Mick Hartley

One of the more bizarre signs of Scotland's capture by gender ideology is the case of Marion Millar, charged last month with a hate crime for alleged homophobic and transphobic social media posts.

Marion Millar, 50, from Airdrie, was charged under the Communications Act for six tweets published from 2019. If convicted she faces up to six months in prison.

The messages investigated by officers are understood to include a retweeted photograph of a bow of ribbons in the green, white and purple colours of the Suffragettes, tied around a tree outside the Glasgow studio where a BBC soap opera is shot.

It is believed a complaint was made to the police suggesting the ribbons represented a noose. It was one of at least six tweets reported to police. The nature of the other complaints is unclear.

In other words, it's ridiculous. And vexatious.

Millar, who owns an accountancy business and is a prominent feminist, was bailed to appear at Glasgow sheriff court on July 20.

Her supporters said that the prosecution was an attack on the rights of women to express themselves.

Pale and visibility shaken, the mother of six emerged from Coatbridge police station after an interview of almost two hours, to be greeted by applause and cheers from a group of supporters, many of them wearing T-shirts branded “#WomenWontWheesht” a hashtag she helped popularise.

The trial has now been postponed until August, but a demonstration was nevertheless held on Glasgow Green yesterday. 

Debbie Hayton in the Spectator:

The symbolism of yesterday’s protest taking place on Glasgow Green was unmistakable. It was here in 1872 that women – and men – gathered for the first large-scale women’s suffrage meeting in Glasgow. In the intervening 150 years, women may have secured the vote, but parity with men is still to be achieved.

Under Nicola Sturgeon, many women fear that their rights are going backwards. Speaker after speaker expressed the concerns that many hold – that the Scottish government has been hoodwinked by transgender activists and cares little about the views of women who object to the impact policy changes will have on their sex. The refrain from the platform was clear, ‘Women won’t Wheesht’ (shut up).

They are right to worry, and right not to be silent. There is much to lose, even the right to the word ‘woman’ itself. Nicola Sturgeon’s Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 defines women as a person who ‘is living as a woman and is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of becoming female.’

Becoming female? The mind boggles. Not only am I transgender but I am a science teacher and I still don’t get what the Scottish government is getting at. Nobody can become female unless they started as female. The Scottish government is legislating on the basis of fantasy.

Among the speakers at the Glasgow event was Alison Dowling – a sitting Labour councillor from west of Glasgow. She told The Spectator that she had spoken, ‘to stand in solidarity with women and male allies who reject the destruction of the concept that sex matters in law and in life.’

They must. Because women are suffering appalling abuse when they speak out. This week JK Rowling re-entered the fray to speak about the death threats she has received for speaking about gender and sex….

Shockingly, death threats are not unusual in this debate. But they should never be tolerated.

Women, however, perceive a playing field that is far from level. While transgender activists operate with impunity, women find themselves under threat of cancellation or worse for stepping out of line. When ‘Women won’t Wheesht’ stickers appeared in Kirkcaldy earlier this year, Police Scotland were straight on the case, offering to arrange their removal.

Yesterday in Glasgow, Millar’s supporters were doing anything but wheesht. Upholding women’s rights to maintain single sex-spaces is central to their campaign. There are times and places when women need the security that comes with the knowledge that they are exclusively in the company of their own sex.

In Scotland, that is not something they can rely on. Even the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre is now headed up by a transgender woman. That was supposed to be a female-only role.

But yesterday was an opportunity for both sexes to show their support. Standing with women were a few men, and one or two transsexuals. Any suggestion that trans people might be unsafe because of this meeting was patent nonsense. It is women who are under siege in Scotland, and that is something that should concern everyone.

As ever the violence and the threats of violence are entirely one way, though some trans allies like to pretend otherwise.