self ID around the world&about how women’s groups had at least for this government taken the changes off the table in England,but it might still happen in Scotland.I also told her that self ID policies were still in place without legal backing here

She is a domestic abuse and rape survivor. She knows about male violence. Her seemingly happy-go-lucky husband who could have charmed the birds from the trees was throwing their eldest down the stairs,chasing him round the house to hit him&hurting her in sadistic and cruel ways.

She listened to me talk,then said “this is so scary”. I said “well some people don’t think there are safeguarding issues,they think it just streamlines a process for trans people”. And she said “...but of course there are safeguarding issues?Why would anyone think there weren’t?”

Then she asked if M people were actually allowed to get documents that list them as F through the GRA. I said, “oh yes” &she said “That’s not right.”.I told her why it was the case,&what the aims of it were&she still thought it was mad that Sex was affected by gender recognition

She thought it was so important for women to have places to go&she added that it was hard as a woman to say no to a male in front of you because of their physical strength and the knowledge of how they can misuse it. So the laws and policies in place have to say no for women.

In her work, she’s out front in a shop during COVID and when people come in without masks she’s supposed to say something to them about it, and check they’re exempt. Several times now a man has come in, she’s asked him, and he’s had a meltdown and shouted and ranted at her.

She’s often been on her own or with one other person, usually a young girl who works there, and it has quickly become intimidating to be dealing with a man who doesn't seem in control of his own behaviour. It was so intense the last time it looked like he was going to be violent.

The young girl working with her asked her to please never challenge a man without a mask again because she was so frightened. My relative said any policy or law that expects women to bear the brunt of Male people’s responses to their boundaries was an unacceptable cruelty.

So,we talked about how many women don’t know that this is what is being pushed right now. How women who need to be safe and need at least some female only spaces have no clue about what is being removed from them without their knowledge or permission.

Our whole conversation was a conversation between two women about our rights but I know that wouldn’t stop people tearing her apart online for being a “terf” if she said all this in public. Exactly as people have done to me.

She’s strong and brave but she’s also vulnerable and it makes me so sad that her humanity would not be recognised by so many people in this conversation if she dared to enter it.

What is most telling about that is she never once said a single bad thing about trans people. She didn’t mock or belittle or insult them. She didn’t accuse them of anything at all. The only thing she did was to dare to think that women and girls deserve recognition and safety.