EUAN McCOLM: in Praise Of JK Rowling

For years, now, ladies have actually been losing tasks after bold to express the view that biology is genuine and crucial.

Companies and public bodies, recorded by the demands of extremist trans activists, have exacted harsh punishments on those revealing perfectly mainstream - and legal - views on sex and gender.

Inevitably, tribunals have followed a variety of these cases. During these, we have actually heard horrifying information of women treated abominably by companies in thrall to advocates who urged and imposed the unlawful adoption of self-ID policies when it pertained to single-sex spaces.

We have actually heard of ladies bullied and avoided for questioning the right of those born male to self-identify into women's spaces, from changing rooms to domestic violence havens.

Equally undoubtedly, those women capable of fighting back have actually been winning legal actions.

But even a rock strong case does not make it easy to retaliate. Good lawyers are pricey and the procedure is draining pipes, both physically and emotionally.

For every single female who has triumphed in court, there are much more for whom launching a legal case seemed impossible.

The facility by the author and philanthropist JK Rowling of a fund to support females's legal defense of their rights instantly removes any monetary barriers to action for those with practical cases.

Author JK Rowling has established a fund to support women's legal defense of their rights

The intervention of Ms Rowling should, right now, be focusing minds in human resources departments throughout the nation.

Since the Supreme Court ruled, last month, that sex, in law, referred biology rather than documents, a variety of organisations - in both the general public and private sectors - have actually issued statements revealing their choices to "think about" the implications for their policies.

This extensive and careless complacency stands to cost companies - and taxpayer-funded bodies - dear. The facts are basic. If a service is provided on a single sex basis that indicates biological sex, not individuality.

The law is the law and no more factor to consider is needed in order for companies to fulfill their obligations under it.

A number of past legal actions after females were unjustly dismissed or bullied out of jobs for declining to concur with the mantra "trans women are ladies" were possible thanks to the support of online crowd-funding campaigns. Ms Rowling often promoted - and contributed to - such fundraisers.

Now, she's a one-woman crowd-funder, ready to back the cases of every lady wronged at work for speaking the truth about sex.

The JK Rowling Women's Fund will transform the battleground when it comes to females victimized for their genuine, reality-based views.

At the heart of industrial tribunals there may be vulnerable people playing for high stakes but the human cost suggests absolutely nothing to the insurance providers underwriting companies' costs. For them, it's everything about the bottom line and the possibility that every woman with a case now has access to the very best legal representatives in the service will, I presume, encourage lots of to prompt settlement instead of the embarrassment, and unavoidable expense, of more doomed defences.

If one needed evidence that women's rights need the fiercest protection, it was available in the response to the launch of Ms Rowling's fund.

With tasty pathos, one activist legal representative declared online that the Harry Potter developer had "emerged from the shadows" as the funder of what he explained as the "anti feminist biology is destiny motion".

Ms Rowling has never been in the shadows when it pertains to her views on women's rights, has she?

Other reactions were, naturally, more violent in tone.

The continuous tribunal involving nurse Sandie Peggie, declaring discrimination and harassment against NHS Fife and trans-identifying medical professional Beth Upton, brought the problem of the way so called "gender important" females had actually been treated at work to large attention. This is a case that "cut through" with the public and forced some politicians to resolve a concern they chose to prevent.

Scottish Labour's leader Anas Sarwar and his deputy, Jackie Baillie, revealed their support for Ms Peggie and declared their belief in the importance of biological sex.

If they 'd known what they understand now, they included, they would not have actually voted in favour of the SNP's ultimately doomed strategy to allow anyone to self-identify into the legally-recognised sex of their choosing.

But while the Peggie case and the subsequent judgment on the legal significance of sex by the Supreme Court might have required a humiliating U-turn by the Labour leadership on the matter of biological reality, others remain stubbornly dedicated to defiance of the law.

Naturally, the Scottish Greens - a fantastic Wodehousian satire of an innovative cell - remain committed to using single-sex spaces by anybody who feels they belong to that sex.

There have actually been current declarations of resistance from trade unions, too. Unison has actually permitted a trans lady to run for a women-only position on its nationwide executive council.

But every act of performative defiance by well-funded trade unions - or taxpayer-funded local authorities and health boards - is another costly legal action in the making.

It needs to not have actually been required for JK Rowling to guarantee to underwrite the legal costs of ladies discriminated against for their views on sex and gender. Nobody must ever have lost a task, a promotion, or an agreement on the basis of their view that sex is immutable and important.

Nor ought to the novelist have actually felt it required to develop, in 2022, Beira's Place, a women-only assistance service for victims of sexual violence in the Lothian location.

Ms Rowling's choices to money Beira's Place and to finance the legal costs of women discriminated versus for believing in the reality of sex are acts of feminist philanthropy which, in a world not made batty by gender ideology, would have been hailed by our politicians.

I know that acknowledgment is the last thing on the author's mind but isn't it downright strange that, when he talks of the accomplishments of successful Scots, First Minister John Swinney never ever discusses the assistance Beira's Place has offered to ?

Money is not the only thing women acting to safeguard their rights need. Ask anybody who has actually been through the tribunal procedure and they'll tell you that the psychological support of pals and allies is essential.

This convenience will not remain in short supply for those ladies who receive support for their cases from the JK Rowling Women's Fund. The author is part of a worldwide network of advocates, fighting to secure ladies's rights versus the needs of trans activists, and contacts us to action and assistance do not go unheeded.

Let the country's personnels departments brace themselves. A most impressive plot twist has actually just been composed.