I’VE got news for Lynne Wood (Letters, Nov 23). Most of us are sick of gender wars and the current ongoing toxic “debate”. I was an SNP member till the middle of last year, when I left for the ISP. I left because there was no movement on independence, but I was not aware of the SNP war on women until last December, when thanks to Johan Lamont, the women of Scotland were made aware of the government’s attempt to force the (mostly female) victims of sexual assault and rape to have to accept a medical examiner of a certain gender, not sex.

That mobilised women to realise what the SNP government is doing in Scotland, and how it is throwing women under the bus. Think for a minute what that would have meant. A woman raped by a man would have had to accept a male medical examiner intimately examining her on the basis that he “feels” as if he is a woman. How insulting and traumatising would that be?

And with self-identification a stated aim of this government, it does not stop there. Women and girls will be compromised and endangered in changing rooms, toilets, and communal sleeping such as girl guide camps or school trips. This is a safeguarding issue for women and girls in situations where they are vulnerable. It is also a question of religious sensibilities for women who cannot be in any state of undress or potential undress in the same space as members of the opposite sex who may also be undressed.

But it is not only vulnerability. Women’s single sex exemptions matter for fairness in gender representation on public boards and all-women shortlists, in female-only posts going to actual females, and in pursuing claims for equal pay and rights. One prominent nationalist said it would be fair for a public board to have 50% men and 50% men-identifying-as-women. Is Lynne OK with that?

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Is she OK with men-identifying-as-women being housed in female prisons? There have been a number of sexual assaults in those situations. Is she OK with Police Scotland allowing even male rapists to be recorded as female on crime statistics? Is she OK with a biological male heading the Edinburgh Rape Crisis centre and taking a place on an all-women SNP shortlist last May? Is she OK with biological males in leadership in the Girl Guides?

It is also about securing fairness of competition and safety in women’s sports, so that female rugby players do not have to risk being folded like deckchairs at the hands of a male opponent on a female-only team, so that mixed martial arts competitions do not have a six-year veteran of US Special forces pulverise and endanger the best female opponent.

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This is not “hot air in an empty room”. The National is right to cover it. I do not believe it has cost them readers. But it did cost the SNP thousands of women to appease a miniscule minority who it preferred to keep in the party. The SNP also lost thousands of supporters through abandoning independence.

Lynne is right to say it is a very important issue which has been hijacked by people with a personal agenda. But I do not believe it is women who hijacked it. We were minding our business when a tiny, vocal and aggressive minority invaded our pitch and said we have to give up our spaces and rights. They did not invade the male world and demand concessions for trans men.

What does Lynne suggest women do instead? Stand by and see women erased as a class, for that is the ultimate goal of some politicians? Stand by and see men-identifying-as-women take all our hard won rights? She says it is not an issue for the vast majority of ordinary members. It should be. It is easy to say “wheesht for indy”, but it ought to be clear by now that for the SNP, the independence fight is always at least six months down the road. The war on women is happening right now. Most people don’t see what is happening in the gender war. The SNP didn’t exactly announce it when they started on their gender journey in 2015, allowing a lobbying group to dictate government policy. When the full implications are explained to them, most people are horrified.

Women did not want this fight. I was never a feminist until now. I didn’t have to be. Perhaps the downplaying of what has happened to Joanna Cherry is the worst accusation of all. Joanna has been in need of police protection, due to death threats. She had to move home. She has been subject to horrendous threats by members of her own party, fellow MPs and party workers. How dare Lynne Wood trivialise that? And when Joanna should have been able to count on the unequivocal support of her party leadership and members, where was it?

Julia Pannell

Friockheim, Tayside