Failing to combat a moral panic fuelled by disinformation scapegoating transgender people is a failure to protect the rights of a marginalised community. The tipping point should’ve been a long time ago. It’ll only fester, and the consequences are unimaginable. If not now, when?

“If we want to develop an intersectional perspective, the trans community is showing us the way.” - Angela Davis.

“So now I want to be unequivocal in my words: I believe that transgender people, including those who have transitioned, are living out real, authentic lives. Those lives should be celebrated, not questioned.” - Gloria Steinem.

“I think it is actually a fringe movement that is seeking to speak in the name of the mainstream, and that our responsibility is to refuse to let that happen.” - Judith Butler, on trans-exclusionary feminism.

“The achieving of basic human rights, dignity, justice or equity for one group of people does not mean something is being taken away from another group. That’s scarcity thinking and scarcity thinking will always drive us further from each other.” - Laverne Cox

Let me be exceptionally clear: Those seeking to weaponise their increasingly unhinged attacks on transgender people under the guise of protecting women do not speak for women. The majority of women support trans rights.

We need to protect women from violence, and that includes trans women, who face so much violence. Ending gender-based violence means tackling engrained transphobia. So if you want to protect women, fight for all of us, because this is a collective fight and we won’t be divided.

It is no coincidence that many of the organisations on the receiving end of transphobic hatred for supporting transgender rights are actual women’s rights groups who, day in day out, save the lives of women. Transphobia is not and never has been about protecting women.