Julie Bindel

I don’t really care who takes part in Celebrity MasterChef, partly because I was put off commenting on such matters when one of the judges, an eminent food critic sent me some fairly strongly worded emails in response to me having a laugh – in print – about how seriously said judge took the process. After all, it is only an amateur cooking competition and not a televised race to cure cancer. But I am taking notice of the fact that Luke Underwood-Bleach, a drag queen who calls himself Cheryl Hole (geddit?) will compete in the new series.

Lesbian speed dating sounds fun. It reminds me of the old joke ‘What does a lesbian bring on her first date? Her cat, the toothbrush and a removal van.’ It refers to the outdated image of lesbians instantly committing to each other, falling madly in love, then taking seven years to split up.   In reality, there isn’t a person on the planet that truly believes that it is possible for a lesbian to have a penis There is always truth in stereotypes, despite this one being more fun than fact. However, lesbians have recently had somewhat of a makeover – and not in a good way. According to some trans activists, egged on by the likes of Stonewall, some of us are in possession of a penis (and I don’t mean as a trophy à la Lorena Bobbitt).

It would appear that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has finally caved completely to gender ideology. New CPS guidelines for prosecutors spell out that it could be a criminal offence for spouses to refuse to fund their partner’s gender surgery. In the new guidance, the CPS has listed certain behaviours, such as 'withholding money for transitioning' that might be classed as coercive control. To put it in context, coercive control is a serious offence punishable by up to five years in prison. Surely the CPS has better priorities than threatening women with criminal convictions if they refuse to bow to transgender ideology? I was one of the feminists that fought to get this aspect of domestic abuse recognised in law.

Since my squatting experience back in the 1980s, the practice has gone somewhat out of fashion. Squatting laws in the UK have become much stricter, and eviction by police and landlords is easier. Spanish squatters have it relatively good at the moment, with criminal gangs targeting second homes in Spain, claiming to be homeless and using their young children to make eviction far more difficult. I recall my time squatting in a large, ramshackle terraced house in Surrey Docks, south London, when I first moved to London from Yorkshire. I was in my early twenties, claiming benefits, doing political activism, with no bank account or savings and I urgently needed somewhere to live. The squat had been advertised in the window of the radical bookstore in Brixton. ‘Lesbian? Feminist?

While I was writing about the latest scandalous revelation involving the children's charity Mermaids and the Tavistock Gender identity development service (GIDS) it occurred to me that readers of these pages will already be familiar with the key planks of this terrible tale. You will doubtless have seen countless articles critiquing gender ideology and the medical treatments on vulnerable children over the years that have become normalised, and will be aware that gender ideology has seeped into pretty much every key institution in the land.

Emma Pattison and her seven-year-old daughter Lettie were almost certainly killed by her husband George Pattison. As so often happens with cases of family annihilation, George Pattison escaped any criminal sanctions by shooting himself. Emma, who was 45, called a close relative last Saturday, hours before she and her daughter died, sounding ‘distressed’. We also know that a firearm, licenced to Pattison, was recovered at the scene. Police say they are treating the killings as a 'homicide investigation' and are not looking for anyone else in connection. Emma had been working as a head teacher at Epsom College, in Surrey, for only five months when she died. She was the first female head of the college. Emma was, by all accounts, a brilliant teacher.

The news that serving Met Police officer David Carrick has pleaded guilty to 49 sexual offences against women spanning more than two decades took me back to Leeds, 1981. My feminist group was aghast at the news that a young woman we knew had been raped in the back of a police van, but had been kicked out of the police station when she tried to report the crime – rather than being treated as a victim. What has changed in the four decades since then? As a feminist campaigner who has worked alongside police officers to share knowledge and expertise regarding sexual assault and domestic abuse, I can’t help but wonder if we have gone backwards in recent years. Carrick was on the same elite squad in the Met as Wayne Couzens and had access to a firearm.

I hate the fact that I felt a major sense of relief when I saw the news that the World Boxing Council (WBC) has rejected calls from trans-activists to allow male bodied people to compete against females. Rather, they are recommending that a special transgender category is set up, and further, that only male born people can compete with other men.   In other words, men that identify as women cannot get in the ring with actual women and beat them half to death, all in the name of sport.   The announcement is a welcome departure from the usual trans activists calls for male transwomen to compete directly against women. But what if a female boxer weighs as much as her male (transwoman) competitor and has massive muscles, trans activists whinge?

It's been a pretty bad week for the women of Scotland. As Nicola Sturgeon doubles down on the pending legislation that would permit men to self-identify as women ­– legislation that around two thirds of voters are opposed to – the feminist NGO, For Women Scotland, lost a legal case against the Scottish government over its definition of ‘woman’, which includes, well, men.  It is little wonder that, in this world of madness, somebody decided to make a film exploring the issue, aptly entitled, Adult Human Female, which explores the silencing of those that speak out against misogynistic transgender ideology.

Farewell Susie Green, the CEO of Mermaids, a charity that describes itself as supporting ‘trans, non-binary and gender-variant children, young people and their families’.  Green resigned rather abruptly on Friday, and the statement from its chair was short and to the point. An interim CEO will be appointed in due course.   Mermaids has found itself under scrutiny after deciding to bring a case against the LGB Alliance, the only UK-based organisation that focuses exclusively on same-sex attracted people. Mermaids claims it was not, in fact, established to support lesbians, gay men and bisexuals — but rather to discredit and disband trans charities like itself.

The most important job of any union is to support its members against bullies. So why has the Society of Authors, a sort of posh union for writers, illustrators and translators, failed to support members who are receiving death threats? In August, J.K. Rowling tweeted her sympathy for Sir Salman Rushdie after his attempted murder. Imagine how she felt when she received this response: ‘Don’t worry, you are next.’ Rowling is a member of the Society of Authors and expected the union to put pressure on the authorities by condemning the threats against her. Right? Wrong. Not only did the Society fail to defend Rowling, but the chair of the management committee, Joanne Harris, appeared to mock her.