In which Margaret Atwood tries to have it both ways, gets doxxed and deluged with threats

I’m tired of “shouldn’t.” This isn’t a question of “should” and “shouldn’t,” but “does” and “doesn’t.”

That’s because “trans inclusivity” does come at the expense of women's rights whenever gender identity is equated with sex — that is, whenever we treat some males as though they were female — in any setting where sex matters. And in settings where sex doesn't matter, what would it even mean to treat someone "like a woman," anyway?

Think this all the way through. What’s meant by "transwomen are women"? For what purposes? In what senses? What does “transwomen are women” mean for women’s sports, lesbians, prisons, refuges, organizing, speech, and protections under the law?

Then ask yourself why you can't raise questions like this -- questions with massive implications for women's rights, spaces, representation, organizing, etc. -- without attracting abuse from trans activists?

In the 24 hours after you raised the mildest of critiques, trans activists posted pictures with guns in response to your tweets, doxed your home address, wished cancer and death on you... for what? Just for sharing an article that suggests some trans activism is toxic and harming the cause.

Why aren't you allowed to question this, even just to question the rough edges where rape and deaths abound? You know something isn't right here.

In an open, liberal society like the one we're trying to sustain, 'no debate' doesn't cut it. We have to be able to speak -- clearly, civilly, openly -- and ask questions. And women get to have our say when we're being redefined, when our sex is written out of the law.

If you agree with that — and I think you do — you're a TERF. That's all it takes. That's all it took for thousands of lifelong liberal women to be labeled and denounced just the same.