I see that Stella Creasy is accusing me of leading a pitchfork mob against her, because I opined that she is less likeable and more hypocritical than the wild parakeet she mistook for an escaped pet. For those who don’t know, Creasy is an elected politician and self-proclaimed ‘old-fashioned feminist’ who is ‘still fighting the patriarchy’. She’s more than once publicly defined herself against me (and my reaction was not to accuse her of leading a mob, even though I was probably averaging a dozen death threats a day at the point when the article below appeared.) I thought it might be instructive for those of us who don’t share Creasy’s brand of ‘feminism’ to examine her campaigning record, so we can learn to do better. Creasy wants women admitted to the male-only, exclusive, London-based private members Garrick Club, a change that would benefit rather privileged women like Creasy. Creasy is a mother who wants better accommodations for working mothers, a change that would benefit Creasy. Creasy takes selfies at a men-only Muslim march because that reminds everyone how non-racist she is, which benefits Creasy. Creasy asserts that ‘trans women are women’, which keeps her in good odour with her party’s most aggressive activists, and benefits Creasy. However, keeping cross-dressing heterosexual men out of nurses’ changing rooms doesn’t benefit Creasy, because Creasy has never had to mop up other people’s piss, blood and vomit at work. Challenging the notion that a male basketball player becomes a girl if he says he is doesn’t benefit Creasy, who has no sporting ambitions. Speaking up against the patriarchy as practised by non-white men doesn’t benefit Creasy, who wants those selfie-opportunities. Criticising an ideological movement that persecutes, harasses and openly threatens women who don’t believe some women have penises wouldn't benefit Creasy, because she's already fully-signed up to self-id, where any man who says he's a woman must be taken at his word. As the late Gloria Steinem said: ‘“Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere.’ Creasy the patriarchy-challenger is provably more than happy to cosy up to men and misogynist movements when it suits her public profile and career advancement, no matter the harms those men might be causing less privileged women. By Steinem’s definition, what Stella espouses is not feminism, but Creasyism, and I suggest the emblem for this brave new rights movement should be an indignant parakeet with severely ruffled feathers. telegraph.co.uk/women/life/s…

My position is that gender dysphoria is a real, painful condition and that for some adults, the only way they may feel able to resolve that inner conflict is transition. If that’s the road they choose I wish them long life and happiness and I would vigorously oppose any discrimination against them when it comes to employment, housing or voting rights. I do not believe children have the capacity to consent to treatments that may leave them infertile and, in some cases, anorgasmic. Multiple studies have shown that gender dysphoria in childhood and adolescence is not uncommon, for gay kids particularly, but it also occurs in, for example, straight girls who hate the idea of becoming women and sometimes, tragically, in children who’ve been abused. The available evidence shows that in the majority of cases, gender dysphoria resolves after the person has gone through adolescence. I am strongly opposed to the experimental treatment of blocking puberty in dysphoric children. I believe trans activists have behaved hugely unethically and irresponsibly in pretending that there is good evidence that these treatments are beneficial (there isn’t), that puberty blockers are completely reversible (there is a mounting body of evidence to suggest they aren’t) or that children are likely to kill themselves if denied blockers (there is no evidence to support this and suicide prevention charities warn against making such statements, due to the very real danger of suicide contagion.) Of course, not all trans-identified people are dysphoric. Erotic transvestism, also known as autogynephilia, (getting a sexual thrill out of dressing as/pretending to be a woman) has been around for a very long time. I believe lesbians are entitled to exclude straight, cross-dressing men from their dating pools without being accused of bigotry and worse (same goes for gay men with trans-identified women). It’s profoundly homophobic to attack gay people for being same-sex attracted. I don’t believe anyone, adult or child, is ‘born in the wrong body.’ That is an unfalsifiable, quasi-religious belief. A person may *feel* as if they’re in the wrong body, but humans cannot literally change sex. However they identify, men don’t belong in the single-sex spaces for which women fought so hard.

I was female from the moment of my conception. I was correctly observed to be female at birth. I no more decided to be a woman than I decided to have ten fingers. I could pretend to be a man but I’d still be a woman.

Naturally, we hold our meetings in a campervan. In tribute to our heroine, Jo and I take it in turns to hide it from each other.