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Feminist critique: erasure of the category woman

Gender-critical feminists defend the concept of 'woman' as a biological class — with its own experiences, vulnerabilities, and rights. The ideological belief in gender identity replaces women with any man who says so, and erases category, rights, sports, prison, and shelter. Whoever names it is silenced.

Kathleen Stock — Material Girls

Kathleen Stock, former philosophy professor at Sussex, criticises in Material Girls (2021) the theory that everyone has an inner gender identity that should weigh more heavily in society than biological sex (source). She argues that biological sex sometimes matters: certain women-only spaces should exclude people with a penis, even if they identify as women, and the participation of trans women in women's sport puts female athletes at an unfair disadvantage (source). She resigned from the University of Sussex because of increasing intimidation by some of the students and staff, as Helen Joyce describes in Trans (source). Criticism is dismissed as hate; the 'TERF' label serves to silence gender-critical women.

Helen Joyce — Trans

In Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality (2021), Helen Joyce, then a journalist at The Economist, describes how the idea of gender identity gained influence over legislation and institutions, and which conflicts that creates with the rights of women and the protection of children (source). She describes sex offenders who ended up in women's prisons as trans women, and argues that the advantage of men in sport comes mainly from having gone through a male puberty, not from hormone levels on a given day (source).

Holly Lawford-Smith — sex and gender

Holly Lawford-Smith (Gender-Critical Feminism, Oxford University Press, 12 May 2022) defends gender-critical feminism: sex is real and important, and gender describes the roles and norms imposed on people because of their sex, not who they truly are (source).

Germaine Greer — radical feminism

Germaine Greer wrote in The Whole Woman (1999): "Governments that consist of very few women have hurried to recognize as women men who believe that they are women" (source).

JK Rowling and the Supreme Court ruling

JK Rowling's public opposition to self-ID legislation in Scotland has sparked massive debate. In February 2024 a donor identified as "JK" gave £70,000 to the crowdfunder of For Women Scotland, and on 16 April 2025 Rowling confirmed that she had given money to the group (source). That day the UK Supreme Court ruled unanimously in For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers that "man", "woman" and "sex" in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex; trans people remain protected against discrimination on the ground of gender reassignment (source). The societal price — threats, deplatforming, the label of hater — demonstrates how the ideological belief in gender identity enforces deviation. The ruling is a strange victory for women's rights in an age of eclipse.

Concrete damage for women

Sport: Lia Thomas won the 500-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA women's championships (source); critics argue that trans women keep an advantage from having gone through a male puberty. Prison: Karen White sexually assaulted two fellow inmates in a British women's prison; in October 2018 she was sentenced to life, with a minimum of 9½ years before parole could be considered (source). Law: The legal category of 'woman' is broken open; daughters, mothers, and sisters lose the vocabulary for their own experience.