When JK Rowling was being slandered, some time ago, a lot of women wanted to send her messages of support and love  So I collated them. This meant I had the immense privilege of speaking privately to women from all over the world.  Women from Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, India, Africa, Germany, Spain (and all over Europe), the US, Canada and the U.K. Even from Saudi Arabia.  They told their stories of being silenced, and ostracised, and afraid. Of men who identified as trans shutting down their efforts to help women and girls, of their fragile rights being already whittled away by this. Of the kind of world ahead for them if we didn’t win this fight.  It remains one of the most moving experiences of this entire time, for me. I was surrounded by women’s stories and they were sharing them specifically to let one brave woman know how much they loved her for what she did.   They wanted her to know how much it mattered that she stood up for them.  The most stunning part of all it was their own courage.   The most upsetting part was how voiceless some of them felt.  Where they lived, or their personal situations, meant that some couldn’t risk telling their stories more publicly. They couldn’t risk putting more of their dissent out on the official record. Even anonymously.  Every single one of us is extraordinarily lucky, even if it is hard, to be able to speak up.  We have a voice, and not just the right to use it, but perhaps also the obligation.  For the sake of the women without one. For the children, too.  Twitter right now is full of some pretty abysmal things. Some spite, and absurdity, and righteous outrage. Understandable anger, too. And I know a lot of women are being made miserable by it.  But tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, women and girls everywhere are going to need us to keep speaking up.  They’re going to need us to stop trans ideology dismantling the rights they have, or even the rights they just hoped to have, in law.  Don’t let anyone dishearten you. Not big ‘ GC’ voices, not those you’ve long respected, and not even your Terven friends.  We’ve already made a vast difference, and more people are waking up everyday.  We are going to keep righting the wrongs that have been done in the name of this, and we will make sure they can’t happen again. To even the most vulnerable.  No one else can bring your perspective, or your determination to this.  So, as I think the saying goes, don’t let the bastards grind you down 😉  (This key point holds even for those of you who think I’m one of the bastards, too ❤️)