I’m a middle-class woman in my thirties. I have a good career, a comfortable life and a degree of financial security that gives me choices many others don’t have. I’m well aware that I’m fortunate, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Many of the issues raised in J.K. Rowling’s latest essay are less likely to affect me directly than they might other women. But why on earth should that make them any less important to me? If I need healthcare, I may be able to access alternatives. If I disagree with an institution’s decisions, I have the education, confidence and potentially the means to challenge them. Not everyone has that luxury. And circumstances can change quickly. Importantly, a comfortable life is hardly a permanent magical shield. I don’t have to be a woman in prison to care about the rights of female prisoners, or a woman seeking refuge after sexual violence to believe single-sex services not only matter, but are vital in society. Nor do I have to find myself vulnerable on a hospital ward, or be a nurse required to change at work, to understand why privacy, dignity and safeguarding are important. What troubles me is the expectation that women should accept the erosion or reinterpretation of their sex-based rights without question, and that objecting somehow makes them unreasonable, intolerant or hateful. I believe biological sex matters. Women are entitled to privacy, dignity and safety, and single-sex provisions are and entirely reasonable necessity. I also believe trans people deserve dignity, safety and protection from discrimination. That doesn’t require me to abandon biological reality or my support for safeguarding measures based on sex. Then there’s the law. The Supreme Court clarified the meaning of sex under the Equality Act in 2025. Yet disputes continue over how institutions apply that judgment. What happens to women who cannot afford those battles? It shouldn’t require a legal team, financial security and the patience of a saint to exercise rights enshrined in law. And this is where class matters. Those with the greatest influence over institutional policies aren’t necessarily the people who must live with their consequences. Those with the least choice are often expected to accommodate decisions they had little influence over. That is profoundly unfair. I’m not an activist. I’m somewhat introverted, I don’t have a significant public following, nor would I particularly want one. I have no desire to make myself a public figure. But I have opinions. Quite strong ones, as it happens. And I have a voice. One that my own conscience insists I use. I don’t presume to speak for every woman. Women aren’t a monolith, and we’re perfectly capable of disagreeing. I don’t expect everyone to share my views, any more than I expect to share theirs. But I do expect to be able to express mine. And I believe those of us who can speak have a moral obligation to do so, particularly when others cannot. As for Rowling, I don’t agree with an argument simply because she makes it. I have profound respect for her, but she’s a woman, not a deity. I respect that she had no personal need, with her current circumstance, to enter this debate, yet chose to because of her convictions. I don’t need to be personally disadvantaged to recognise something is wrong. I don’t need to know the women affected, or have anything to gain from defending their rights. My current circumstances aren’t a reason to care less. If anything, they make me more conscious of why those rights matter. I’d rather use my voice to defend something I believe in than stay conveniently silent simply because the consequences are less likely to land on my own doorstep.