Mick Hartley

Thea Sewell, a philosophy student at Cambridge, suffered personal attacks and ostracism from fellow students after they learned that she’d bought books by gender-critical authors – one of the reasons why, with two others, she set up the Cambridge University Society of Women last October. For women only.

Here she is today in the Telegraph – No sign of the Cambridge pro-trans mob when activism is really needed:

It has been an interesting first year for the Cambridge University Society of Women. I’ve been branded a “Terf” (trans-exclusionary radical feminist); gender-obsessed critics have tried to shut us down and members of our group have faced persistent hostility online.

All of this hatred stems from the fact that we believe in the reality of biological sex and define a woman in those terms. Before Easter, when we hosted three incredible Afghan women who have lived under the Taliban’s misogynistic rule, it was hard not to notice the stark contrast. As I expected, none of our fierce critics attended the Afghans’ talk. They missed out.

Faryal Ghaznawi, Farida Hamidi and Sakina Yousufi, who spoke to an intimate audience of around 30 people, are here on the Chevening scholarship, a one-year master’s programme funded by the Government, aimed at “outstanding emerging leaders from all over the world”. These are women who understand, in the most concrete terms, what biological sex means – because it is precisely on that basis that they are oppressed.

All three of our speakers know what it feels like to really struggle. Sakina had to lie to the Taliban, surrender her passport at gunpoint, and persuade a stranger to pose as her male guardian so she could get to Britain. When she was stopped and questioned, she said she was travelling abroad for medical treatment. Had the truth emerged, she might have been imprisoned or killed.

After the bans on female education, Faryal worked undercover as a mental health and psychosocial support officer. She travelled across provinces to provide therapy for women who had experienced rape and forced marriage. Faryal told us about a 13-year-old girl sold into marriage to a much older man. The girl was beaten, subjected to sexual abuse and forced to do domestic labour.…

Equally striking was how the these three heroines spoke about education. It was not an abstraction or a luxury. It was a lifeline; a condition of survival. One of them put it simply: “When the body is trapped, the mind has to become a palace”.

And it was, in part, through the contrast with that mental refuge that the freedoms of Britain came into focus. Farida arrived in England in the evening. She had never been outside at night. She stood there, realising she could do so without fear, and thought: “This is life, this is peace.”

Yet the government has now imposed a blanket ban on student visas for Afghans in the face of public pressure, on the grounds that they have a record of claiming asylum. “Political posturing” says Newell. Surely there’s a place for women like these, given what they suffer back home. They deserve our support.

No interest, of course, from the gender activists.