The UK Supreme Court ruled last week that the definition of sex in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex, but they did not define gender. The court did, however, reaffirm that “transgender” individuals remain protected under the gender reassignment provisions of the Equality Act, which illustrates that this undefined word gender is still recognised in UK law.

Gender is a contested term. There are probably as many definitions of gender as types of gender promoted by the genderbread person. The UN Gender Equality Glossary states that “gender refers to the roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society at a given time considers appropriate for men and women… These attributes, opportunities and relationships are socially constructed and are learned through socialization processes.’’ Whereas the Oxford English dictionary defines gender as “males or females viewed as a group; = sex. Also: the property or fact of belonging to one of these groups.” The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook says gender is socially constructed and fluid and suggests journalists should avoid binary language, phrases like “both sexes”, and instead acknowledge that gender exists on a spectrum. The AP advises writers to prioritise a person’s gender, respect preferred pronouns and avoid the term “biological sex”. Thus, when the male Eddie Izzard ran for political office first in Sheffield and then Brighton, the BBC used his preferred gender to report “Eddie Izzard has failed in her bid to become a Labour candidate for a Brighton constituency at the next general election.”

Some people use gender to mean sex role stereotypes, some use it to mean identity and others use as a synonym for sex. Given the lack of fixed definition, I suggest we stop using the term altogether and just use sex, sex role stereotypes and identity. Give up gender – let it wither away. We should never use gender to mean sex, and if any public body does so, we should challenge them.

The way the UK National Health Service asks for both sex and gender illustrates a dark side of the duplicitous use of gender. They use sex when discussing medical treatments that are sex-specific, such as prostate screenings – after all, men who say they are women want proper healthcare. But they use gender to refer to identity and how a person sees themself, which lets them place men in women’s single sex spaces. How helpful to predatory men who get a kick out of making women uncomfortable or want to validate their life “as a woman”. They use sex as biological when it helps men get prostate screening, but let men self-identify into a female gender, which they then conflate with sex and hey presto, they put the man in a single sex women’s ward. We should not let any public body use the undefined and floating term gender. Let’s push for this to happen following the Supreme Court ruling.

The second reason we should reject gender is to show the woke that we too reject gender conformity – we are not right wing lackeys to patriarchal conservatism. Unfortunately, nearly all the gender criticals (who admittedly have done a brilliant job in the last few years defending reality and women’s sex-based rights), perform gender. The men wear suits and ties, or something masculine and casual, and the women mostly look feminine. The woke see the women’s dyed hair, lipstick and dresses and see patriarchy’s sex role enforcers. Their sex role conformity suggests that they are not at all gender critical, but they accept and choose femininity – the gender that goes with their sex. No number of words convinces the woke that these women are not cis. A picture tells a thousand words, and to the woke, a made-up middle-aged women in a skirt has bought into the conservative and indeed the patriarchal establishment, which makes them the enemy.

We want to build golden bridges with the young woke, not just the old politicians and state media. The term golden bridge refers to the strategy that allows people to change their position gracefully without losing face. Our rejection of gender, both as a word and in the way we present ourselves, can open doors to discuss non medicalised and non faith based ways to break free from sex roles. You don’t have to take T or believe in a gendered soul to escape conservative expectations of women. The great irony of this bitter gender war is that it has split the feminist movement down the middle. In my workplace the two most active feminists are me and the TRA. Healing that rift should be our next step, now that the tide seems to have turned. Talking to her and teasing out areas of agreement has shown that a firm overlap is our rejection of sex role stereotypes. Her enemy is the sex role cage females are shoved into, so explaining both in words and in how I present, that I want that too has been good. She was genuinely surprised that some steps to escaping the cage can be done by giving up make up, feminine clothes and cutting your hair. The chemical free way out of patriarchal prison that saves you money too! We are offering a drug free, organic, cheap way to shrug off sex role stereotypes – not by clinging to gender but by rejecting it. You can be gender non-conforming by not having a gender, not by picking a new one. You can get out of the gender cage by abolishing gender from your belief system and wardrobe.

Gender is seen dripping from every woman who dresses feminine. Julia Hartley Brewer’s recent Talk TV interview with Shivani Dave over the Supreme Court Sex Ruling is a case in point. Oxymoronic gender critical Hartley Brewer had shoulder length probably died brown hair and wore bright red lipstick and a low-cut vest, visible through a wide gap in her smart white jacket. She wore a large silver chain around her neck. TRA Dave wore gender neutral clothes, no make-up and her hair was cropped short. She probably felt she was in prison camp with a gender enforcing guard. I write in more detail about this here: We Can't Beat Gender Identity Ideology whilst doing Femininity

Fourthly, gender is a key means by which women are oppressed, as explained by Sheila Jeffreys in her 2014 book “Gender Hurts – a feminist analysis of the politics of transgenderism.” It helps to understand the problem if you realise that gender is a means of oppressing women, rather than an identity that frees us. Femininity is the gender expression patriarchy demands of females. For conservatives, female + femininity (gender) = good woman. Rejecting femininity is a challenge to conservatives and is a key reason why the woke love transgenderism’s offer. But big pharma and the paedophile philosopher priests of gender identity ideology, like the pied piper, are offering a fake way out of femininity which ends in sexual abuse, drug addiction and body mutilation.

Gender is a cage for women. Wearing make-up signals our defeat and lets masters know who to oppress. And it’s better to have the oppressed class wearing lipstick than chains, which might hinder our work. Note however, how Hartley Brewer (who despite her clothes is doing a sterling job) was wearing a silver neck chain – a subliminal message perhaps of her acceptance of subservience. The cruel irony is that men know this – they delight in seeing ultra feminine women but also mock us for choosing the prisons they put us in.

Our next steps related to gender should be to

• clearly support gender non-conformity, in words and deeds

• cast off gender, break free of the sex role stereotypes that constitute gender and live as free full human beings

• abolish gender, not sanctify it

• when called cis reply, “as a woman I have no gender”, or “I don’t have a gender, I don’t believe in sex role stereotypes.”

• correct all uses of the word gender when they actually mean sex

• treat gender as a cage to break out from

• do little acts of resistance like not brushing your hair, or cutting your hair short, or never wearing dresses, or only wearing bras when necessary

• when people refer to gender identity, say gender is not an identity, it’s a method of oppression

• don’t call ourselves gender critical, but call ourselves term gender abolitionist

We should make clear to the young woke that we are not trying to impose conservative sex role stereotypes on them – we agree that sex role stereotypes are pernicious. Just as Catholics who reject the prison of christianity, whether it was experienced as imposed or an inner faith, don’t have to pick an alternative religion, females can reject imposed sex roles (gender) or their belief in gender identity, the gendered soul and not have to pick an alternative gender.

We need to show them that you can get out of sex role stereotypes without following the TRA pied pipers. Women of the world unite – you have nothing to lose but your gender. If you like this essay and want to reject gender and femininity, you will probably like this one: Jo Brew’s Easy Way to Give Up Patriarchy.

What do you think? Please do comment below. Do you have any good phrases or ways to talk about this? Have you managed to get through to believers in trans? What works?