Anti-trans 'activism' is a distraction from real issues facing women

Marissa MacWhirter
Nov 6
5 min read

Updated: 15 hours ago

The time, energy and money spent protecting the definition of “woman” would be better spent advocating for the vital and crumbling network of organisations that actually protect women, says Herald columnist Marissa MacWhirter

Police speak with a protester at a For Women Scotland demonstration outside the Scottish Parliament (Image: Jane Barlow/PA) — **Police speak with a protester at a For Women Scotland demonstration outside the Scottish Parliament** ***(Image: Jane Barlow/PA)***

Scotland doesn’t care about women. The thought travels like heat along a fuse, exploding in a burst of sparks like a firecracker in my brain.

I have just hung up the phone from a (now routine) call with a domestic abuse support worker. And again, in the headlines, is the best Scotland can do by way of ‘women’s rights’ activism.

Someone allegedly damaged the umbrella of a protester at an anti-trans demonstration.

Sorry, not ‘someone’. It was Susan Smith, a director of For Women Scotland, who was heralded as one of the country’s “leading women’s rights campaigners”. She allegedly vandalised the rainbow umbrella of a counter-protester outside the Scottish Parliament last month. I wipe my tears and dry my eyelashes. Frustration makes my nose hairs burn, and I try my best not to let my eyes start leaking again.

The staff at Women’s Aid do their best not to show how stretched they are. I think they do a damn good job. They make you feel like they have time for you, even though they are up against a national shortage of services and soaring demand. That is what makes it so morally bewildering to me that these culture war clowns are supposed to be a bastion of women’s rights. While they try to strip the dignity from a marginalised minority, frontline women’s services are on the verge of collapse.

Clydebank Women’s Aid closed earlier this year after more than 40 years spent helping countless women and children navigate vile, traumatic experiences. The reason? A funding battle with the council. West Dunbartonshire has the second-highest rate of domestic abuse in Scotland.

Last Friday in Dundee, the body of 37-year-old NHS worker Natalie Egan was found following a fire at a property on Byron Street. A man, 26, was charged with her murder. Last month, a 41-year-old man was jailed for life for murdering 24-year-old Claire Leveque in Sandness last year. The list goes on.

The latest figures reveal that Police Scotland recorded 63,867 incidents of domestic abuse in 2023-24, an increase of 3% compared to the previous year. A clear majority of victims are female, and the vast majority of perpetrators are male. This is against the backdrop of domestic abuse being a hidden crime, with most incidents going unreported.

Glasgow & Clyde Rape Crisis (GCRC), one of Scotland’s largest and longest established rape crisis services, said last month that the £500,000 funding gap it’s facing means that they have to turn away more than 500 women seeking its support. In their manifesto, they highlight that one in five women in Scotland over the age of 16 experiences sexual assault.

Baby Loss Retreat, a Glasgow organisation that offers specialised bereavement care, said last month that they may have to turn away grieving families due to a severe lack of funding.

So when I read about an organisation whose core purpose is to “protect and strengthen women and children’s rights”, occupying its time trying to exclude a minority from protections instead of championing for more funding for frontline women’s services, I am baffled. They are clearly media-savvy. They are great advocates for their cause. But to me, the time, energy and money spent protecting the definition of “woman” would be better spent advocating for the vital and crumbling network of organisations that actually protect women. Perhaps that is not in their wheelhouse. The core issue is a society that thinks this cause is the leading women’s rights issue of our time. It is not. Austerity is.

Safeguarding a definition on paper is not really going to help anyone when there is no budget for trauma counselling, no budget to help women fleeing violence seek shelter, and no staff to help women living through hell. Celebrating the exclusion of 0.44% of the population from Rape Crisis while the organisation is in freefall (and probably won't even exist in 10 years because of funding cuts) is performative.

Is it the fault of these organisations that their raison d’etre has been mutated and co-opted by some in the media and politicians to serve their own ends? Who knows. I just find it to be a convenient distraction from material suffering.

The gender debate has gotten so out of hand that it feels like Scotland has forgotten women entirely. The public conversation has been so warped by this red herring that I have given up hope that the country will ever protect us. It seems like a deliberate distraction to shift the focus away from the systemic mistreatment and abuse of women. All they have done is build trans people up as a straw man, muddy the media waters, and allow men to continue to abuse women.

And part of the reason that this gender definition war has gained so much traction is because it has allowed men to feel comfortable participating in a “women’s rights” issue. Men can join in and claim they are soldiers for the rights of women, staunch feminists, et cetera. Because it is not really about women anymore, it’s a debate about identity politics. Women’s rights through this lens are no longer about men’s behaviour. It is no longer about gender-based violence, coercive control, abuse, sexual assault, or rape. It's now a philosophical argument about gender. And it’s convenient. The gender debate has taken men’s accountability off the table. The only women’s rights issues that get attention are the ones men allow to be noticed. The fight that matters to me is the one that protects women and ensures they don’t end up immolated or strangled by men in their lives.

Trans people are not a threat. Research shows that trans, non-binary, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people face higher rates of gender-based violence than anyone else. One in four trans people in a relationship has experienced domestic abuse from a partner. We should be concentrating on rooting out the rot, the reason that anyone would need to access Women’s Aid or Rape Crisis in the first place. Budget cuts have gutted the third sector. What’s more, numerous studies have indicated that gender-based violence is exacerbated during recessions.

I’m tired. Exhausted. Fed up. It is heartbreaking that women’s rights activism today has been reduced to a legal definition. The people who have done the most for women in Scotland do not get the recognition that they deserve. My support worker has sure as hell done more for me than an umbrella-bandit ever has.

Marissa MacWhirter is a columnist and feature writer at The Herald, and the editor of The Glasgow Wrap. The newsletter is curated between 5-7am each morning, bringing the best of local news to your inbox each morning without ads, clickbait, or hyperbole. Oh, and it’s free. She can be found on X @marissaamayy1